DOCSLIB.ORG

0912138629Chief Worldhistory.Biz

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
0912138629Chief Worldhistory.Biz Gestapo-Chief: The CIA & Heinrich Müller By Gregory Douglas TBR News Table of Contents Foreword Author’s Acknowledgments Mueller, Heinrich: The official biography Introduction Historical Background The Unmasking of the Interrogator The State of the Union Counter-Intelligence and “Barbarossa” Excerpt on Henry Agard Wallace Admiral Darlan and General Sikorski The Fall of Mussolini Andreas and Bernhard Fine Art as a Commodity Excerpt on Hermann Göring The Knight, Death and The Devil Here Today, Gone Tomorrow The Paranoia of Josef Stalin The Wet World of Josef Stalin Bloody Sunday Gertrude the Screamer An Explosive Career The Jews in the Cellar Rudolf Hess and the Flight to England The Resurrection of Odilo Globocnik The Lion of Münster Kurt Gerstein: A Soul in Torment Paris in the Spring The Trials and Tribulations of the Duke of Windsor Excerpt on Roger Casement July 20th, 1944: Part 1 July 20th, 1944: Part 2 Excerpt on Rommel Betrayal from London Stauffenberg Envoy Müller and the Escape from Berlin The Death and Transfiguration of Heinrich Müller The General, the Company, and the Road to Damascus Bibliography Appendix Foreword Most books on historical personages are only repetition of the subject done by earlier writers. New historical material, especially important material, on controversial individuals rarely appears in print, either because it has been destroyed or deliberately hidden away. If such material does surface, it is generally met with hostility by other published writers in the field if this information makes their own works obsolete. Here we have as a central character, Heinrich Müller, also known as “Gestapo” Müller to differentiate him from another Heinrich Müller of the same rank and in the same department. As his name indicates, “Gestapo” Müller was the permanent chief of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA) Amt IV, the Gestapo. This acronym for the Geheime Staats Polizei (Secret State Police) has struck terror into millions before and during the Second World War and is still used to evoke an image of cruelty and oppression. Heinrich Müller vanished at the end of the war. He was last seen in Hitler’s bunker on April 29, 1945 and was officially stated to have been killed. In the early 1980s, all of Müller’s private correspondence and a number of his most important official files surfaced in Switzerland and passed into the hands of the Munich-based CIA Gehlen Organization and from there, to the CIA officials in Langley. From these files, this book was carefully constructed. It is based, not on wartime Gestapo records but on a postwar interview held in Switzerland between Müller and an American intelligence officer. It should be noted that the former Gestapo chief was not under arrest or even under suspicion. The 800 page post-war CIC interview on which the text is based was not designed to set the stage for a trial but was, quite simply, a job interview. Times change and we must change with them. Once a man who would have been instantly arrested if found, Müller was now someone whose expertise and specific brilliance in anti-Communist counter-intelligence was badly needed by the West. In this position, Müller was under no compulsion to lie, to beg or to apologize. He said what he thought on an enormous number of historically fascinating subjects and obviously regretted nothing. The subjects cover personalities of the Third Reich to include lengthy sections on Müller’s relationship with Hitler, Hermann Göring, Heinrich Himmler, Martin Bormann and other top leaders of the Third Reich, as well as many individuals involved in the plot to murder Hitler in 1944. Müller was in charge of the investigations of this botched attempt and his records and interviews contain material never seen before. Also in the files are lengthy, and often stunning, information on Allied leaders and Soviet penetration of Allied top level military and government agencies. He discusses the concentration camps in detail, the deportation of the Jews, the counterfeiting of US and British money and his personal version of his dramatic escape from Berlin in April of 1945. This is a work, extracted from thousands of pages of secret files, that will jolt the complaisant in every chapter. One section deals with highly classified German intercepts of private trans-Atlantic telephone conversations between Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. Of these, the most shocking is one dealing with Pearl Harbor. The author has carefully edited and annotated enough material to deliver a serious shock to the community of historians. At the same time, the character of ‘Gestapo’ Müller emerges with vivid clarity. This is a study of a highly intelligent and complex man who was at the very center of the Third Reich and who not only lived to tell about it, but managed to turn adversity into personal triumph. Heinrich Müller was present in the opening seconds of the Second World War and left the stage of history in the final battle for Berlin. This is a work that