The SS - The Wolf That Got Away III

War’s Early Years

During much of the spring of 1940 Wolff was involved in the infighting over Himmler’s attempts to set up further armed fighting units of the Waffen SS. Gruppenfuhrer Theodor Eicke, commander of the Totenkopf division[i], was prepared to beg borrow or steal equipment for his men. Eicke informed Wolff that he planned to break into the Skoda works to arm the Totenkopf troops. In the alternative he suggested that Wolff could ask Himmler to approve the creation of a heavy artillery battalion for the division.

By March Eicke was writing to Himmler complaining that none of the booty at the Skoda works had been given to his men; instead it had been passed on to the Wehrmacht. Wolff was used by Himmler as an intermediary between Eicke and himself, suggesting that Eicke did not escalate the fight over the weapons.

On 23^rd March Wolff contacted the Ministry of Justice informing them that

‘”The Fuhrer proposes to postpone punishment of the so-called “decent poachers” and, provided they acquit themselves well at the front, to guarantee them amnesty.”’[ii]

Wolff then demanded a list of all poachers known to the ministry; 55 poachers were eventually transferred to the Totenkopf division.

France

Dr Stumpfegger

On 12^th May[iii] Wolff, along with Pieper, Professor Gebhardt[iv], and Dr Stumpfegger[v], joined Himmler on an inspection tour of the new occupied territories and Waffen SS troops. The first night was spent in Hasselt where the party was joined for dinner by the commander of the Der Fuhrer standarte & his deputy.

le Paradis

Fifteen days later the Totenkopf division were responsible for the massacre at le Paradis[vi]. Himmler was furious with Eicke and declared the matter a state secret. Wolff was well aware of the massacre as he discussed it on the phone with Rudolf Brandt. On 31^st May Himmler gave Eicke one of his most trusted subordinates, Brigadefuhrer[vii] Kurt Knoblauch, as a deputy; the paranoid Eicke was not impressed with what he believed was a spy from HQ.

Mid-July saw Wolff back on tour with Himmler in Burgundy; where Himmler burbled on about creating an SS state within a state; Himmler would be Grand Master and his Wolffchen[viii] the Chancellor. On 19^th July Wolff and Himmler flew back to Berlin to attend Hitler’s justification of his aggression and an offer of peace to Britain;

‘"My foreign policy had identical aims. My program was to abolish the Treaty of Versailles. It is futile nonsense for the rest of the world to pretend today that I did not reveal this program until 1933 or 1935 or 1937. Instead of listening to the foolish chatter of émigrés, these gentlemen would have been wiser to read what I have written thousands of times.”’[ix]

The Intermediary

Erich von dem Bach Zelewski

Wolff always claimed that he knew nothing of the Holocaust; but he was certainly aware that the Jews were being mistreated. On 13^th September Erich von dem Bach Zelewski[x] wrote to Wolff about his meeting with Himmler two days earlier, discussing using Jews for hard labour in Silesia.

During the autumn Wolff was acting as an intermediary in the internecine brangling between Eicke and Gottlob Berger head of the Waffen SS recruitment, over replacement troops for the Totenkopf division. Eicke claimed that Berger was sending him sub-standard troops; while Berger complained that Eicke was placing the needs of the Totenkopf above the remainder of the Waffen SS. Eicke also upset Hans Juttner[xi] who disbanded Eicke’s motorcycle division.

Hans Juttner

Eicke asked Wolff to complain to Himmler about Berger’s recruitment procedures; an action Wolff was unwilling to undertake as Himmler was very enthusiastic about the numbers of men, including Volksdeutsche[xii], that Berger was recruiting to the Waffen SS[xiii]. Eicke was also desperate to save one of his men arrested by Juttner’s orders for attempting to remove military equipment from Dachau[xiv].

Dachau - SS barracks on right

By spring 1941, as the military build up for the invasion of Russia was underway, Wolff was embroiled in a scandal at one of the Lebensborn homes under his control. The conditions at the Kurmark Lebensborn home[xv] were provoking local gossip. Himmler, worried about the reputation of the home as a brothel, ordered;

‘The homes risk losing their good reputation through such visits [from male friends of the inmates]. To avoid hardship a visitor’s hut will be established……where there will be no opportunity for intimacy.’[xvi]

Preparing for the Invasion

Kurt Daleuge

Sometime in March 1941 Wolff attended a meeting about the preparation for the invasion of Germany’s ally Russia. Kurt Daluege[xvii], Berger, the Obergruppenfuhrers[xviii] and the Gruppenfuhrers who were in charge of the Einsatzgruppen and were to be the SS leaders of the conquered territories attended Himmler’s meeting at Wewelsburg[xix].

