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When all this was reported by German and foreign newspapers, the German foreign office protested loudly, demanding in writing who at the “communications staff of the NSDAP,” a link between the Party and the State, had authorized this person “Herr de Sager or de Sage” to handle German concerns. The office dispatched its chief of protocol, von Bülow-Schwante, and Count Dohna, whom Wolff had been friends with at the Darmstadt high school, to investigate at de Sager’s Berlin apartment. Wolff’s charm had almost managed to settle the matter with these two gentlemen. However, the German ambassador in London (at that time it was still Joachim von Ribbentrop) felt it necessary to summon this unauthorized foreign policy operative of the SS to his London residence. “I did not receive the slightest encouragement from him,” de Sager reported to the Reichsführer SS.

Regardless, de Sager continued to send prominent Englishmen across the North Sea to visit Germany. Among them House of Commons representative T. C. R. Moore, retired Admiral Sir Barry Domvile, and a married couple, the Pinckhards, whose living room was the meeting place where London’s elite would congregate. They were all invited one after the other, by Himmler, to his house at the Tegernsee, where, after their inspection of Dachau, Wolff’s refined conversation helped make it clear to them that life behind barbed wire could be beneficial to certain people. They all agreed to a reunion in London that, according to the guests, should take place “as soon as you [Himmler] are able to speak perfect English and I am capable of speaking perfect German.”

This sudden friendship across borders faded rather quickly. Mrs. Ruby Pinckhard was suspicious that when they continued on their journey to Switzerland, her passport was scrutinized with obvious mistrust. “I heard,” she wrote to Himmler, “that officials read the name ‘Ruby’ aloud and became particularly attentive.” This happened in November of 1935, as
increasing numbers of Jews were emigrating. Then, in her living room, Himmler’s emissary de Sage and an exiled Ukrainian named Korostowetz, who was also a frequent visitor, made vague insinuations, accusing each other of being a paid German agent. Himmler apologized in a letter. He insisted that the strict passport scrutiny was meaningless; and he failed to mention that the name Ruby could possibly sound Jewish to border officials trained in anti-Semitism. He assured Mrs. Pinckhard that the Ukrainian gentleman had no connections to the SS, and that de Sager was simply a friend of the new Germany.

In the end, de Sager exaggerated his demands in London by attempting to convince his pro-German friends to secure an invitation for the Reichsführer SS to speak in the House of Commons. However, the English sympathizers set a few conditions: Himmler must master English sufficiently, must address the treatment of the Jews, the dispute between the NSDAP and the Christian churches, and Hitler’s imperialistic goals as described in the National Socialist Bible,
Mein Kampf
.

Himmler was neither willing nor allowed to do anything of the sort. In addition, the ambassador to London, Joachim von Ribbentrop, had by now become so alarmed that he issued a protest to Hitler that foreign policy was none of Himmler’s business. Hitler now had von Ribbentrop in mind as the future foreign minister, and therefore the Reichsführer SS was now in danger of being barred from the Reich Chancellery. Ribbentrop suggested that if Himmler felt it necessary to discuss politics with foreigners, then it should at least take place on a one-to-one basis and within the confines of a private conversation. De Sager’s activities had to stop, as they were generating nothing more than expenses.

Another attempt at success in the east also ended in dismal failure. Himmler started with the Arabs, who displayed a special dislike of the English as colonial rulers. In March 1938 retired Prussian Lieutenant Ottmar Hubert Baron von Gumppenberg-Pöttmes-Oberpremberg (as his name appeared on his business card), spoke to Himmler’s top adjutant at the Four Seasons Hotel in Munich, offering his services to the Reichsführer, should Adolf Hitler be interested in pursuing a policy of friendship with the Islamic nations. The leader of the Pan-Arabic Movement, His Excellency the Emir Shekib Arslan, whose following had grown from 70 million to 120 million during the voluminous correspondence with Wolff and Himmler, was an especially close friend of the baron and intended to visit Germany very soon. If the government of the Reich were
interested in a connection to the Pan-Arabic Movement, this was a unique opportunity. Gumppenberg would gladly arrange a meeting.

