Top Nazi (61 page)

On the other hand, his stories were taken seriously here and there. In the Vatican, information about the dead Pope’s life was being collected, according to tradition, in order to have Pius XII beatified and later canonized. The Vatican magazine
La civiltà cattolica
addressed the purported plans for a kidnapping. However, Wolff was only incidentally mentioned. Despite that he was called to the bishop’s office in the spring of 1972 to make a statement regarding everything he knew about the Holy Father. The statements were recorded. Whether they matched his preferred version, the one published description in
Stern
, shall remain unanswered. Religious institutions do not like to provide information if it deals with the Vatican or especially regarding the Pope himself.

Even if Wolff was successful in conveying his importance as a person to the German public, he was even more concerned that his freedom was only seen as temporary. He had to have a physical every year, and each time he was only considered to be sick for twelve months. In the summer of 1973, the results were shockingly positive; perhaps he was ready to live in a prison cell again soon, since his letter of temporary release was only for half a year. He had to report to the examination location repeatedly in the first weeks of 1974, and an order from the State’s attorney even sent him to the psychiatric clinic at the University of Munich for a whole week to a unit for forensic medical psychiatry.

He had more to lose besides his freedom. In the last two years, he was settled once again, had rented an apartment in Munich, and a small apartment in the house of a school friend was available to him in Darmstadt. He had not yet managed to write his memoirs, but now it was going to take place. He did not want his connections to old comrades to fall apart; perhaps they could help him search for evidence of his innocence. At events or in smaller circles, he especially impressed women with descriptions of his experiences at the Führer headquarters and in Italy. During the war, they had been in the women’s service or were enrolled in the female Hitler youth. Since his days as a lieutenant, he had enjoyed his effect on women, and even now it was not difficult to find some who wanted to help the older man.

To the doctors, however, he complained of heart palpitations, head congestion, moments of dizziness, shortness of breath when climbing stairs, disrupted sleep, the frequent need to urinate, depressing dreams and depression to the point of having crying fits.

On the other hand, one professor determined that Wolff had “an upright posture, was dressed neatly and showed polite, elegant manners.” His “present mood is depressed.” “Walking with a lively and elastic gait” was only possible “for short stretches.” He was plagued by the fear of having to return to a prison cell. The professor did not consider it impossible that a resumption of his sentence could cause a suicide attempt. For psychiatric reasons, Wolff was not capable of being in prison; a “return to prison was not to be expected again” in the future.

This sealed his freedom for all time. Now he no longer had to fear being interrupted in fulfilling his most important projects. But first, the shame of the prison sentence had to be erased. For that, he was to get help from glass worker Norbert Kellnberger from Wartenberg, not far from Munich. Kellnberger had been a juror when defendant Wolff had to answer to the court. The master craftsman who had his own business had called Wolff shortly before and told him a story that he thought could reverse the sentence of the court. Wolff had therefore referred Kellnberger to his present lawyer. On May 10, 1973, the master craftsman stated that in September 1964, matters had not been properly handled in the jury room.

After the summation by the prosecution and Dr. Aschenauer, as reported by Kellnberger, the three presiding judges and the six lay judges were not unanimous on the verdict of guilty for several days. At least three of the jurors had called for not guilty due to a lack of evidence. The most zealous advocate of a guilty sentence was Judge Jörka of the district court administration. He argued that the public demanded that Wolff be sentenced and, after a very long deliberation, he had convinced the required majority for that sentence by impressing upon the lay judges that this was a political process that had to end with Wolff’s sentencing, but that the defendant would be let out of prison after one year anyway. When Kellnberger found out later on that Wolff was still subject to judicial proceedings, he went to Bishop Neuhäusler in Munich and asked that the Church do something for a man he thought was being unjustly condemned.

