Top Nazi (20 page)

This was an opportunity for Hitler to see him one more time. The housekeeper announced Wolff to Himmler, who was sitting in the living room with the Führer and at first did not appreciate being interrupted earlier than planned. Wolff’s report clearly surprised him; he went back into the living room and shortly after that Wolff was also called in. Hitler
displayed his outrage, and from his remarks of “Shocking!” or “Absolutely not acceptable!” Wolff became convinced (and truly believed to his death) that the Führer had neither ordered nor even agreed to the pogrom. After all, Hitler told Himmler in closing, “Find out immediately who is responsible for this. I do not wish my SS to be involved in any of these occurrences for any reason.” He then ordered that looters should be prosecuted, fires in synagogues need not be extinguished, but that neighboring houses, which were in danger, must be protected.

Wolff, through this recollection, tried to prove that Hitler was innocent of the atrocities of the Kristallnacht. One must examine the purported direct quotations very carefully. They appear in almost every report that Wolff published, in statements and interviews that he gave to journalists and historians, and of course again in the long manuscripts of his rudimentary autobiography that was found.

It is an undisputed fact that even later in life he retained an extraordinary memory. It is clear, however, that everyone he quotes speaks in the stilted German that he acquired as a young man in the guard officers’ club and had never lost. It is also noticeable that whenever he repeats himself, not only is a particular statement or response delivered in the same word order, but the descriptions of the surroundings are almost identical every time. It is akin to a recording, which does not make his accounts any more credible. It actually raised the suspicion that, because he had been interrogated and questioned so many times, he had simply memorized the version placing himself in the most favorable light.

It is plausible that he did in fact think that Hitler had no idea of what was happening and was “taken in by Goebbels and Streicher”—according to his description. Wolff had probably never noticed how easily Hitler, with the finesse of an actor, could deceive even those closest to him. The dictator had that particular actor’s talent of always completely believing what he was saying and being able to convey anything he said at that moment in the most convincing way. Whenever Hitler lied, it was to him the indisputable truth, which did not prevent the absolute opposite from being “true” a few moments later. In spite of this, Hitler had always rejected the accusation of being dishonest with the indignation of a wronged husband. In his tactical choices he was an uninhibited pragmatic; only when it came to his ultimate goals was he completely determined in his persistence.

There are, however, some tangible clues indicating that he did give the order for the pogrom. Already during the September Party rally he
reprimanded the Nuremberg Gauleiter that in this “native German city and the treasure of the German Reich” there were still synagogues. Observers also suspected that he gave Goebbels the cue to begin the action just before he abruptly left the Rathaus. Shortly after that, initial instructions were handed to the Gau propaganda leaders, marked “Secret.”

Yet there is evidence that Himmler, Wolff, and the majority of the SS leaders really had no idea of what was going on. Wolff dictated a long memo for the files upon his return to his Berlin office in order to put the responsibility of the propaganda minister on record. Himmler complained in one memo about the “ambition for power” and the “airheadedness” of Dr. Goebbels. Himmler ordered Heydrich to carefully examine the crimes of the Party mobs that were out of control, to request reports of abuse and murders from the local police precincts, and to find out the amount of property damage. Hermann Göring then used this number as the guiding maximum of the four-year plan of economic performance increases to argue against Goebbels and to set himself up to handle the Jewish question. The supreme Party judge Walter Buch also became active, but contrary to his intentions, only few criminal cases were taken to the Party court. Acting on Hitler’s instructions, Reichsleiter Martin Bormann slowed down the Party courts as well as criminal justice proceedings. Above all, the rapes of Jewesses by Nazis were punished, not because of the deed but because they had intercourse with a Jewess.