The long aristocratic title, the military rank of officer, a common aversion to the Jews—all of this pleased Himmler a great deal, and he therefore instructed his staff to take good care of this connection. As the baron then handed in documentation about his military work as well, where he not only served with the Prussians and participated in the First World War, but also fought under the Albanian and Turkish flags as a riding master, the confidence among the SS staff grew to the point that they finally began a promising activity. He even appeared to be useful to foreign intelligence because during the First World War he had stirred up the North African Senussi tribes in Libya into invading British-ruled Egypt.

At the end of May 1938, a few days before the Emir’s arrival in Munich, Gumppenberg finally wanted to know how far the SS was willing go in receiving him as a dignitary. He recommended that accommodations be paid for by the Reich for a first-class hotel (an apartment suite with a large living room), two servants or adjutants, and a luxury car with a chauffeur for his personal use. For his part, the emir wished to be received by Hitler, Göring, and Himmler. He wished to take this opportunity to express the congratulations on the part of the Arabs for the annexation of Austria to the Nazi Reich.

When the visit was just about to take place, Wolff advised the Reichsführer that with Heydrich’s help he may wish to make a final check by inquiring with the foreign office and with the chief of the Abwehr, Admiral Canaris, about whom they would be dealing with at that meeting. Wolff wanted to be on the safe side. Because the emir had already arrived in Munich, Himmler’s secretary, Dr. Rudolf Brandt, had to reassure the baron over the phone on May 30 that “the small attentions given to the emir would certainly signal that he would be received.”

But even that was promising too much. On June 2, the Gestapo sent a telegram from Berlin to the Reichsführer SS, who was in Gmund am Tegernsee waiting for a call from Hitler from the nearby Berghof. Afterwards Canaris’ Abwehr categorically denied that the emir had any kind of leadership role among the Arabs, while the foreign ministry pointed out that they were dealing with a very old Arab who therefore had little influence. Baron von Gumppenberg should in no way be brought in as negotiator, because he was simply discharged as a lieutenant from the Royal Prussian Army “on suspicion of homosexual activity.” For that reason alone, Himmler was compelled to break off any connection with him; since
the Röhm affair, all homosexuals belonged in the concentration camps when they were not immediately killed.

Himmler and Wolff could not always afford to stand on the side of morality and virtue. In an attempt to topple a corrupt gauleiter, the Reichsführer almost fell out of favor with Hitler. This outraged Wolff so much that he once again toyed with the thought of ending his career in the SS and moving back to the regular army. The matter concerned the professional party functionary Erich Koch, who had worked in the Ruhr region in the 1920s, at times together with Albert Leo Schlageter, the national martyr who was shot by the French for sabotage. Hitler later sent Koch to East Prussia as gauleiter in 1928 because of constant grumbling among ambitious and aggressive party comrades in that region. There the upper class—the landowners, rich farmers, and the wealthy bourgeoisie—was traditionally nationalistic and therefore also tied to the German National People’s Party. They only agreed that the “drummer” Hitler was to play the role of preparing the return of the Hohenzollern monarchy. If Koch had wanted to win followers for the Nazi party at that time, he had to begin with those who felt exploited by the landed gentry and the industrialists. In a province that was then separated from the Reich, “nationalism” was taken for granted (since the neighboring Poles and Lithuanians occasionally rattled their sabers), the workers, the petty bourgeois and the industrial proletariat were receptive to the social components of the National Socialist program.

Koch’s propaganda was especially effective with one particular profession: the poorly paid estate managers who had to watch while the money they earned was spent so generously by the squire and his family. As long as they were intelligent and industrious enough, Koch recruited his functionaries and SA Führer from among these people. Some improved their meager income through embezzlement. Whoever was let go for that reason was given the chance by the gauleiter to work for the party full time. He therefore managed to create a devoted guard dependent upon him as well as on the success of the Nazi party. Whoever joined the movement after the seizure of power found all key positions in East Prussia already occupied—with one exception: Koch had always placed the SS at a disadvantage in his Gau, and now that they had the possibility of spreading out, the so-called “better” people felt attracted to a unit that kept its distance from the plebeian SA.

