NOTES
1. FOREIGN AFFAIRS
A. Halbey, “Klingspor, Karl,” in Neue Deutsche ed. Historische Kommission bei der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1979); Karl Klingspor, Über Schönheit von Schrift und Druck (Frankfurt am Main: Georg Kurt Schauer, 1949).
abounds for Himmler the bookworm. He kept a detailed, annotated list of all the volumes he read between September 4, 1919, and January 6, 1934. See Nachlaß Himmler, BAK, NL Himmler, N 126/9. For an interesting description of at least part of Himmler’s private library, see Felix Kersten, The Memoirs of Doctor Felix ed. Herma Briffault (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1947), pp. 11–12. And for a description of a few of the books he gave to others, see Richard Breitman, The Architect of Genocide (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991), p. 39. See also Sievers to Koehler & Amelang, 09.12.1937, BA, NS 21 /166.
Köhler, Wagner’s trans. Ronald Taylor (Cambridge, U.K.: Polity Press, 2000), p. 13. For a complete itemized list of the manuscripts, see Albert Speer, Spandau (New York: Macmillan, 1976), p. 164. According to Speer, these rare manuscripts were lost at the end of the war.
Hitler’s Birthday,” Times Digital Archive April 20, 1939. http: // web1.infotrac.galegroup.com/.
further details on this present, see Steven Lehrer, Hitler Sites (Jefferson, N. C.: McFarland, 2002), pp. 160–166.
Eichholtz and Kurt Pätzold, eds., Der Weg in den Krieg (Cologne: Pahl-Rugenstein, 1989), p. 327.
Kater, Das ‘Ahnenerbe’ der SS 1935–1945 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1974), p. 110.
Klingspor-Museum in Offenbach possesses a copy of this portfolio in its collections. Personal communication, Stephanie Ehret, Klingspor-Museum.
Akademie der Wissenschaften, Deutsches Wörterbuch von Jacob Grimm und Wilhelm rev. ed. (Stuttgart: S. Hirzel Verlag, 1998), s.v. “Ahnenerbe.” During the Nazi era, German writers concerned with racial purity often used Ahnenerbe in a biological sense to mean “inherited characteristics from the ancestors.” But Nazi writers also used the word to mean “cultural traditions and customs passed on from the ancestors.” For more details, see Cornelia Schmitz-Berning, Vokabular des Nationalsozialismus (Berlin: Walther de Gruyter, 1998), pp. 17–18.
Ahnenerbe (Offenbach am Main: Gebrüder Klingspor, n.d.), p. 4. My citations to this portfolio refer to the copy held in the Klingspor-Museum. The title of the portfolio itself is missing from this copy. However, I found it in a copy held in private hands today.
über die bei der Forschungs-und Lehrgemeinschaft ‘Das Ahnenerbe’ in Berlin-Dahlem vorgenommene Prüfung des Jahresabschlusses zum 31.März 1940,” NARA, RG242, T580/199/569.
Hitler, Mein trans. Ralph Manheim (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1971), p. 290.
their famous book, We Julian Huxley and A. C. Haddon observed that “the Jews of different areas are not genetically equivalent.… The word Jew is valid more as a socio-religious or ‘pseudo-national’ description than as an ethnic term in any genetic sense.” See Julian Huxley and A.C. Haddon, We Europeans (London: Jonathan Cape, 1935), pp. 96–97.
Hitler, Mein p. 305.
1939 edition of Encyclopaedia for example, defined Aryans as follows: “This word is used by some of the ‘Satem’ speakers of Indo-European languages with the meaning ‘noble’ and is the name of one of the tribes of these people. As Sir George Grierson points out, ‘Indians and Iranians who are descended from an Indo-European stock have a perfect right to call themselves Aryans but we English have not’.” And this view was strongly upheld by scholars such as J. R. R. Tolkien. In 1938, a German publishing house approached Tolkien with the idea of publishing his book The Hobbit in Germany. First, however, the publishers wanted to know whether Tolkien was arisch or Aryan. The British author was incensed by this inquiry. “I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by he noted. “I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people.” For further details, see J. P. Zmirak, “Tolkien, Hitler and Nordic Heroism,” Frontpage December 20, 2001.
Universal Jewish ed. Isaac Landman (New York: The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, 1939–1943), s.v. “Jewish Nobel Prize Winners.”
vor den SS-Gruppenführern zu einer Gruppenführerbesprechung im Führerheim der SS-Standarte ‘Deutschland’ am 8.11.1938,” in Heinrich Himmler Geheimreden ed. Bradley F. Smith and Agnes F. Peterson (Frankfurt am Main: Propyläen, 1974).
for example, Himmler to Wüst, 28.05.1940, BA, NS 21/227.
to Wüst, 25.10.1937, NARA, RG 242, T580/186/366.
book was Wijnand van der Sanden’s classic scientific study, Through Nature to (Amsterdam: Batavian Lion International, 1996).
van der Sanden, Through Nature to p. 167. Also “Nazi Leader Heinrich Himmler on the ‘Question of Homosexuality,’” in Homosexuals: Victims of the Nazi Era 1933–1945 (Washington: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, n.d.), http://www.ushmm.org
cited in “Nazi Leader Heinrich Himmler on the ‘Question of Homosexuality,’” in Homosexuals: Victims of the Nazi Era
Osterhuis, “Medicine, Male Bonding, and Homosexuality in Nazi Germany,” Journal of Contemporary History 32, no. 2 (April 1997): 194.
borrowed this idea from Tacitus, a Roman historian who wrote a famous book on the ancient German tribes. In chapter 12 of Germany and Its Tacitus notes that “penalities are distinguished according to the offence. Traitors and deserters are hanged on trees; the coward, the unwarlike, the man stained with abominable vices, is plunged into the mire of the morass, with a hurdle put over him. This distinction in punishment means that crime, they think, ought in being punished, to be exposed, while infamy ought to be buried out of sight.” There is no evidence, however, that Tacitus ever visited Germania, the homeland of the Teutonic tribes. Nevertheless, Herbert Jankuhn, who became the Ahnenerbe department head for archaeology, argued in one of his publications that the male bog bodies were either punished cowards or men who had taken part in “perverse sexual offences.” Wijnand van der Sanden, Through Nature to p. 167.
p. 167.