stands on its own feet and will certainly be impossible to put down. Frank Thayer, PhD. New Mexico State University Las Cruces Gregory Douglas has produced a historical tour de force. Meticulously researched and authoritatively edited. Anyone, regardless of their intellectual orientation, who dismisses the reality and contents of Müller’s files and his relationship with American Intelligence out of hand, does so at their own risk. Dr. William R. Corson, LTC, USMC ret. William R. Corson was been involved with the intelligence community for most of his adult life. Corson, who held a Ph.D. in economics, was a retired Colonel of the USMC and was executive secretary of the joint Department of Defense/Central Intelligence Agency commission on anti-terrorism. He worked with the CIA on the highest levels and in 1977 published a book, “The Armies of Ignorance,” the standard work on the history of US intelligence. Where possible, each revelation has been challenged and examined using all available resources to include: individual, military records, released US communications intercepts and captured documents. To date, the Müller documents have met every challenge. Robert T. Crowley Deputy Director of Clandestine Affairs CIA, ret. Robert T. Crowley attended the US Military Academy at West Point and served in both the Army Military Intelligence and the Office of Naval Intelligence. Following his tours of duty, Crowley joined the Central Intelligence Agency and rose to a high-level advisory position within it. He was Deputy Director of Clandestine Operations. One of his fields of expertise was the Soviet KGB and he was co-author of the acclaimed work “The New KGB.” Author’s Acknowledgments As this work progressed, the author looked further and further afield to locate obscure information and confirmation. FOIA requests proved to be largely unproductive in spite of extensive official US files on Heinrich Müller. I concentrated on Müller’s postwar persona as a Washington-based employee of the CIA, on those who worked with him after the war, on family members, on real estate holdings and fine art auction catalogs, to mention only a few areas of investigation. There are, however, specific persons to whom the author is indebted and they are: Mr. Robert Wolfe, formerly of the US National Archives and later a researcher for the CIA who supplied hundreds of pages of documents and files, without which this series could never have been written; Karl Müller, grandson of Heinrich Müller, whose assistance has been noteworthy in tracking down postwar connections and personas, and who certainly possesses all of his grandfather’s Bavarian charm and intelligence; Robert Trumbull Crowley, former Deputy Director of Clandestine Operations of the CIA who provided the author with hundreds of files from his records concerning Heinrich Müller, a CIA employee, and a great deal of hitherto unpublished material on the CIA-controlled Gehlen Organization, Dr. William R. Corson; Mr. Paul Elston of the BBC who made very helpful suggestions, that the author was pleased to act upon; Dr. Frank D. Thayer for his overviews; Mr. Willi Korte for his suggestions about stolen art; Ms Lucy Allwood, a British researcher in historical and intelligence issues, has proven to be invaluable in helping verify information about British intelligence matters; Christian Wehrschutz of Vienna for his research on Swiss bank accounts and CIA operations in Switzerland; Lt. Col. Ed Milligan USA (Ret.) of Alexandria, VA; Col. James Critchfield, USA (Ret.) of Williamsburg, VA for important material concerning Reinhard Gehlen and his CIA-run organization as well as his own close post-war associations with Müller while in both Switzerland and the United States; Mr. Thomas Belknap, for an in-depth discussion about the “Paperclip” operation, and a number of former associates, and employees, of Heinrich Müller in the United States, Canada and Germany who have been most helpful, if demanding of anonymity Mueller, Heinrich: The official biography 1901-1945? Head of Amt IV in the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA) from 1939, and one of the most influential officials of the SS involved directly in the extermination of European Jewry. Served in the air force during World War I where he won the Iron Cross, 1st Class, on the Russian front. After the war he served in the Bavarian political police where he developed expertise in surveillance of communists and other potentially subversive groups, including the NSDAP. Brought to Berlin by Reinhard Heydrich, he was initially in charge of the Secret Political Police, Dept II, with responsibilities for surveillance and control of communists, Marxists, oppositional groups, Austrian affairs, and the concentration camps. He was, according to Padfield, "an archetypal middle-rank official: of limited imagination, non-political, non-ideological, his only fanaticism lay in an inner drive to perfection in his profession and his duty to the state-which in his mind were one.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Shoah 1 Shoah