Richard Glucks

On 1^st March Wolff joined Himmler, IG Farben executives, von dem Bach Zelewski, Richard Glucks[xx] and a number of other officials for the first inspection of Auschwitz[xxi]. On this day Himmler ordered an increase in the size of the camp from 10,000 to 30,000 prisoners who would be used to build a factory for IG Farben. The same month Wolff was involved with Himmler, Daluege and Heydrich in deciding the role of the police in the to-be conquered lands in Russia.

It would appear that Wolff had overreached himself financially, as the following month, having admitted that he owed 150,000 Reichsmarks on his house on the Tegernsee, SS negotiators reduced the debt to 21.500 Reichsmarks. FX Schwarz, the Nazi party treasurer, gave 1,500 Reichsmarks towards paying off the loan. Later Himmler was to write to Schwarz giving his opinion of Wolff; he would give Wolff 21,500 Reichsmarks partly as a gift and partly as a loan from Freundeskreis RFSS funds.

On the 4^th May Wolff accompanied Himmler to listen to Hitler detail the results of the campaign in the Balkans, thrust upon an unwilling Hitler[xxii] by Mussolini’s overweening ambition to emulate Hitler’s successes in France. Hitler castigated Churchill as the architect of the war, claiming;

'He is the most bloodthirsty or amateurish strategist in history'[xxiii]

On 9th May Wolff joined Himmler on a trip to inspect the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler[xxiv] in Larissa, Greece.

Friedrich Jeckeln

In mid-June Wolff attended a three day meeting of Himmler and his senior staff at Wewelsburg. Heydrich, von dem Bach-Zelewski, Friedrich Jeckeln[xxv], Daleuge, Oswald Pohl and Rudolf Brandt were among those attending. The future Higher SS and Police Fuhrers (HSSPF) were given copies of Heydrich’s instructions to the Einsatzgruppen. It was expected that 30 million undesirables[xxvi] in the Soviet Union would have to be killed.

The Killing Fields

In October, after the invasion of Germany’s former ally Russia, Wolff joined Himmler on a trip to the newly conquered territories. On 15^th October Himmler, accompanied by his faithful Wolffchen, addressed the men of Bach-Zelewski’s einsatzgruppen in Minsk. There had been complaints from the army about the einsatzgruppen killing methods.

Himmler witnessed an 'execution' of partisans and Jews;

‘After the first salvo Himmler came right up to me and looked personally into the ditch, remarking that there was someone still alive. He said to me “Lieutenant, shoot that one!”’[xxvii]

He told his men that he and Hitler would answer to history for the necessary extermination of the Jews as;

'”The carriers of world Bolshevism.”’[xxviii]

According to him this justified the harshest possible measures against the Jews.

Artur Nebe

In afternoon Himmler visited mental hospital in Novinki, where Artur Nebe[xxix] was instructed to kill the inmates. Himmler also found time to visit a POW camp, drive through the Minsk ghetto and talk to Bach-Zelewski about killing methods. He also instructed Nebe to develop less brutalizing methods of killing.

On 21^st October Heydrich wrote to Wolff complaining about the number of Jews being claimed as indispensible to the work force; no doubt Heydrich and his men were eager to murder them. Wolff must have been aware of the reports coming in from Heydrich’s einsatzgruppen, in competition with each other, boasting about the numbers of Jews and political commissars being killed.

Schwerin von Krosigk

In late October 1941 Wolff accompanied Himmler to Joachim von Ribbentrop’s shooting lodge at Schonhof, near Salzburg. Also present, at what Hitler intended to be a reconciliation between Himmler and von Ribbentrop[xxx], was Galeazzo Ciano Italy’s foreign minister, Schwerin von Krosig[xxxi] and Himmler’s masseur Felix Kersten[xxxii]. Himmler told Kersten;

'”I would never have come to this shooting party if the Fuhrer had not expressly wished me to come.”'[xxxiii]

The beaters comprised 400 soldiers and the majority of the bag was taken by Ciano.