Victims of the Nazi Era
Lautmann, “The Pink Triangle: The Persecution of Homosexual Males in Concentration Camps in Nazi Germany,” Journal of Homosexuality 6, no. 1/2 (Fall/Winter 1980/81): 157.
Kaschuba, “Am Ort der Geschichte,” in Prähistorie und eds. Achim Leube and Morten Hegewisch. (Heidelberg: Synchron, 2002), pp 13–16.
himself was subjected to threats, particularly from Dr. Walther Wüst, the former scientific director of the Ahnenerbe. In 1966, Wüst and his lawyer attempted to force the University of Heidelberg to prohibit the publication of Kater’s dissertation. Wüst failed.
Leube, “Einleitung,” in Prähistorie und pp. ix–xiv.
of the most tantalizing clues appeared on a large, rather plainly drawn map in the Klingspor portfolio that Himmler planned to give Hitler in the spring of 1939. Sprawling across two large pages, the map seems to be a visual summary of the chief projects of the Ahnenerbe. Small blue triangles mark the locations of the brain trust’s major archaeological digs, while orange dots chart the locations of its research centers. Beyond these, however, the cartographer drew six colored lines that ricocheted and careened across Europe and Asia. According to the map’s legend, they depict the routes of six or “research trips,” from Sicily and Serbia to Finland and Iraq. In addition, six black arrows soar across the pages. They point toward six other destinations: Iceland, Bolivia, the Canary Islands, Libya, Iran, and Tibet.
Kater, Das p. 113
map featured in the Klingspor portfolio depicts the state of the Ahnenerbe expeditions around January 1, 1939. (We can deduce this date from the fact that the portfolio was to be presented to Hitler on April 20, 1939: to meet this deadline, the map would have had to be drawn several months in advance.) Five of the six “research trips” depicted on the map were completed before January 1, 1939. (In addition, it seems very likely that the sixth research trip—to Greece—also took place before January 1, 1939, but its dates are currently unknown.) The remaining six trips were either in progress or still in the planning stage as of January 1939. Therefore the cartographer did not have complete trip route information: he or she merely indicated the general route of these expeditions with a straight black line. From April to August 1939 researchers completed two more foreign trips, to Libya and Tibet. The remaining four trips languished, however, due to the outbreak of war.
Ahnenerbe,” p. 8.
2. THE READER
Strasser characterized Himmler in this way during a conversation with his brother Otto, who later published the account. As quoted in Peter Padfield, Himmler (London: Cassell, 2001), p. 80.
Smith, Heinrich Himmler (Stanford: Hoover Institute Press, 1971), p. 80.
Himmler’s reading list. BAK, NL Himmler, N 1126/9.
van der Sanden, Through Nature to Eternity (Amsterdam: Batavian Lion International, 1996), p. 171; N.G.L Hammond, and H.H. Scullard, The Oxford Classical Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), p. 1,034.
Himmler’s reading list. BAK, NL Himmler, N 1126/9, no. 218.
Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), s.v. “Philology.”
Reitlinger, The SS: Alibi of a Nation, 1922–1945 (Melbourne: Heinemann, 1956), p. 18.
2002, the Staatliches Museum für Völkerkunde in Munich mounted a superb exhibit entitled “Prinzessin Therese von Bayern: Eine Bildungsreise zu den Indianern im Jahre 1893.” The exhibition included artifacts that the princess had collected, as well as a photograph of her private collection at the Wittelsbach palace.
Hanfstängl was a student of Gebhard Himmler in 1898. In a formerly classified report he wrote for the American government on Heinrich Himmler, he included a description of the elder Himmler and his behavior in the classroom. See NARA, RG 226, Entry 171, Box 8.
Hallgarten, as quoted in Peter Padfield, p. 20.
Andersch, The Father of a Murderer (New York: New Directions, 1994). In a recent detailed study of the relevant school records, historian Walter Habersetzer confirms the factual basis of this story. [See Walter Habersetzer, Ein Münchner Gymnasium in der (Munich: Verlag Geschichtswerkstatt Neuhausen, 1997).] Other students also came forward later with disturbing tales of Gebhard Himmler’s methods, see “Mr. & Mrs.,” June 16, 1947. Andersch, it is interesting to note, later went on to become one of the leading German writers of the postwar period.
Habersetzer, Ein Münchner p. 12.
Padfield, p. 69.
story of Siegfried and the fall of the Nibelung dynasty was an immensely popular one in medieval northern Europe. Bards of the age told several versions of the story, including those preserved today in the Volsungsaga and the Thidreksaga. Wagner, who was entranced by the old epics, drew on disparate elements of the Nibelungenlied, and Thidreksaga to create his famous opera cycle, Der Ring dcs
enamored was Himmler with the Nibelungenlied that he picked up the book again as an adult in 1923, gushing in his booklist about its “incomparable eternal beauty in language, depth, and all things German.” See Heinrich Himmler’s reading list. BAK, NL Himmler, N 1126/9, no. 180.
a young man, Himmler gave a copy of the Edda as a present to a friend, a practice he reserved for books he much admired. See Marianne to “Heini” (Heinrich Himmler) 08.09.1926, BAK, N 1126/17.
Alfred Andersch, The Father of a pp. 28–29.
Padfield, p. 22.
of these rooms can be seen in noble residences in Germany. The Wittelsbach winter palace in Munich, for example, has a very similar
Frischauer, Himmler (London: Odhams, 1953), p. 17.
MacDonogh, The Last Kaiser (New York: Times Books, 1977), pp. 295–296.
Frischauer, p. 15.
Padfield, p. 22.
Lautmann, “The Pink Triangle.” Journal of Homosexuality 6, no. 1/2 (Fall/Winter 1980/81): 147.
Frischauer, p. 16.