    Shoah 1 Shoah [1] (« catastrophe » ,שואה : Le terme Shoah (hébreu désigne l'extermination par l'Allemagne nazie des trois quarts des Juifs de l'Europe occupée[2] , soit les deux tiers de la population juive européenne totale et environ 40 % des Juifs du monde, pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale ; ce qui représente entre cinq et six millions de victimes selon les estimations des historiens[3] . Ce génocide des Juifs constituait pour les nazis « la Solution finale à la question juive » (die Endlösung der Judenfrage). Le terme français d’Holocauste est également utilisé et l’a précédé. Le terme « judéocide » est également utilisé par certains pour qualifier la Destruction du ghetto de Varsovie, avril 1943. Shoah. L'extermination des Juifs, cible principale des nazis, fut perpétrée par la faim dans les ghettos de Pologne et d'URSS occupées, par les fusillades massives des unités mobiles de tuerie des Einsatzgruppen sur le front de l'Est (la « Shoah par balles »), au moyen de l'extermination par le travail forcé dans les camps de concentration, dans les « camions à gaz », et dans les chambres à gaz des camps d'extermination. L'horreur de ce « crime de masse »[4] a conduit, après-guerre, à l'élaboration des notions juridiques de « crime contre l'humanité »[5] et de « génocide »[6] , utilisé postérieurement dans d'autres contextes (génocide arménien, génocide des Tutsi, etc.). Une très grave lacune du droit international humanitaire a également été complétée avec l'adoption des Conventions de Genève de 1949, qui protègent la population civile en temps de guerre[7] . L'extermination des Juifs durant la Seconde Guerre mondiale se distingue par son caractère industriel, bureaucratique et systématique qui la rend unique dans l'histoire de l'humanité[8] .
    [Show full text]
  • Eva Braun Hitler's Odontological Identification-A Forensic Enigma?
    J Forensic Sci, Apr. 1974, Vol. 19, No. 2 R. F. Sognnaes, ~ M.A., M.S., D.M.D., Ph.D. Eva Braun Hitler's Odontological Identification-A Forensic Enigma? Through generous cooperation by custodians of several museums, libraries, and govern- ment archive centers, the author has had occasion to explore various historical dental relics and reports covering the evolution of dental art and science over a period ranging from the time of George Washington to that of Adolf Hitler [1,2]. When the Berlin dentist, Dr. Hugo Johannes Blaschke, who cared for Germany's wartime leaders, was captured and interrogated by American army officers in 1945, he prepared descriptions and diagrams of the dental condition of Adolf Hitler, as well as of Martin Bormann and of Eva Braun, Hitler's longtime female companion whom he married just before the end of the war. By comparing American and Soviet reports it has been shown elsewhere that data attributed to a 1945 Russian autopsy report cited in 1968 by Bezymenski [3-5] are in harmony with Hitler's 1944 head and jaw X-rays which, after much search and research, were located through the cooperation of the Captured Record Branch of the U.S. Na- tional Archives and Records Service [2]. This discovery was followed by a detailed comparison with other dental data, as reported at the 6th International Conference on Forensic Sciences in Edinburgh in 1972 and subsequently published in early 1973 by Sognnaes and Str6m [6]. Similarly, the dental data elicited regarding Martin Bormann's dental condition, based on dental diagrams prepared by Dr.
    [Show full text]
  • HOLOCAUST DENIAL* Denial of the Truth of the Holocaust Comes in Three Modes. One Mode Is Seldom Recognized: Bracketing the SHOAH with Other Mass Murders in History
    HOLOCAUST DENIAL* Denial of the truth of the Holocaust comes in three modes. One mode is seldom recognized: bracketing the SHOAH with other mass murders in history. This mode of generalization flattens out the specificity and denies the uniqueness of the Holocaust. Unpleasant ethical, moral and theological issues are thereby stifled. The Holocaust is swallowed up in the mighty river of wickedness and mass murder that has characterized human history since the mind of man runneth not to the contrary. From the balcony - a perch often preferred by the privileged and/or educated - all violence down there seems remote. A second mode of denial is. encountered as an expression of Jewish preciousness. More or less bluntly, the position is taken that the Holocaust cannot be understood by a person who is not a Jew. This is a very dangerous posture, for by it the gentile - whether perpetrator or spectator - is home free. Why should he accept responsibility for an action whose significance, he is assured by the victims, is outside his universe of discourse? The third mode of denial, in nature and expression more often in the public view, is intellectually less interesting. Like the thought world of its purveyers, it is marked by banality. What interest does a thinking person have in debating whether or not the earth is flat? Nevertheless, the third mode of denial is alive and well. In large areas dominated by Christian, Jewish or Muslim fundamentalism, the facts are denied. In pristine condition, none of the three great monotheistic religions has need to deny the *by Franklin H.