Bibliography

The Architect of Genocide – Richard Breitman, Pimlico 1991

Master Race – Catine Clay & Michael Leapman, BCA 1995

Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression Volume V – International Military Tribunal, US Government Printing Office 1946

Hitler – Nemesis – Ian Kershaw, Penguin 2001

Top Nazi – Jochen von Lang, Enigma Books 2005

Heinrich Himmler – Peter Longerich, Oxford University Press 2012

Himmler – Peter Padfield, Cassell & Co 2001

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich – William L Shirer, Book Club Associates 1985

The SS A New History – Adrian Weale – Little Brown 2010

www.wikipedia.en

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[i] Originally formed from concentration camp personnel. Eicke had been the inspector of the camps; a job which was then given to Richard Glucks

[ii] The SS - Weale

[iii] Two days after the commencement of the invasion of France

[iv] Himmler’s boyhood friend and a doctor

[v] Himmler’s doctor

[vi] Soldiers of the Royal Norfolk Regiment were executed contrary to the rules of war

[vii] Equivalent of a Brigadier General

[viii] Himmler’s pet name for Wolff, he often gave those around him nicknames

[ix] Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression Volume V – International Military Tribunal

[x] Leader of one of the Einsatzgruppen, responsible for the death of tens of thousands of Russians and Jews; later SS head of Russland Mitte

[xi] Head of the SS Fuhrungshauptamt and Berger’s alter-ego, responsible for equipping and all other matters pertaining to the Waffen SS. He and Berger reported direct to Himmler, while theoretically Eicke reported to Juttner. But as an old SS man he had Himmler’s ear and was able to contact Himmler direct.

[xii] People of German origin

[xiii] In competition with the Wehrmacht

[xiv] Not only a concentration camp but also SS barracks

[xv] In Klosterheide near Lindow

[xvi] Master Race – Clay & Leapman

[xvii] In charge of Ordnungspolizei (Orpo)

[xviii] Equivalent to a Lieutenant General

[xix] Himmler’s castle, used for meetings of the senior SS officers and for training; adapted by slave labour at enormous cost

[xx] The concentration camps inspector

[xxi] The land had been purchased the previous year and Rudolf Hoss had been appointed commander of what had originally been intended as a transit camp

[xxii] Hitler always claimed that having to pull the Italian eggs from the fire was the principal cause of the disasters at the end of the year.

[xxiii] The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich - Shirer

[xxiv] Under the command of Sepp Dietrich

[xxv] An HSSPF Bach-Zelewski had oversight of Einsatzgruppe B

[xxvi] Including Jews and Communist party officials; presumably Wolff was out having a cigarette when this forerunner of the Holocaust was mentioned

[xxvii] Heinrich Himmler - Longerich

[xxviii] Ibid

[xxix] A police officer and head of Eisatzgruppe B and later one of the conspirators attempting to kill Hitler

[xxx] The two former friends had a falling out over the activities of the SD men placed in German embassies around the world; Ribbentrop had the SD men thrown out of the embassies, much to Himmler and Heydrich’s fury

[xxxi] Minister of Finance

[xxxii] A very ambiguous man who took credit for Himmler’s release of Jews in the last months of the war

[xxxiii] Himmler - Padfield

The SS - The Wolff That Got Away 2

The SS Way of Life

In June 1936 Himmler was made Chief of the German Police. Himmler was able to effectively remove control of the police from the Interior Ministry, headed by Frick, and the merging of the role of police chief with his role as head of the SS was to bring Himmler overall control of the German security apparatus.

Keil Week

In late summer after Lina Heydrich had abused Marga Himmler behind her back, Himmler arranged for Lina Heydrich and Freida Wolff to attend Kiel Week. While they were away Himmler demanded that Heydrich divorce his wife. Heydrich informed Lina who hastily returned to Berlin; the couple refused to divorce.

During 1937 Wolff and his staff, working with academics, were involved in planning a systematic cultural framework to replace Christianity. One draft stated that it was the mission of the SS;

‘In the age of the final showdown with Christianity…….[to provide] the proper ideological foundations [for the German people].’[i]

Tegernsee

On 4^th January 1937 the Wolff’s held a naming ceremony[ii] for their third child Thorisman[iii] at their villa on the Tegernsee[iv]. Himmler and Heydrich were the child’s sponsors. The ceremony was conducted by Karl Maria Wiligut[v]. The child was laid before an altar and texts from Mein Kampf were read.

Buda Castle in the 1930s

At the end of 1937 Countess von Bernstorff was given false ID by the head of the SD enabling her to travel to Budapest where Wolff’s fourth child was born; Widikund Thorsson. Wolff appreciated the Nordic appearance of this child of Inge’s. His children with Frieda sadly were not racially pure; Wolff commented;

‘Their mother however has brown hair and brown eyes, their appearance is not markedly Nordic.’[vi]

At the end of 1937 the ungainly Himmler finally put himself forward for the SS sports badge[vii] and Wolff ensured that his boss passed.