Knopp, Hitler’s trans. Angus McGeoch (Phoenix Mill, England: Sutton, 2000), p. 119.
Hanfstängl, “Heinrich Himmler,” NARA, RG 226, Entry 171, Box 8.
Frischauer, p. 20.
& Mrs.,” June 16, 1947.
Loewenberg, “The Unsuccessful Adolescence of Heinrich Himmler,” The American Historical Review 76, no. 3 (June 1971): 624.
Padfield, p. 36.
some fraternities in Germany still keep this tradition today.
Himmler’s personal diary. HIA. Heinrich Himmler Collection. Box 15. See for example, the entry dated 13.11.1921.
Hanfstängl, Hitler (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1957), p. 33.
Clay Large, Where Ghosts Walked (New York: W W. Norton, 1997), p. 147.
Himmler’s reading list. BAK, NL Himmler, N 1126/9 no. 47. Under the heading “Artur Dinter. Die Sünde wider das Blut,” for example, Himmler noted that the book “introduces one to the Jewish question with shocking clarity and causes one to approach this situation with extreme distrust.”
Himmler’s reading list. BAK, NL Himmler, N 1126/9, no. 107.
Padfield, p. 59.
Clay Large, Where Ghosts p. 203.
Heiden, “Introduction,” in Adolf Hitler, Mein trans. Ralph Manheim (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1971), p. xviii.
Himmler’s reading list. BAK, NL Himmler, N 1126/9, no. 276.
Himmler’s reading list. BAK, NL Himmler, N 1126/9. In this document, Himmler lists 276 books that he read from September 4, 1919, when he started the booklist, to February 19, 1927, when he finished the second volume of Mein Researcher Charlotte Stenberg classified the subject matter of each book by three methods. She searched initially for the book in the Library of Congress classification system. She also compared the title to the historical novels listed in the database of the University of Innsbruck’s Projekt Historischer Roman. And she examined Himmler’s own comments on the book for indications of its subject. If none of these methods yielded results, then she looked for similar books by the same author in order to determine classification. By these methods, she was able to categorize 211 of the books on the list. Sixty-seven of these books, or 32 percent, were either fictional or nonfictional explorations of the past.
Hitler, Mein p. 290.
3. ARYANS
Loring Brace, “Race Concept,” in History of Physical ed. Frank Spencer (New York: Garland, 1997), vol. 2, p. 861.
Compact Edition of the Oxford English vol. 2 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), s.v. “Race.”
Huxley and A.C. Haddon, We Europeans (London: Jonathan Cape, 1935), p. 18.
Watt, “Parsons, James,” in Bibliotheca vol. 1 (Edinburgh: Constable, 1824). This entry contains a detailed list of his eclectic papers and books.
Mallory, In Search of the Indo-Europeans (New York: Thames & Hudson, 1989), p. 10.
Parsons, The Remains of Japhet, being historical inquiries into the affinity and origins of the European as quoted in J.P. Mallory, In Search of the p. 10.
Mallory, In Search of the Table 3, pp. 12–13.
p. 12.
Huxley and A.C. Haddon, We p. 147.
Compact Edition of the Oxford English s.v. “Aryan.”
have now placed nearly forty major modern languages into the Indo-European family group, from English, French, German, Danish, Swedish, and Irish Gaelic to Serbo-Croatian, Yiddish, and Romany. As two experts on this Indo-European family have noted, “nearly half the world’s population speaks an Indo-European language as a first language.” Thomas Gamkrelidze and V.V. Ivanov, “The Early History of Indo-European Languages,” Scientific American no. 3 (March 1990): 110–116.
to Ludwig Tieck, 15.12.1803, as quoted in Léon Poliakov, The Aryan trans. Edmund Howard. (London: Sussex University Press in association with Heinemann, 1974), p. 191.
Poliakov, The Aryan p. 192.
scholars today agree that a society known as the Indo-Europeans did indeed speak the Indo-European protolanguage. But after more than a century of investigation, scholars are unable to agree on the original homeland of this society and do not ascribe any racial characteristics to this ancient group.
Poliakov, The Aryan p. 191.
Jewish (New York and London: Funk and Wagnalls, 1902), s.v. “Benfey, Theodor.”
of the rules that early German linguists relied on heavily was first developed by fairy-tale collector Jacob Grimm in 1822. It was known as Grimm’s law of Lautverschiebung (“sound shifting”). This rule establishes a number of regular correspondences between early Germanic stops and fricatives (two different types of consonant sounds) and the stop consonants of other Indo-European languages.
V Day, “Aryanism,” in History of Physical ed. Frank Spencer (New York: Garland, 1997), pp. 109–111.
in recent years have continued to use words from the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European vocabulary to support their own theories about the ancient homeland. They have arrived at very different conclusions. Modern scholars such as Thomas Gamkrelidze and V.V. Ivanov have noted, for example, that some words in the reconstructed vocabulary are for animals not found in northern Europe—most notably leopards, lions, monkeys, and elephants. See Thomas Gamkrelidze and V.V. Ivanov. “The Early History of Indo-European Languages,” p. 110. The scholarly search for the homeland of the Indo-Europeans continues today. Currently, researchers have narrowed the search to four possible locations: north-central and eastern Europe, Anatolia, the Balkans and the basin of the Danube River, and the Pontic-Caspian steppes of the Ukraine and Russia. See J.P. Mallory, “Human Populations and the Indo-European Problem,” The Mankind Quarterly 33, no. 2 (Winter 1992): 131–154.
“Germany and Its Tribes,” The Complete Works of ed. Moses Hadas (New York: The Modern Library, 1942), p. 710.
an interesting synopsis of some of the serious errors in Tacitus’ book, “Germany and Its Tribes,” see Julian Huxley and A.C. Haddon, We pp. 33–37.
Mallory, “Human Populations and the Indo-European Problem,” p. 135–137.
biologists define a race as a population that has a distinct lineage and that differs in a significant genetic way from other populations—to such a degree, in fact, that it may be considered a subspecies.
are still unable to agree on a classification system for human races. Many researchers today prefer to talk about race in terms of geographically defined groupings—such as the African geographic race, European geographic race, or Polynesian geographic race. But there is no clear agreement on this system.