    [Show full text]
  • The Crusader Monthll,J Nelijsletter
    THE CRUSADER MONTHLL,J NELIJSLETTER ROBERT F. WILLIAMS, EDITOR -IN EXILE- VoL . ~ - No. 9 MAY 1968 Afro-Americans & Slick John Kennedy Government of the United States is no government T~E of the Afro-Americans at all. The slick John Ken- nedy gang is operating one of the greatest sham govern- ment in the entire world. Afro-Americans and fair minded Od > ~- O THE wN«< /l~USL . lF Yov~Re EyER IN NE60, CALL ME AT whites must be gullible indeed to believe that the racist, KKK dominated so-called U.S. Government is concerned with the welfare and human rights of colored people. The colored people of the USA must bring themselves to realize that taken integration is a slick manuever to check the restlessness of an oppressed people fast becoming infect ed with the germ of total resistance policy developing among all of the oppressed peoples of the world. Token integration means nothing to the masses. Even an idiot should be able to see that so-called Token integration is no more than window dressing designed to lull the poor downtrodden Afro-American to sleep and to make the out side world think that the racist, savage USA is a fountainhead of social justice and democracy. The Afro-American in the USA is facing his greatest crisis since chattel slavery. All forms of violence and underhanded methods o.f extermination are being stepped up against our people. Contrary to what the "big daddies" and their "good nigras" would have us believe about all of the phoney progress they claim the race is making, the True status of the Afro-Ameri- can is s#eadily on the down turn.
    [Show full text]
  • Anton Maegerle Die Iranische Rechtsextremisten-Connection
    www.doew.at Anton Maegerle Die iranische Rechtsextremisten-Connection Ersterschienen im Vierteljahresheft Tribüne. Zeitschrift zum Verständnis des Judentums (Frankfurt am Main). 2. Quartal 2006, Heft 178. Hier: ergänzte Fassung. Irans Staatspräsident Mahmud Ahmadinedschad hat seit seinem Amtsantritt im August 2005 in Verbalattacken wiederholt den Holocaust bezweifelt und Israel als „Krebsgeschwür“ bezeichnet. Ahmadinedschad und führende Re- präsentanten des Gottesstaates haben mehrfach angekündigt eine so genannte „Holocaust-Untersuchung“ abhalten zu wollen. „Es ist das erste Mal in der Geschichte der Holocaust-Weltpolitik, daß eine ganze Regierung den jüdischen Holocaust einer freien wissenschaftlichen Prüfung, unterzieht“ – jubilierte die in rechtsextremen Kreisen einflussreiche antisemitische HetzpostillePhoenix .1 Als „Holocaust-Experten“ sind die Namen von einschlägigen Holocaustleug- nern im Gespräch. Irans Außenminister Manuchehr Mottaki bezeichnete im Februar 2006 das Urteil gegen den britischen Holocaustleugner David Irving (Jg. 1938) als „westliches Paradox“. Der Westen fordere Meinungsfreiheit, praktiziere aber das Gegenteil. „Wir verstehen nicht, warum der Westen so verzweifelt darauf besteht, dieses Verbrechen begangen und genau sechs Mil- lionen getötet zu haben“, sagte Mottaki.2 Irving war zuvor vom Wiener Straf- landesgericht zu einer dreijährigen Haftstrafe wegen nationalsozialistischer Wiederbetätigung verurteilt worden. Weithin unbekannt ist die Tatsache, dass Rechtsextremisten seit dem Sieg der Islamischen Revolution 1979 enge Kontakte zum Iran pflegen. Gemeinsam sind den religiösen Fundamentalisten im Iran und den Rechtsextremisten unter- schiedlichster Couleur Feindbilder wie Antiliberalismus, Antiamerikanismus, Antisemitismus und Antizionismus. Islamisten und Rechtsextremisten pflegen ein ausgeprägtes Freund-Feind-Denken, propagieren die Ideologie der Un- gleichheit und lehnen die universalistische Geltung der Menschenrechte und Menschenwürde ab. 1 Phoenix 1/2006, S. 19. 2 Zit. nach Huber, Markus: Justizias Goldwaage, in: Tagesspiegel, 22.