The wealthy in the agrarian economy received strong support from Richard Walther Darré, leader of the German farmers, Reich minister of
nutrition, SS Obergruppenführer and chief of the Race and Settlement Office. Those functionaries in the farming community for whom Koch’s high-handedness went too far, suspected him of “Bolshevik methods.” He reacted by excluding them from the Party and arresting them. Darré, called on to help, proved to be powerless. Much worse, Koch threatened that whoever continued to oppose his policies could sit in “the big Moorbruch” (a concentration camp) and “think about who was right.” When Himmler advised him to use moderation, Koch played dumb.

Darré called the Supreme Party Court, but before the bureaucratic machine got moving, Koch made some small concessions. Those agricultural functionaries excluded from the Party were once again allowed to pin the swastika on their collars, but they were to officiate in another Gau. However, during the first investigations by the party judges in Munich it became clear that there were even more suspicious things going on in the East Prussian Gau. Higher Party functionaries had used their positions to enrich themselves privately. Koch was not just tolerating it; he led the way with the worst example. He had gotten the National Socialist Gau newspaper going years before by forcing the Party comrades to subscribe. Now the paper was flourishing and became part of the profits of the “Erich Koch Foundation,” whose funds only Gau leaders and a few front men he had picked were allowed to touch. Because the foundation also handled a real estate business and pulled in a lot of money through the so-called Aryanization of the property of Jews who were emigrating, it had already become one of the economic powers in eastern Prussia. Koch had been a follower of the left, the Strasser wing of the NSDAP, while he was in the Ruhr region for a time. Now he cynically announced that his foundation was community property and, therefore, a model of National Socialism.

The Chief of the Supreme Party Court, the puritanical ex-officer and Reich leader Walter Buch, wanted to clean up this swamp. He led legal party proceedings against Koch, seeking to exclude him from the NSDAP. To no avail. His son-in-law, Reichsleiter Martin Bormann, and part of the office of the deputy to the Führer tried to warn him. He enjoyed the special trust of the Führer and knew that Koch was therefore protected at the highest levels. Buch remained stubborn; he persuaded two other Reich leaders, namely Heinrich Himmler and Reich treasurer Xaver Schwarz, to go with him to Königsberg to examine the accused and the witnesses. These three should have known from their many years of experience that Hitler appreciated moral defects within his leadership because it always gave him a reason to oust those who had fallen out of favor. The three
should have also known that Koch knew a state secret that would lead to foreign policy complications if it became known to the victorious Allied powers: the Party and the Reichswehr in East Prussia were involved in military training together of the so-called “white generation” who, since the First World War, could no longer become soldiers. Heavily weighing in Koch’s favor was that he was the first gauleiter who reported to his Führer that no one in his Gau was without work. As propaganda, this was of extreme importance—after a time (eighteen months before) when over six million people were without work and without income.

Koch had even another ace up his sleeve. As the net closed in around him, he avoided any further comments by seeking protection from Hermann Göring in Berlin. As Prussian prime minister, Göring was his employer, due to the fact that as Gauleiter, Koch was also president of the East Prussian province. Because Göring had difficulty giving up the Prussian police to the SS, he helped Koch by making a recommendation to Hitler, and in doing so became popular with other Gau leaders who viewed the SD as an agency which also kept a close eye on them. As a reward and as thanks, Reich Rifle Master Göring was allowed to shoot a couple of deer at the former imperial hunt at Rominten in East Prussia. The deer could not be more royal anywhere else in Europe.

The three Party leaders who were so set on righteousness were ordered back from Königsberg, including Wolff, who had accompanied Himmler. Party judge Buch was immediately subjected to the Führer’s displeasure, so strongly in fact that he took a long vacation afterwards. Himmler referred back to Buch’s competence and got off fairly leniently. Wolff felt deeply disappointed. He saw in Koch, in his type, manners, and character, “someone low class who had risen up in the world,” and a “major embarrassment” to the Party. Much later, when Himmler and Hitler were long gone and Koch was in a Polish prison, Wolff claimed that he openly requested release from the Party and the SS, and intended to join the army.