Britannica (London: the Encyclopaedia Britannica Company, 1939), s.v. “Anthropology. The Study of Race.”
Weisenburger, “Der ‘Rassenpapst’ Hans Friedrich Karl Günther, Professor für Rassenkunde,” in Die Führer der ed. Michael Kissener and Joachim Scholtyseck et al. (Konstanz: Universitätsverlag Konstanz, 1999), p. 170.
F.K. Günther. The Racial Elements of European trans. G.W. Wheeler. (Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1970), pp. 10–23.
F. K. Günther, The Racial pp. 51–55.
first racial book, Rassenkunde des deutschen or “Racial Studies of the German People,” sold 400,000 copies in Germany by 1945.
of the first scholars to do this was Gustav Kossinna, one of Germany’s most famous archaeologists. See Julian Huxley and A.C. Haddon, We pp. 66–67. Many other younger German archaeologists and scholars then hastened to follow his example in the 1920s and 1930s.
4. DEATH’S-HEAD
Höhne, The Order of the Death’s trans. Richard Barry (New York: Coward-McCann, 1970), p. 52; Gerald Reitlinger, The SS: Alibi of a Nation, 1922–1945 (Melbourne: Heinemann, 1956), p. 25.
Padfield, Himmler (London: Cassell, 2001), p. 89.
Höhne, The Order of the Death’s pp. 51–52. The photographic studio belonged to Heinrich Hoffman, who introduced his assistant Eva Braun to Hitler. Steven Lehrer, Hitler Sites (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2002), p. 57.
Schwarz, Eine Frau an seiner Seite (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 1997), p. 82.
Padfield, p. 83.
information from a Himmler relative. As quoted in Heinz Höhne, The Order of the Death’s p. 49.
memorandum written by Heinrich Himmler. As quoted in Heinz Höhne, The Order of the Death’s p. 44.
Kater, “Die Artamanen,” Historische Zeitschrift 213 (1971): 576–638.
strong supporter of the Artamanen was Hans F. K. Günther, the philologist who had classified the German people into five distinct races for the publisher Julius Lehmann.
Kater, “Die Artamanen,” p. 613.
R. Lovin, “Blut und Boden: The Ideological Basis of the Nazi Agricultural Program,” Journal of the History of Ideas 28, no. 2 (April–June 1967): 280–281.
Darré, Das Bauerntum als Lebensquell der Nordischen Rasse (Munich: J.F. Lehmann, 1933), pp. 367–369.
R. Lovin, “Blut und Boden,” p. 283.
p. 285.
quoted in Heinz Höhne, The Order of the Death’s p. 49.
F. K. Günther, Kleine Rassenkunde Europas (Munich: J. F. Lehmanns Verlag, 1925), p. 82.
Weisenburger, “Der Rassepapst: Hans Friedrich Karl Günther, Professor für Rassenkunde,” in Die Führer der ed. Michael Kissener and Joachim Scholtyseck (Konstanz: Universitätsverlag Konstanz, 1997), p. 174.
is from a speech Himmler gave on January 18, 1943. The quote is taken from Heinz Höhne, The Order of the Death’s p. 52.
Heinemann, “Rasse, Siedlung, deutsches Blut” (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2003), p. 60.
Heinemann, “Rasse, Siedlung, deutsches Blut,” p. 61.
remark was made after the war by Gottlob Berger, who had served as the head of SS recruitment in 1938. See Gerald Reitlinger, The SS: Alibi of a p. 16.
Padfield, p. 377. The original source for this story was a memoir written by Dr. Werner Best in a Danish prison and dated September 18, 1949. This memoir was given to historian Schlomo Aronson. For further details, see Shlomo Aronson, Reinhard Heydrich und die Frühgeschichte von Gestapo und SD (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlag Anstalt, 1971), p. 266, footnote 81.
der Firma Hugo Boss, 1933, Alb-NeckarZeitung. August 1933. As posted online in Elisabeth Timm, “Hugo Ferdinand Boss (1885–1948) und die Firma Hugo Boss,” Eine Dokumentation, 18.04.1999. Available at http://www.metzingen-zwangsarbeit.de/.
Padfield, p. 86.
Bernadac, Le Mystère Otto Rahn (Paris: Éditions France Empire, 1978), p. 248.
Heinemann, “Rasse, Siedlung, deutsches Blut,” p. 51.
der SS-Gruppe Ost,” as quoted in Peter Padfield, p. 101.
Distel and Ruth Jakusch, eds., Concentration Camp Dachau 1933–1945 (Munich: Comité International de Dachau, Brussels Lipp GmbH, 1978), p. 46.
Padfield, p. 87.
Heinemann, “Rasse, Siedlung, deutsches Blut,” p. 66.
Hitler, Hitler’s Table Talk, ed. H.R. Trevor-Roper (London: Phoenix Press, 2000), no. 138, p. 289. Hitler made these remarks on February 4, 1941, when Himmler was his dinner guest.
no. 253, p. 566.
intensity of Himmler’s feeling on this subject can be seen clearly in the comments he writes for his booklist. After finishing Gustav Freytag’s book Aus der he noted, “If only we were still like the ancient Germanic tribes with their traditions and their healthy establishments!” And after putting down Werner Jansen’s historical novel on the Amelungen, he enthused, “The great heroic saga of the Amelungen, in which every Germanic person is a great person who behaves himself as fate and honor demand.… I feel as if I belong to these Germanic tribes-people, however, these days, I am quite alone in this feeling.” Heinrich Himmler’s reading list. BAK, NL Himmler, N 1126/9. no. 217, 259.
Heinemann, “Rasse, Siedlung, deutsches Blut,” p. 67.
“Aktenvermerk,” 16.[?].1934, BA, NS 2/277.