    [Show full text]
  • 3. Claus Schenk Graf Von Stauffenberg Und Operation Walküre
    DIPLOMARBEIT „Geschichte des Widerstandes in Film und Fernsehen“ Die Inszenierung der Stauffenberg-Thematik und das tatsächliche Ereignis des 20. Juli 1944 Verfasserin Marlies Bauer angestrebter akademischer Grad Magistra der Philosophie (Mag. Phil.) Wien, Mai 2010 Studienkennzahl lt. Studienblatt: A 317 Studienrichtung lt. Studienblatt: Theater-, Film- und Medienwissenschaft Betreuerin / Betreuer: Doz. Dr. Clemens Stepina FÜR HELGA UND WILHELM BAUER Danksagung Vielen lieben Dank an meine Familie. Ich danke Isabella und meinem Vater Gerhard, meinem Bruder Oliver und meiner Oma Helga. Ein herzliches Dankeschön an Dr. Clemens Stepina für die großartige Betreuung. Danke an all meine lieben Freunde. Besonderen Dank für geduldiges Zuhören und spontanen Einsatz an: Jürgen Millautz, Kathleen Moser, Christian Podlipnig, Sabine Riedl, Davor Tadic, Magdalene Wyszecki und Oliver Zopper. INHALTSVERZEICHNIS 1. Einleitung..................................................................................................... 1 2. Umsturzpläne in der NS-Zeit: Der Weg hin zum Stauffenberg-Attentat....... 5 2.1. Exkurs - Die ersten einsamen Helden des zivilen Widerstandes - Maurice Bavaud und Georg Elser ..........................................................6 2.2. Stimmen aus den eigenen Reihen - der Beginn des militärischen Widerstandes .......................................................................................11 2.2.1. Die letzte Chance? Der Verschwörerkreis um Hans Oster ..........12 2.2.2. Eine Flasche Cognac für das Führerflugzeug..............................16
    [Show full text]
  • American Intelligence and the Question of Hitler's Death
    American Intelligence and the Question of Hitler’s Death Undergraduate Research Thesis Presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation with honors research distinction in History in the Undergraduate colleges of The Ohio State University by Kelsey Mullen The Ohio State University November 2014 Project Advisor: Professor Alice Conklin, Department of History Project Mentor: Doctoral Candidate Sarah K. Douglas, Department of History American Intelligence and the Question of Hitler’s Death 2 Introduction The fall of Berlin marked the end of the European theatre of the Second World War. The Red Army ravaged the city and laid much of it to waste in the early days of May 1945. A large portion of Hitler’s inner circle, including the Führer himself, had been holed up in the Führerbunker underneath the old Reich Chancellery garden since January of 1945. Many top Nazi Party officials fled or attempted to flee the city ruins in the final moments before their destruction at the Russians’ hands. When the dust settled, the German army’s capitulation was complete. There were many unanswered questions for the Allies of World War II following the Nazi surrender. Invading Russian troops, despite recovering Hitler’s body, failed to disclose this fact to their Allies when the battle ended. In September of 1945, Dick White, the head of counter intelligence in the British zone of occupation, assigned a young scholar named Hugh Trevor- Roper to conduct an investigation into Hitler’s last days in order to refute the idea the Russians promoted and perpetuated that the Führer had escaped.1 Major Trevor-Roper began his investigation on September 18, 1945 and presented his conclusions to the international press on November 1, 1945.