An Eventful Year

German and Austrian police dismantle a border post

In January Himmler placed his Lebensborn[viii] organisation under Wolff’s control. Wolff did not put his head over the parapet in 1938; he had little up front involvement in most of the excitements of that tumultuous year; the dramatic changes in the army leadership, the Anschluss in Austria and the manufactured crisis in Czechoslovakia culminating in the Munich Agreement on 29^th September.

Shop damage in Magdeburg

Wolff was however involved in Reichskristallnacht, passing messages from Heydrich, who was coordinating the front line attacks of the SS, to Himmler and Hitler. According to Wolff[ix], Hitler was outraged saying;

‘Find out who is responsible for this. I do not wish my SS to be involved in any of these occurrences for any reason.’[x]

The SS were ordered by Heydrich to wear plain clothes during their involvement in these occurrences.

Das Schwarze Korps

Wolff was involved in Himmler’s successful attempts to obtain the worldly goods of Baron Louis de Rothschild caught behind enemy lines in the newly Nazified Austria. He accompanied Himmler on a visit to Baron Rothschild in his attic prison at the Hotel Metropol[xi]. Following which Himmler ordered the replacement of the bed, table, chair, toilet and washbasin. At the beginning of November an article in Das Schwarze Korps[xii] said;

'The Jews living in Germany[xiii] & Italy are the hostages which fate has placed in our hands.'[xiv]

The Baron was not released until the following midsummer, having been stripped of his assets by agreement with the Nazis. After the war Wolff claimed he had helped a number of rich Jews to escape Nazi justice during the period leading up to the war.

Decapitation of a State

Prague Castle

Wolff was not involved in the logistics of invading the rump of Czechoslovakia[xv]; but he was present for Hitler’s triumphal entry into Prague on 15^th March 1939. Travelling in a fleet of Mercedes Hitler and his entourage, that included Martin Bormann[xvi], Himmler, Joachim von Ribbentrop and Heydrich arrived at Hradschin Castle[xvii] where they were to stay the night. The previous resident, President Hacha having been bullied into a heart attack and signing away his country’s right to independence. Hitler claimed;

‘The Bohemian and Moravian lands had belonged to the living space of the German people for 1,000 years.’[xviii]

Gudrun Himmler with her father and Wolff

Wolff was made commander of the castle and he spent the short time that Hitler stayed there ensuring the safety of his Fuhrer. He later wrote to Gudrun Himmler[xix] that Hitler had embraced her father and said;

‘”I don’t want to praise myself, but I really have to say: it was very elegantly done.”’[xx]

The Road to War

Felix Steiner

Wolff was again present with Himmler when the Fuhrer visited the West Wall[xxi] in mid May, inspecting the fortifications. On the 20^th Himmler had Felix Steiner’s men of the SS Deutschland give a demonstration of their fighting abilities with live ammunition; Hitler was suitably impressed[xxii].

On 25^th May Wolff and Himmler attended the meeting[xxiii] at the Reich Chancellery where Hitler informed those present of his intention to attack Poland at the first opportunity.

‘Our task is to isolate Poland. Success in isolating her will be decisive.’[xxiv]

On the 8^th June 1939 Wolff’s Personlicherstab der RFSS was made one of the main offices of the SS; with Wolff as its chief. Around this time Wolff was also involved in Himmler’s first attempts at the mass moving of Germanic peoples back into the Reich. The Italians had agreed that the Germanic inhabitants[xxv] of the Sud Tyrol could be moved out of Italy[xxvi] and the SS was in charge of this major influx of non-Germans into Germany.

Mussolini

Wolff was one of those who hung around the Reich Chancellery with Himmler on 25^th August to await Hitler’s decision on the invasion of Poland. The invasion was only halted when Mussolini informed Hitler Italy was not ready for war[xxvii]. Before the decision was made not to invade Wolff had passed orders for the Waffen SS units poised to enter Poland. But the orders were held in abeyance for only 6 days.

War’s Early Days

On 3^rd September, as Britain declared war, Wolff was part of the Fuhrer’s entourage as his train left Berlin for the front. Hitler believed that the war would be finished in four weeks. Wolff was to be Himmler’s eyes and ears.