“Aktenvermerk,” 02.06.1936, BA, NS 2/135. SS educators even tested officer candidates on their knowledge of prehistory. As one surviving examination reveals, officers were expected to memorize a series of dates, including that of the Early Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age, as well as the routes of later Germanic migrations and details of Arminius’s victory over the Romans in Teutoberg Forest. See “Prüfungsfragen für SS-Führer,” NARA, BDC, A3345 B, R127/334.
Heinemann, “Rasse, Siedlung, deutsches Blut,” p. 95, footnote 129.
Geschichte. Lichtbildvortrag: Erster Teil: Germanische Frühzeit “Das Licht aus dem Norden,” ed. Reichsführer-SS, IfZ, DC 25.10. Intriguingly this copy of the booklet bears the stamp of “Leibstandarte SS. ‘Adolf Hitler’ Abtlg. Schulung.” This was the educational department of the SS Bodyguard Regiment Adolf Hitler. See also Deutsche Geschichte. Lichtbildvortrag. Zweiter Teil: Die Grossgermanische Zeit “Eiserne Zeit—Germanen marschieren!” BA, NS 31/163.
for example “Genau beachten!” in the 29.05.1936, NARA, BDC A3345 B, R122/1462.
would appear such columns were highly necessary, as some SS men did not understand what the SS was looking for in terms of brides. In one memorable column, a fictional SS-Mann is looking for permission to marry “a girl whose stature is dwarfish. She is 143 cm tall (4.69 feet). In addition, she suffers from heart and eye problems, so that for health and racial-biological reasons alone, she does not come into question as a potential wife for a SS-member.” See “Beispiele aus der Praxis des Sippenamtes,” 15.08.1937, NARA, BDC, A3345 B, R122/676.
November 1944, NARA, BDC, A3345 B, R124/1039.
Hüser, Wewelsburg 1933 bis 1945 (Paderborn: Verlag Bonifatius Drückerei, 1982), pp. 27–29.
der SS auf der Wewelsburg,” Bürener January 24, 1934, reprinted in Karl Hüser, Wewelsburg 1933 bis p. 162.
NARA, BDC, A3343, SS0 Weisthor, Karl-Maria (10.12.1866).
06.01.1925, Bericht über die krankhafte Gemütsart des Herrn Oberst Wiligut,” as published in Hans-Jürgen Lange, Weisthor (Engarda: Arun, 1998), p. 114.
Landesheilanstalt für Geistes-und Gemütskranke. Die Krankheitsgeschichte, 29.11.1924,” as published in Hans-Jürgen Lange, p. 102.
Schweighofer, Handschriftlicher Vermerk, 04.12.1914” (sic. most likely 1924), as published in Hans-Jürgen Lange, p. 107.
über die Anhaltung in einer geschlossenen Anstalt, 11.12.1924,” as published in Hans-Jürgen Lange, p. 111.
der Krankengeschichte. 15.11.1925,” as published in Hans-Jürgen Lange, pp. 129–130.
Goodrick-Clarke, The Occult Roots of Nazism (London: I. B. Taurus, 1992), p. 183. For more information on Wiligut’s trances, see Rüdiger Sünner, Schwarze Sonne (Freiburg: Herde, 1999), p. 50.
Goodrick-Clarke, The Occult Roots of pp. 186–187.
former chief of staff Karl Wolff, who was an eyewitness to part of this meeting, recounted the story in an article that appeared in Neue April/May 1961. As excerpted in Christian Bernadac, Le Mystère Otto p. 348.
Bernadac, Le Mystère Otto pp. 348–349.
it seems highly likely that Himmler was alluding to Arminius and his battle against the Romans by mentioning the “old road of the German heroes.” So sacred had this history become to German nationalists that in 1875 they had built a popular monument to Arminius at a supposed site of the battle in Teutoberg Forest. For further details, see Malcolm Todd, The Early Germans (Oxford, UK; Cambridge, MA, USA: Blackwell Publishers, 1992), p. 266.
Meyer, Wewelsburg. SS-Burg, Konzentrationslager, Mahnmal, Prozess (Paderborn: Selbstverlag, 1982), p. 5.
Flowers and Stephen Cook, Heinrich Himmler’s Camelot (Andrews, N.C.: Kressmann-Backmeyer, 1999), p. 22.
Hüser, Wewelsburg 1933 bis p. 2,4.
Lange, pp. 276–278.
Hüser, Wewelsburg 1933 bis p. 72–73.
p. 33, footnote 44.
Rahn, Luzifers Hofgesind (Leipzig: Schwarzhäupter, 1937), pp. 44–51.
Kr.Paderborn.-Museumeinrichtung 1935–1944,” Nach Erinnerungen von Wilhelm Jordan, 29.12.1979, KWA 70/1/2/14.
Heinemann, “Rasse, Siedlung, deutsches Blut.” pp. 88–89.
Kater, Das ‘Ahnenerbe’ der SS 1935–1945 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1974), p. 27.
5. MAKING STONES SPEAK
Fritz and Walter Puttkammer, Berlin. Die Alte und die Neue Stadt (Berlin: Klinkhardt & Biermann, 1936), p. 24.
and Potsdam, Grieben’s vol.108 (Berlin: A. Goldschmidt, 1931), p. 78.
to Reichserziehungsministerium, 16.02.1935, BA (ehem.BDC) REM: Wirth, Herman (06.05.1885).
über die Prüfung der Buchführung der Gemeinschaft ‘Das Ahnenerbe,’” 31.03.1937, NARA, RG242, T580/199/569.
to Museumdirektion Oslo, 10.08.1930, KHM, Inkomne Skriv 1930; E. to Wirth, 23.01.1935, KHM, Kopibok 1935; Sievers to Direktor Universitetes Oldsaksamling, 22.04.1936, KHM, Inkomne Skriv 1936; Engelhardt to Ahnenerbe, 04.05.1936, KHM, Kopibok 1936; Metropolitan Museum of Art to Wirth, 04.05.1936, NARA, RG242, T580/198/560.
von Grönhagen, “Ungefährer Plan für die Arbeit der Abteilung Pflegestätte für Indogermanisch-Finnische Kulturbeziehungen,” 25.02.37, NARA, RG242, T580/206/716.