Since nothing happened, Kellnberger informed Wolff’s lawyer in May 1973. His report triggered an investigation of Judge Jörka by the Munich prosecution for suspicion of undue influence in court. It didn’t move
ahead quickly, although Kellnberger repeated his report before a state’s attorney and also mentioned that two other jurors were led to change their vote because of Jörka’s misleading reasoning. In the spring of 1974 Wolff believed he could force this process with help from the Catholic church. He secured the good will of the
Neuen Bildpost
, which according to its own numbers was a “35-Pfenning weekly newspaper,” the “largest Christian weekly newspaper in Europe” with 350, 000 copies per issue.

This tabloid for believers, with its sensational headlines and the wild graphics was a poor take off of the
Bild,
published by Axel-Springer in Hamburg. It published a report about an event of the “Catholic educational works in Berchtesgaden province” to help the lecturer, namely General Karl Wolff. Eight issues of some length were published. Including Kellnberger’s statement. The paper described the speaker as “a mature man with silver gray hair, who thirty years before had been one of the most powerful men in Europe.” Now “along with Rudolf Hess” he was the “most important leader of the National Socialist period still alive.” This was of course not a commendation, but rather an attempt to create sensation. Therefore in the introduction it was stated that Wolff “was a highly controversial man that historians would be analyzing for quite some time.” On the other hand he was introduced as the “only SS officer who was received by Pius XII in a private audience.” The first issue included a quote of the supposed words uttered by the Pope, according to which a great deal of misery could have been avoided had God brought Karl Wolff and the Pope together sooner.

All eight issues ran with the title “The Man Who Was to Kidnap the Pope.” Since every reader knew that Wolff did not follow the supposed order from the Führer, the subscribers had their hero right from the start despite all the attempts by the editors to caution the readers. The
Bildpost
never questioned whether or not Hitler ever really issued that order for the kidnapping. Because the readers would hardly subscribe to a newsletter by former Waffen SS soldiers, they never found out that his old comrades greeted this part of Wolff’s story with disbelief.

To this day the Vatican never made a statement regarding the entire matter. No one on the Nazi side besides Wolff could confirm such an order from Hitler, since the Führer had only given the orders to him and the Reichsführer SS alone. Any other person could only repeat what he had heard from one of these two men. Typically enough, no one had referred to a confirmation from Himmler. On the other hand, former SS Hauptsturmführer Richard Schulze-Kossens spoke up in reference to the
Bildpost
publication in the
Freiwilligen
(“Volunteers”). In 1943–1944 he had been Hitler’s adjutant at headquarters, and had also regularly participated in the situation reports as the actual representative of the Waffen SS. He wrote in the SS publication that when Wolff claimed to be “the savior…for having thwarted Hitler’s plan…it was better that he remain silent because there never was a serious order from Hitler to kidnap the Pope. Men from Hitler’s entourage would confirm that.”

Whom can one believe? It is up to the reader to ask as objectively as possible: Who could benefit from that much debated story—Who has something to gain from it? Wolff had certainly benefited a great deal from the matter. On the other hand, he and his adversaries were not always on good terms. In earlier years, Obergruppenführer Wolff had occasionally let Hauptsturmführer Schulze-Kossens feel the difference in rank, because he viewed him as a rival, no matter how small, vying for Hitler’s favor. Now they were also divided by the breach between the Waffen SS and Nazi party units during and, even more, after the war. Schulze-Kossens belonged to those SS officers who were saying that Wolff only received his rank and title for decorative reasons. However, it gave him no advantage once he turned his back on his former comrades.

The breach between the two was made public when Schulze-Kossens informed his comrades in the
Freiwilligen
early in the summer of 1974 that a reputable auction house had announced a military auction of “three uniform pieces once owned by Oberstgruppenführer and Generaloberst of the Waffen SS, Karl Wolff.” It was simply the fact that the increase in rank had not been recognized in SS circles and created some displeasure with the readers. Schulze-Kossens was incensed and he added up the offerings: a general’s cap, size 58; the personal field-gray jacket…specially tailored in the manner of the field shirt used during the Second World War…as it was only worn by General Wolff, Göring and Udet in the rest of the Wehrmacht”; and further the “personal white jacket…with buttoned-on gala shoulder ribbons in braided aluminum…probably unique.” Every piece came with a free “original personal certificate from General Wolff,” and for each item the starting price was set at one thousand marks.