On the 19^th September, with the majority of the Polish defence knocked out Hitler gave one of his typically vainglorious speeches at Danzig town hall. Himmler, Wilhelm Bruckner, Keitel and Wolff were in the audience, which was packed with Nazi notables. Hitler claimed that he had no war aims against France and Britain. He also stated his belief that Poland would never be recreated on the Versailles model.

Ludolf von Alvensleben

In the early autumn Wolff accompanied Himmler and Friedrich Wilhelm Kruger on a whirlwind tour of Poland; the party observed the execution of Polish saboteurs by Ludolf von Alvensleben[xxviii]. Himmler was also given a report of executions in Bromberg by the head of one of Heydrich’s einsatzgruppen[xxix].

Himmler planned a screening of all Poles in an attempt to seek out good German blood;

‘A fundamental question is racial screening and sifting of the young. It is obvious that in this mixture of people some very good racial types will appear from time to time.’[xxx]

Throughout the war Himmler’s minions were to sift through the conquered people’s they ruled over and many children were snatched from their parents by the Lebensborn organisation and taken to live with families in Germany; many never to see their parents again. The Lebensborn was part of Wolff’s new empire so it is inconceivable that he did not know of these plans.

Odilo Globocnik

In late January 1940 Wolff accompanied Himmler on a train trip to Przemysl in Poland where Himmler met the last party of Volhynian Volksdeutsche[xxxi] at the San River crossing. The party included Rudolf Brandt[xxxii], Hans Johst, Ernst Schafer & Joachim Peiper[xxxiii]. The party then travelled to Cracow to meet up with Odilo Globocnik and Hans Frank, the new governor of the General Government of Poland. Throughout the trip much amusement was had from tales of the shootings and atrocities perpetrated against the Jews and Poles.

Bibliography

The Architect of Genocide – Richard Breitman, Pimlico 2004

Master Race – Catine Clay & Michael Leapman, BCA 1995

The Order of the Death’s Head – Heinz Hohne, Penguin 2000

Hitler – Nemesis – Ian Kershaw, Penguin 2001

The Black Corps – Robert Lewis Koehl, University of Wisconsin Press 1983

Top Nazi – Jochen von Lang, Enigma Books 2005

Heinrich Himmler – Peter Longerich, Oxford University Press 2012

Himmler – Peter Padfield, Cassell & Co 2001

Allgemeine-SS – Mark C Yerger, Schiffer Military History 1997

www.wikipedia.en

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[i] Himmler - Padfield

[ii] The SS developed a series of ceremonies to replace Christian rites of birth , marriage and death

[iii] Later Karl-Heinz

[iv] Many Nazi officials had villas on the lake including Bormann and Himmler

[v] Also known as Weisthor, a very odd individual who had become a close adviser to Himmler

[vi] Top Nazi – von Lang

[vii] A necessity for all SS officers

[viii] The organisation assisted women who had illegitimate but racially pure children, staying in an SS hospital to give birth. Later the organisation took to kidnapping children in the occupied territories.

[ix] Wolf alleges that Hitler knew nothing of the atrocities, which seems unlikely

[x] Top Nazi - Lang

[xi] The new HQ for the Gestapo in Vienna

[xii] The SS newspaper, read by many in Germany as it gave more news than the general press

[xiii] Austria was considered part of Germany – der Alte Reich

[xiv] Hitler - Kershaw

[xv] The Munich agreement left the Czechoslovaks with little in the way of defences

[xvi] Still relatively low in the Nazi hierarchy at this time

[xvii] The official residence of the Czech head of state

[xviii] Hitler - Kershaw

[xix] Himmler’s daughter

[xx] Heinrich Himmler - Longerich

[xxi] Or Siegfried Line

[xxii] He gave Himmler permission to form a division, of what was to become known as the Waffen SS, to fight alongside the army.

[xxiii] Also at the meeting were Göring, von Brauchitsch, Halder, Raeder, Milch and Keitel.

[xxiv] Hitler - Kershaw

[xxv] Known as Volksdeutsche; this was a precursor to the mass movements of the so-called Volksdeutsche during the war

[xxvi] Whether they wanted to or not.

[xxvii] His son-in-law Ciano was desperately trying to keep Italy from a war that could not be won

[xxviii] A friend of Himmler’s

[xxix] Killing squads who were to prove their worth in Russia

[xxx] Master Race – Clay, Leapman

[xxxi] The Volhynian Volksdeutsche were being resettled following an agreement with the Russians

[xxxii] Himmler’s personal assistant

[xxxiii] Later convicted of war crimes at Malmedy