Kater, Das ‘Ahnenerbe’ der SS 1935–1945 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1974), p. 38.
museum shows were, to say the very least, eclectic and highly eccentric. For a description of one such show, see “Der Heilbringer: Urreligionsgeschichtliche Ausstellung.” n.d. Deutsche Allgemeine UAR, Personalakte alt. Wirth, Herman.
was Dr. Lisa Schroeter-Bieler who told me about Wirth’s ability to quote Sanskrit texts. Others, such as Paul Rohkst, who knew Wirth after the war, attested to his powers as a speaker. According to Rohkst, he once lectured to an audience in Augsburg for four hours, taking only one break. As Rohkst recalls the occasion, no one left the hall.
of Notable Scholars to the Investigations of Herman Wirth.” North America: The New or the Ancient World? (n.p., n.d.), NARA, RG242, T580/143/167.
communication, Prof. Dr. Helmut Arntz.
a lengthy interview with historian Michael Kater in 1963, Wirth recalled that he met Himmler at the von Leers’ and that this evening took place in late fall of 1934. (See “Gedächtnisprotokoll. Unterredung Prof. Dr. Herman Wirth und Michael H. Kater,” 22.06.1963. IfZ. ZS/A-25, vol.2.) But two letters that Wirth wrote to Darré in 1934 [see BA, (ehem.BDC) WI: Wirth, Herman (06.05.1885)] clearly suggest that he had met Himmler several months earlier than this. In the first letter from Wirth to Darré, written on June 15, 1934, Wirth invited both Darré and Himmler to attend one of his forthcoming lectures. In the second letter, dated July 7, 1934, Wirth referred to tasks “as discussed with RFSS.” This strongly suggests that he had met Himmler sometime before July 7, 1934.
Wistrich, Who’s Who in Nazi Germany (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1982), s.v. “Johann von Leers.”
Bramwell, Blood and Soil: Richard Walther Darré and Hitler’s Green Party (Bourne End, Buckinghamshire: Kensal Press, 1985), pp. 49–50.
Unterredung Prof. Dr. Herman Wirth und Michael H. Kater.” 22.06.1963. IfZ. ZS/A-25, vol. 2.
clearly thought of himself as an expert on racial matters. He liked to tell people that he personally conducted the racial assessments of SS applicants. When he conducted tours of concentration camps, he sometimes pointed out the purported “criminal physiognomies” of certain individuals.
an interesting discussion of this, see Richard Steigmann-Gall, The Holy Reich (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 86–114.
pp. 106–108.
July 1, 1935. As quoted in Richard Steigmann-Gall, The Holy p. 129.
Kersten, The Memoirs of Doctor Felix ed. Herma Briffault (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1947), p. 61.
Åberg, “Herman Wirth: En germansk kulturprofet,” Fornvännen 28 (1933): 247–249.
Wirth, “Lebenslauf,” NARA, RG242, A3343, SSO Wirth, Herman: (06.05.1885).
Wirth, Der Aufgang der Menschheit (Jena: Eugen Diederichs, 1928), p. 14.
zu den Abbildungen: Abb. 2,” in Verzeichnis der Schriften, Manuskripte und Vorträge von Herman Felix Wirth Roeper Bosch ed. Eberhard Baumann (Toppenstedt: Uwe Berg, 1995), p. 349.
Meinung andere Leute über Herman Wirth,” Gesine von Leers to C.W. Mack, 10.08.1932, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Wirth, Herman Felix (06.05.1885).
Wiwjorra, “Herman Wirth—Ein gescheiterter Ideologe zwischen ‘Ahnenerbe’ und Atlantis,” in Historische ed. Barbara Danckwortt and Thorsten Querg (Hamburg: Argument Verlag. 1995), p. 93.
archaeological historian Luitgard Löw points out, Wirth was likely influenced by the ideas of the renowned German historian Oswald Spengler.
a photograph of these gable decorations, see Verzeichnis der ed. Eberhard Baumann, p. 357.
Wirth, Der Aufgang der pp. 15–17.
Wirth, Der Aufgang der pp. 622–626.
14th ed. (London: Encylopaedia Britannica Co. Ltd., 1938), s.v. “Inscriptions.”
oldest rune alphabet consisted of twenty-four letters and is known as Futhark. But runic script evolved considerably over time and place in Europe. Anglo-Saxon rune-masters, for example, added new letters, bringing the total to over thirty, while Scandinavian writers reduced the number to just sixteen.
14th ed, s.v. “Runes.”
Wirth, Der Aufgang der p. 22.
Huxley and A.C. Haddon. We Europeans (London: Jonathan Cape, 1935), p. 94.
Wirth, Der Aufgang der pp. 55–63.
Wiwjorra, “Herman Wirth,” pp. 97–99.
Wirth, Der Aufgang der p. 126–127.
later brought some of these young acolytes with him into the Ahnenerbe. These included Wolfram Sievers, Otto Plassmann, and Otto Huth.
to Galke, 27.01.1937, BA (ehem.BDC) Ahnenerbe: Plassmann, Otto: 12.06.1895.
Webb, The Occult Establishment (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1976), p. 322. Wirth even posted a rather unusual sign in his home: “Please walk softly and don’t smoke: a deep breather lives here.”
Wirth, “Hochschulsiedlung—Ein Weg zum Aufbau,” Berliner February 19, 1933, BAK, 73/11853.
Unterredung Prof. Dr. Herman Wirth und Michael H. Kater,” 22.06.1963, IfZ. ZS/A-25, vol. 2.
Webb, The Occult p. 322.
Wirth, “Das Geheimnis Arktis = Atlantis,” Die Nr.38, 29.04.1931. p. 1144–1156.
Wiegers, “Herman Wirth und die Geologie,” in Herman Wirth und die deutsche Wissenschaft (Munich: J.F. Lehmanns, 1932), p. 8.
Wirth, Der Aufgang der pp. 105–109.
Wiegers, “Herman Wirth und die Geologie,” p. 12.