Following this attack on his authority and that of the SS regarding the policies to be carried out for Jews, the Reichsführer SS and Chief of the German Police actually had plenty of reasons to accuse Dr. Goebbels and his supporter Reichsleiter Bormann of damaging Germany’s image. Very wisely, he decided not to pursue the matter. Hitler had always frightened him, and now he knew what the leader obviously desired. Immediately following the Munich spectacle, he left on vacation, far away to Italy for five weeks, but because he was afraid that one of his top SS leaders would try to damage his standing with Hitler and expel him from the top ranks, he named no deputy. It was a well-known fact that such fears were not without reason, and that Hitler encouraged such behavior. Albert Speer, as minister of defense, was to experience this kind of situation in the most crass way during the war. Wolff apparently carried out the business of the SS leadership during Himmler’s absence, but every area leader could undertake whatever he wanted within his own section. Heydrich used this freedom to promote himself retrospectively through an anti-Semitic initiative. He placed 10, 000 wealthy Jews in concentration camps,
apparently in retaliation for the death of the diplomat vom Rath. Actually, he wanted to improve upon Eichmann’s export methods as practiced in the central emigration offices in Vienna and Berlin. The disadvantage, however, was that then only rich Jews were driven away and the poor ones remained because they could not get “token money” together to satisfy the emigration laws of other countries. Now the wealthy prisoners were told that they could buy their freedom by making donations to the common emigration fund. Many paid.

Even Wolff used Himmler’s absence to take action. He heard that the commissioner of the League of Nations in Danzig, Carl J. Burckhardt, a Swiss citizen whose mission it was to secure the independence of the neutral city-state, had attempted without success to have a meeting with the Reich propaganda minister on November 14. Goebbels had canceled. Supposedly he was still so busy defending himself against the attacks about Kristallnacht coming from Göring and other Nazi bigwigs. On that occasion in Himmler’s name, Wolff invited Burckhardt to the Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse offices in Berlin. The Swiss scholar, who was always working toward peace, was understandably a bit disappointed, to only be received by Chief of the Personal Staff Wolff on November 23.

What he did hear, however, pleased him. In his book, My
Danzig Mission
, published two decades later, he described the meeting. Wolff told him that the Reichsführer, unfortunately, was sick, and that was due to the events of the preceding weeks. Himmler sharply criticized the pogrom. Burckhardt quoted verbatim: “The domestic situation in this country has become unbearable; something must happen. The man responsible is Herr Goebbels, who exercises an insufferable influence on the Führer. We had hoped to slow him down for the propaganda he was responsible for during the Czech crisis, and we believed that this time we had something definite, but sure enough the Führer saved him again. It can’t go on like this; someone will have to do something!” But by that time Goebbels had already been declared the victor.

The real question related to who “someone” actually was. Just one SS Gruppenführer, one out of a few dozen? Or his boss the Reichsführer SS? Himmler did work in some ways against Hitler, but that only emerged from a murky background and never without some quick escape route. Fear was always greater than courage. He would openly rebel only when his heroic appearance could also push ahead a powerless Hitler. But this was not nearly the time for that and Goebbels, whom former banker Wolff still believed to be among the bankrupt, was protected once more for quite
some time. Already on November 14 at lunch he received Hitler at his private house in the evening; the two made a show of unity publicly by going together to the theater…This was the reward for Kristallnacht.

Neither Himmler nor Wolff noticed in those days that their Führer had once again shut them out. After being forced to keep the peace at the Munich conference because he was given everything he had requested, he consciously headed for the next crisis in the hope that, as he usually expressed himself, “no pig attacks me from behind again.” He had already given secret instructions on October 21, 1938, to the effect that “taking care of the rest of Czechoslovakia” was one of the “was one of the Wehrmacht’s future tasks.” On November 10 at his headquarters in Munich, he made it clear to the top press representatives that the drivel about peace had to end and that their task was to prepare the German public for the coming war; it was logical that he should begin with the hunt for the Jews.

In this connection, the cause of Hitler’s pathological hatred for Jews becomes an insignificant issue. He rationalized his craze for persecution by claiming that they had always attempted to demoralize and subjugate the German nation—politically, morally, culturally, economically—in short, in every area. Once he had suppressed them, deprived them of their rights, looted their homes and branded them for the past five years, within the borders of the Reich, they could no longer be such a great danger because the State and the Party were so radically defined as being anti-Semitic and were practically all-powerful. Why then this additional terror, and why the extermination at the end?