The owner was parting with these articles of noble memories only because he was always short of money. His pension was too small to cover his needs; to improve the situation he went to court against the Office of Federal Employees. He expected future monies from his memoirs. Supposedly, several years before his trial, a major American literary agency had offered him two million marks. Now he would have done it for less, but
there still were no memoirs. In his search for a ghostwriter, he spoke of several hundred thousand marks that he was expecting, but as long as no partner could be found he could not approach a publisher about an advance. And so as a source of money, aside from lectures and publications, all he could do was to take things out of mothballs where he kept his memorabilia.

It is difficult to grasp why discarded articles of clothing of a former historical figure should be worth collecting—unless they have a historical meaning. That indeed a limited number of dim-witted collectors of such old material even existed was made public during the trial that took place in Hamburg in the late summer of 1984. One of the two defendants, the 53-year old former
Stern
reporter Gerd Heidemann, had already been friendly with Wolff for some time. He owned many such pieces of memorabilia, including the pistol with which Hitler was said to have shot himself or the motor yacht with which Reich Marshal Hermann Göring sailed the seas in his years of glory. Also accused in that trial was a 46-year-old Stuttgart man, Konrad Kujau, who never had a specific job, but was a dealer in discarded parts of uniforms, weapons, medals, and other items from Hitler’s Reich.

The reasons why newsman Heidemann became interested in Hitler and his group was a case study for psychologists. He was fourteen years old when the Führer and Reich Chancellor shot himself beneath the Berlin Chancellery. Along with that, he had been in the war briefly as a Hitler Youth in the ruins in Hamburg, but probably had never even witnessed the seamy side of Nazism, nor suffered due to its legacy. Heidemann knew how to use a camera and started working at
Stern
as a freelance photographer. Since he took good pictures, the chief editor sent him in the late fall of 1955 to Camp Friedland when the last German POWs returned from the Soviet Union. Having no scruples or consideration for the feelings of those involved, he captured the faces of those returning and their families, in moments of great pain and joy, his photographs became true documents of contemporary history. He was given more work and a permanent job. Not only did he take great photos, he was also good at investigating as well. His tactic was to ask the people very few questions, but he had a knack of getting them to talk, and listened with a tape recorder as they often revealed more than they actually intended.

When he turned to contemporary history, he only had a sketchy kind of knowledge. However, with great tenacity he filled the gaps, and since he was looking for expert informants for a topic where the SS was mentioned,
a colleague from the editorial staff referred him to one SS general who always talked exhaustively about himself, Karl Wolff.

Wolff and Heidemann liked each other immediately. The younger man showed the older man the respect he demanded because of his rank and, conversely, the general did not let his partner sense the social distance that divided them due to their backgrounds. They had interests that complemented each other: Heidemann wanted to expand his knowledge of the Third Reich and find sensational stories from any period, Wolff could serve a purpose in opening doors to big wigs from Hitler’s Reich who were still alive. The general, on the other hand, was hoping to have found the writer for his biography. The biography actually did get started and Wolff was able to record the stories he had told repeatedly on a tape recorder. He always used the same word sequence in recounting those anecdotes, as if at some point he had memorized the entire text. They sounded like the memoirs of an upper-middle-class man dictated in the ornate language of Wilhelmine Germany. During the years they were acquainted Heidemann never wrote the epic that Wolff so desperately desired for two important reasons. First, he could only use known facts that would remain unproven. Second, while he could investigate well, he was unable to write well. Despite this, they went on working together. Heidemann managed to secure some advantages for Wolff for his information, and took him on trips using large expense accounts; Wolff felt that he was correcting the history of the Third Reich.