Meinung anderer Leute über Herman Wirth,” Gesine von Leers to C.W Mack, 14.05.1933, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Wirth, Herman Felix (06.05.1885).
Strohmeyer, Der gebaute Mythos. Das Haus Atlantis in der Bremer Böttcherstrasse. Ein deutsches Missverständnis (Bremen: Donat, 1993).
Müller-Brauel described the collection during a walking tour of Haus Atlantis in 1932. See “Haus Atlantis—Die Sammlung Väterkunde,” Die Böttcherstrasse in Bremen (2001 by Deutsches Rundfunkarchiv/Radio Bremen).
von Merhart, Zu dem Buche Herman Wirth, “Der Aufgang der Menschheit,” BA, (ehem. BDC) REM: Wirth, Herman (06.05.1885).
Köfler to Archivrat, 09.10.1935, BA (ehem. BDC) REM: Wirth, Herman (06.05.1885).
Åberg, “Herman Wirth: En germansk kulturprofet,” Fornvännen 28, 1933: 247–249.
6. FINDING RELIGION
Corten, “A Proposed Mechanism for the Bohuslän Herring Period,” ICES Journal of Marine Science 56 (1999): 207–220.
communication, Camilla Olsson. Also John Coles in association with Lasse Bengtsson, Images of the Past: A Guide to the Rock Carvings and Other Ancient Monuments of Northern Bohuslän (Uddevalla: Bohusläns museum och Bohusläns hembygdsförbund, 1990), p. 14.
p. 39. Swedish archaeologists have managed to date the rock carvings of Bohuslän by a variety of painstaking methods. They have compared certain distinctive objects portrayed in the engravings, such as spectacle broaches, with real examples found in graves that can be accurately dated. They have also studied superimposed images on the rocks, to determine which styles are the oldest, and examined changes in shorelines for additional dating clues. For a more detailed discussion of the dating of the Bohuslän art, see Anne-Sophie Hygen and Lasse Bengtsson, Rock Carvings in the Borderlands (Gothenburg, Sweden: Warner Förlag, 2000), pp. 172–184.
inhabitants of Bohuslän had long been intimately familiar with the carvings, but they first took a serious interest in them during the nineteenth and early twentieth century when scholars from the outside began to study these remarkable works of ancient art. Personal communication, Camilla Olsson.
Hygen and Lasse Bengtsson, Rock Carvings in the p. 186.
in 1994, UNESCO classified the rock-art sites in the parish of Tanum in Bohuslän as a World Heritage Site, noting that “The rock carvings of Tanum region constitute an outstanding example of Bronze Age art of the highest quality.” For further details, see Anne-Sophie Hygen and Lasse Bengtsson, Rock Carvings in the pp. 210–211.
to Himmler, 07.05.1936, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Wirth, Herman Felix (06.05.1885).
Wirth, “Bericht über die Hällristningar-Expedition des ‘Deutschen Ahnenerbe’ vom 27.08 bis 03.09.1935,” BA (ehem. BDC) REM: Wirth, Herman (06.05.1885). Characteristically Wirth makes a number of errors in the report. The title itself is clearly incorrect: the expedition ended in the beginning of October. See Wirth to Reichsantiquar Stockholm, 14.07.1936, “Bericht über die erste Hällrist-ningar-Expedition des ‘Deutschen Ahnenerbes,’ Ende August-Anfang Oktober 1935,” ATA, Stockholm.
Wirth, “Bericht über die Hällristningar-Expedition des ‘Deutschen Ahnenerbe’ vom 27.08 bis 03.09.1935.” BA (ehem. BDC) REM: Wirth, Herman (06.05.1885).
Unterredung Prof. Dr. Walther Wüst und Michael H. Kater,” 04.04.1963. IfZ, ZS/A-25, vol.3.
Speer, Inside the Third as quoted in Bettina Arnold, “The Past as Propaganda: Totalitarian Archaeology in Nazi Germany,” Antiquity 64 (1990): 469.
Unterredung Prof. Dr. Walther Wüst und Michael H. Kater,” 04.04.1963, IfZ, ZS/A-25, vol.3.
did indeed use the casts in at least one speech he gave. See Sievers to Kotte, 07.04.1937, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Kottenrodt, Wilhelm (11.11.1904).
Tresidder, Dictionary of Symbols: An Illustrated Guide to Traditional Images, Icons, and Emblems (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1998), s.v. “Swastika”; Hans Biedermann, Dictionary of trans. James Hulbert (New York: Facts on File, 1992), s.v. “Swastika.”
to Himmler, 07.04.1936, BA, NS 21/693.
to Schindler, 10.06.1929, BA, NS 8/125. See also “Die Meinung anderer Leute über Herman Wirth,” Roselius to Wirth, 10.12.1933, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Wirth, Herman Felix (06.05.1885).
Meinung anderer Leute über Herman Wirth,” Roselius to C.W. Mack, 27.07.1932, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Wirth, Herman Felix: (06.05.1885).
to Galke, 28.10.1936, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Wirth, Herman Felix (06.05.1885).
comments made during a speech Himmler gave to SS-Gruppenführer, February 18, 1937. See Peter Padfield, Himmler (London: Cassell, 2001), p. 193.
of the negotiators was Wolfram Sievers, who was the managing director of the Ahnenerbe. See “Bericht,” 13.12.1935, BA, NS 21/693.
how much Wirth owed in late 1935 is unclear, as correspondence regarding his debts is likely incomplete. In all probability, 84,000 reichsmarks was the bare minimum. See “Bericht,” 13.12.1935, BA, NS 21/693. Also see Galke to Amelang & Koehler, 31.03.1936, BA, NS 21/693.
a speech Himmler gave to the SS-Gruppenführer on February 18, 1937, he described the conditions of this financial assistance. See Peter Padfield, Himmler: p. 193.
“Bericht über die Forschungsfahrt 1936,” 12.06.1936, NARA, RG242, T580/203/686.
“Personalfragebogen,” 24.10.1935, IfZ, SSO Sievers, Wolfram (10.07.1905).