Even though it may sound improbable, Kristallnacht was part of Hitler’s war preparations. It made clear to the world that the Jews were hostages he was holding. He threatened often enough that the Jews would pay if anyone refused what he claimed were his justified demands. It is characteristic at the same time that the actions against the Jews apparently began among the people and were said to be a spontaneous retaliation. No written order signed by the Führer exists for either the pogrom on November 9, 1938, or the mass murders by the Einsatzgruppen and inside the concentration camps. The world was to be convinced that it was not a single person, such as the head of state, but rather the entire people who were responsible for the crimes. That was the reason why he elicited frenzied applause when he prophesied the “annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe” in each one of his public speeches from January 30, 1939 to 1942. The collective blame of the Germans was also part of Hitler’s program. At the Führer’s headquarters during the war, usually in
conversations with trusted friends late at night, he repeatedly admitted the reasons for these tactics, when he said that the Germans only had the choice between total victory or total defeat, between ruling the world or utter failure. All bridges to peace or to understanding had been burned. To have “gone with, been caught with, and to hang with” now applied to everyone.

“Someone must do something,” Wolff had said to Burckhardt, but he had done almost as little as all other Germans. Or was it that he just didn’t take the officially prescribed discrimination against the Jews literally? Obviously he could afford such special behavior without suffering the consequences, since he was allowed to climb the SS career ladder almost to the highest levels of power.

We have already shown how, with the encouragement of German bankers following the occupation of Austria, he helped free the Viennese financier Baron von Rothschild. Shortly after Kristallnacht, however, he also helped another Jewish banker, Fritz Warburg, whose relatives in Hamburg, London, and New York were active in the finance business. As the shop windows were being broken and the synagogues went up in flames, Fritz Warburg was in Stockholm. In the spring of 1939, he wanted to negotiate with German officials regarding the emigration of Jews to Sweden. It never even reached that point. As he and his wife landed at Hamburg airport, their passports were confiscated. They had to stay in Hamburg, even though in comfortable accommodations. According to Wolff the Gestapo took the Warburgs as hostages in case there were new restrictions in foreign countries because of Kristallnacht.

A decade later, at his own denazification in Hamburg, working towards his own acquittal, Wolff mentioned how difficult and dangerous it was in 1939, especially for a higher SS official, to help a world-renowned Jewish banker. It is true that Wolff, at the request of an acquaintance from his apprenticeship at a Frankfurt bank, Baron von Berenberg-Gossler, used his influence to obtain the return of Warburg’s passports. It is also true that he initiated discussions where the conditions were negotiated. So on May 10, 1939, the couple was able to return to Sweden, although Wolff was not directly involved in the negotiations. The banker von Berenberg-Gossler had used Gestapo officer K. Lischka, who was later to be a colleague of Eichmann—as his contact. Actually the negotiations ended with Warburg being bled for everything he had; he had to provide the “token money” in foreign currency for several poor Jewish families and leave it in Germany for one hundred Jewish children. This was not simply the method used by Eichmann to encourage the Jews to leave
Germany in Vienna and Berlin; it was also the ransom paid for emigration by wealthy Jews.

Wolff could not always go the straight path in such humanitarian operations. With Paula Stuck, who under her former name Reznicek was a tennis champion who repeatedly gave Germany victories in international tournaments, he artfully used the weaknesses of the bureaucratic hierarchy to avoid her being declared “non-Aryan” for many years. Before she married the racing driver Hans Stuck in 1932, she was divorced from Burkhard von Reznicek. Hans Stuck at the time was very famous, and his son Striezel later followed in the same path. At first hardly anyone would have bothered with her ancestry if she had not also been the author of several books. After all, she was very careful in that she chose a Swiss publishing company, which could not be forced to inquire as to the author’s grandparents. Despite this, the Reich Chamber for Literature, the compulsory organization all writers had to belong to, demanded from Paula Stuck von Reznicek proof of her Aryan ancestry. Her answer was that “Herr SS Gruppenführer Wolff (Gestapo) was well aware of her case file in detail.” As the Reich Chamber for Literature then inquired with Wolff, one of his adjutants dictated the information that Hans Stuck once provided Gruppenführer Wolff with a present for the Führer, which the Herr Gruppenführer passed along to the Führer. On this occasion, the Führer said something to the effect that the omissions on the part of Stuck regarding his not purely Aryan wife should remain omitted…“Obergruppenführer Brückner (the personal and, therefore, highest ranking adjutant to Hitler, as well as a putsch comrade from 1923), was to have been present during that conversation.”