    [Show full text]
  • Dokumentation Das Letzte Duell. Die
    Dokumentation Horst Mühleisen Das letzte Duell. Die Auseinandersetzungen zwischen Heydrich und Canaris wegen der Revision der »Zehn Gebote« I. Die Bedeutung der Dokumente Admiral Wilhelm Franz Canaris war als Chef der Abwehr eine der Schlüsselfigu- ren des Zweiten Weltkrieges. Rätselhaftes umgibt noch heute, mehr als fünfzig Jah- re nach seinem gewaltsamen Ende, diesen Mann. Für Erwin Lahousen, einen sei- ner engsten Mitarbeiter, war Canaris »eine Person des reinen Intellekts«1. Die Qua- lifikationsberichte über den Fähnrich z.S. im Jahre 1907 bis zum Kapitän z.S. im Jahre 1934 bestätigen dieses Urteü2. Viele Biographen versuchten, dieses abenteu- erliche und schillernde Leben zu beschreiben; nur wenigen ist es gelungen3. Un- 1 Vgl. die Aussage des Generalmajors a.D. Lahousen Edler von Vivremont (1897-1955), Dezember 1938 bis 31.7.1943 Chef der Abwehr-Abteilung II, über Canaris' Charakter am 30.11.1945, in: Der Prozeß gegen die Hauptkriegsverbrecher vor dem Internationalen Mi- litärgerichtshof (International Military Tribunal), Nürnberg, 14.11.1945-1.10.1946 (IMT), Bd 2, Nürnberg 1947, S. 489. Ders., Erinnerungsfragmente von Generalmajor a.D. Erwin Lahousen über das Amt Ausland/Abwehr (Canaris), abgeschlossen am 6.4.1948, in: Bun- desarchiv-Militärarchiv (BA-MA) Freiburg, MSg 1/2812, S. 64. Vgl. auch Ernst von Weiz- säcker, Erinnerungen, München, Leipzig, Freiburg i.Br. 1952, S. 175. 2 Vgl. Personalakte Wilhelm Canaris, in: BA-MA, Pers 6/105, fol. 1Γ-105Γ, teilweise ediert von Helmut Krausnick, Aus den Personalakten von Canaris, in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte (VfZG), 10 (1962), S. 280-310. Eine weitere Personalakte, eine Nebenakte, in: BA-MA, Pers 6/2293.
    [Show full text]
  • Recognizing the Past in the Present
    INTRODUCTION Recognizing the Past in the Present Sabine Hildebrandt, Miriam Offer, and Michael A. Grodin The past matters, as it continues to reach into the present and infl uence the fu- ture. The acknowledgment that this holds true for the legacies of medicine in the Holocaust has long been denied by the medical professions after World War II, to the point that systematic research into this history only began in the 1980s.1 Too easy was it to point to the results of the Nuremberg Doctors Trial and claim that only a criminal few had been responsible for the atrocities committed by physi- cians in the extermination of those considered unworthy of life and the Euro- pean Jewry.2 Too easy was it to claim that medicine itself had been abused by the criminal regime of National Socialism.3 Research into the complicity of medical scientists, physicians, nurses, midwives, and other health personnel gained mo- mentum only after the perpetrators of crimes—and in academic medicine often their pupils too—had left their positions that they had reclaimed after the war. And the potential failings of the theory of scientifi c medicine itself have come into the focus of historical analysis only late.4 Many threads of this history are currently under investigation, their roots traced back to the time before 1933, and they need to be placed in the larger framework of continuities of persons, thought patterns and epistemology, and legacies that include the trauma of vic- tims, the published results, and the physical remains of Nazi research. These continuities
    [Show full text]
  • When Die Zeit Published Its Review of Decision Before Dawn
    At the Front: common traitors in West German war films of the 1950s Article Accepted Version Wölfel, U. (2015) At the Front: common traitors in West German war films of the 1950s. Modern Language Review, 110 (3). pp. 739-758. ISSN 0026-7937 doi: https://doi.org/10.5699/modelangrevi.110.3.0739 Available at http://centaur.reading.ac.uk/40673/ It is advisable to refer to the publisher’s version if you intend to cite from the work. See Guidance on citing . To link to this article DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5699/modelangrevi.110.3.0739 Publisher: Modern Humanities Research Association All outputs in CentAUR are protected by Intellectual Property Rights law, including copyright law. Copyright and IPR is retained by the creators or other copyright holders. Terms and conditions for use of this material are defined in the End User Agreement . www.reading.ac.uk/centaur CentAUR Central Archive at the University of Reading Reading’s research outputs online AT THE FRONT: COMMON TRAITORS IN WEST GERMAN WAR FILMS OF THE 1950s Erst im militärischen Geheimnis kommt das Staatsgeheimnis zu sich selbst; da der Krieg als permanenter und totaler Zustand vorausgesetzt wird, läßt sich jeder beliebige Sachverhalt unter militärische Kategorien subsumieren: dem Feind gegenüber hat alles als Geheimnis und jeder Bürger als potentieller Verräter zu gelten. (HANS MAGNUS ENZENSBERGER) Die alten Krieger denken immer an die Kameraden, die gefallen sind, und meinen, ein Deserteur sei einer, der sie verraten hat. (LUDWIG BAUMANN) Introduction Margret Boveri, in the second volume of her treatise on Treason in the 20th Century, notes with respect to German resistance against National Socialism that the line between ethically justified and unethical treason is not easily drawn.1 She cites the case of General Hans Oster, deputy head of the Abwehr under Admiral Canaris.
    [Show full text]
  • The Rote Drei: Getting Behind the 'Lucy' Myth
    The Rote Drei: Getting Behind the 'Lucy' Myth CIA HISTORICAL REVIEW PROGRAM RELEASE IN FULL 22 SEPT 93 SECRET A fresh look at an oft-told story. Mark A. Tittenhofer The reasons for re-examining the 25 years old matter of the Rote Drei and Rudolph Roessler—the "Lucy" of the Soviet espionage operation in Switzerland during World War 11—are not simple.* To be sure, Studies reviewers have pointed out that much of the public literature on the subject is unreliable. Concern for historical rectitude alone, however, would not justify the expenditure of our time and effort. The profession of intelligence may owe some duty to Clio, but it cannot be said to be the general one of cleansing all confusions and deliberate disinformation from the public record about intelligence matters. Apart from the possible substantive benefits of clearing up the story of the Red Three and its members, however, there are certain concrete circumstances surrounding it that ought to attract our notice. The first is that it continues to be treated as a matter of some contemporary concern in certain interesting quarters. The second is that the Soviets evidently think it is important. With regard to the first point, it is perhaps sufficient to recall that the 20th of July movement against Hitler—from which much of the Rote Drei's best information emanated—remains the object of deeply divided public feelings in both Germanies to this day. Moreover, for different reasons the Rote Drei is, as we shall see, regarded with considerable sensitivity elsewhere on the Continent, particularly in Switzerland.
    [Show full text]
  • Clemency in a Nazi War Crimes Trial By: Allison Ernest
    Evading the Hangman’s Noose: Clemency in a Nazi War Crimes Trial By: Allison Ernest Ernest 2 Contents Introduction: The Foundations for a War Crimes Trial Program 3 Background and Historiography 10 Chapter 1: Investigations into Other Trials Erode the United States’ Resolve 17 Chapter 2: The Onset of Trial Fatigue Due to Public Outcry 25 Chapter 3: High Commissioner McCloy Authorizes Sentence Reviews 38 Chapter 4: McCloy and the United States Set the War Criminals Free 45 Conclusion: A Lesson to be Learned 52 Chart: A Complicated Timeline Simplified 57 Bibliography 58 Ernest 3 Introduction: The Foundations for a War Crimes Trial Program “There is a supervening affirmative duty to prosecute the doers of serious offenses that falls on those who are empowered to do so on behalf of a civilized community. This duty corresponds to our fundamental rights as citizens and as persons to receive and give respect to each other in view of our possession of such rights.” Such duty, outlined by contemporary philosopher Alan S. Rosenbaum, was no better exemplified than in the case of Nazi war criminals in the aftermath of World War II. Even before the floundering Axis powers of Germany and Japan declared their respective official surrenders in 1945, the leaders of the Allies prepared possible courses of action for the surviving criminals in the inevitable collapse of the Nazi regime. Since the beginning of the war in 1939, the Nazi regime in Germany implemented a policy of waging a war so barbaric in its execution that the total numbers of casualties rivaled whole populations of countries.
    [Show full text]