Ärztlicher Untersuchungsbogen: Wolfram Sievers,” BA (ehem.BDC) RS: Sievers, Wolfram (10.07.1905).
to Bousset, 30.07.1936, NARA, RG242, T580/203/686.
to Himmler, 07.05.1936, NARA, RG242, T580/203/686. See also Galke to Reichsführer-SS, 09.05.1936, NARA, RG242, T580/203/686.
scientific funding agency was founded by the five German academies of science, the union of German universities, the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, and other German scientific organizations in 1920. On December 19, 1929, the organization underwent a name change to Deutsche Gemeinschaft zur Erhaltung und Förderung der Forschung In October 1937, it was rechristened Deutsche or the German Research Foundation.
to Himmler, 14.07.1936, NARA, RG242, T580/203/686.
to Galke, 17.07.1936, NARA, RG242, T580/203/686.
“Stammrollenauszug,” BA (ehem.BDC), SSO: Bousset, Helmut (08.12. 1902).
to Landesfinanzamt, 22.07.1936, BA, NS 21/556; See also Luitgard Löw, “Herman Wirth und die Suche nach der germanischen Geistesurgeschichte in Skandinavien,” unpublished paper.
to Reichsantiquar Stockholm, 14.07.1936, ATA Stockholm.
See also Wirth, “Bericht über die erste Hällristningar-Expedition des ‘Deutschen Ahnenerbes,’ Ende August-Anfang Oktober 1935,” ATA, Stockholm.
to Sievers, “Betr. Forschungsreise nach Skandinavien,” 30.07.1936, NARA, RG242, T580/203/686.
“Bericht,” 25.08.1935, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Wirth, Herman Felix: (06.05.1885).
the late summer of 2002, I visited Backa and several other sites in Bohuslän that Wirth had studied. I traveled with German archaeologist Luitgard Löw and Swedish archaeologist Camilla Olsson, who were kind enough to bring me up to date on current scientific knowledge of the sites. Many of the descriptive details in this section are taken from that trip.
Hygen and Lasse Bengtsson, Rock Carvings in the pp. 150–151.
Wirth once told a Swedish antiquity official that he intended to expand on Almgren’s work. Wirth to Curman, 12.01.1939, ATA Stockholm.
dates the Swedish engravings to both the Neolithic and Bronze Age. See Wirth (to Reichsantiquar Stockholm), “Bericht über die zweite Hällristningar-Expedition des ‘Ahnenerbes.’ Berlin 1936.” This report arrived in Stockholm in December 1938. ATA Stockholm. For the dates that Wirth ascribes to the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, see Herman Wirth, Der Aufgang der Menschheit (Jena: Eugen Diederichs, 1928), p. 57.
Wirth, Die Heilige Urschrift der Menschheit (Leipzig: Koehler & Amelang, 1936), pp. 84–93.
Wirth, Der Aufgang der p. 90.
Wirth, “Die Heiligen Zeichen der Weihenacht unserer Ahnen,” Nationalsozialistische 21.12.1934. See also Herman Wirth, Die Heilige Urschrift der p. 518.
to Himmler, “Bericht über die Arbeiten der 2.Expedition des Deutschen Ahnenerbes,” 04.09.1936, NARA, RG242, T580/143/167.
professor avgjuter Tanums många hällristningar,” 23.09.1935, Tanum Hällristningsmuseum. I am indebted to Luitgard Löw for sending me a copy of this clipping.
(to Reichsantiquar Stockholm), “Bericht über die zweite Hällristningar-Expedition des ‘Ahnenerbes.’ Berlin 1936.” This report arrived in Stockholm in December 1938. ATA Stockholm.
communication, Ms. Camilla Olsson.
nazistungdom till Halland,” 19.08.1934. Tanum Hällristningsmuseum. It is unclear who this German professor was, but it could have been Wirth on an earlier trip.
(to Reichsantiquar Stockholm), “Bericht über die zweite Hällristningar-Expedition des ‘Ahnenerbes.’ Berlin 1936.” ATA Stockholm.
to Himmler, “Bericht über die Arbeiten der 2.Expedition des Deutschen Ahnenerbes,” 04.09.1936, NARA, RG242/143/167.
communication, Dr. Jan Brøgger.
og samfundenes ändelige balanse,” 29.07.1936, KHM Brøgger, A.W
Brøgger, editor’s comment, Viking; tidskrift for norrøn arkeologi (November 1937): n.p.
to Brøgger, 07.09.1936, KHM, Inkomne Skriv, 1936.
to Brøgger, 21.09.1936, KHM, Inkomne Skriv. 1936.
In his letter, Wirth refers to the island as Rødøy, but it is clear from the information in the letter that he is actually writing about Rødøya in Alstadhaug County in Norway. It is on Rødøya that the engraving of the skier is found.
famous is the Rødøya skier in Norway that organizers of the 1994 winter Olympics in Lillehammer chose it as the basis for the distinctive logos used for the various sporting events. Personal communication, Ms. Mette Hide.
7. ENCHANTMENT
Bose, “Law and Freedom in the Interpretation of European Folk Epics,” Journal of the International Folk Music Council 10 (1958): 31.
Martin Crawford, “Preface,” in The Kalevala: The Epic Poem of Finland (New York: The Columbian Publishing Co., 1891), p. xxxvii.
least one of these Finnish critics set aside his objections, however, after learning that the famous German linguist and story collector Jacob Grimm praised The Kalevala highly, ranking it with the Greek myths. Juha Y. Pentikäinen, Kalevala trans. Ritva Poom (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989), pp. 22–26.
Martin Crawford, “Preface,” The pp. xliii.
Goodrick-Clarke, The Occult Roots of Nazism (New York: New York University Press, 1992), pp. 154–163.
Tolkien Dead at 81; Wrote ‘The Lord of the Rings,’” The New York September 23, 1973.
the early 1920s, Gorsleben collaborated with the notorious anti-Semite Julius Streicher, who later edited the Nazi newspaper Der For further details see Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, The Occult Roots of pp. 156–159.
Goodrick-Clarke, The Occult Roots of p. 156.
quoted in Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, The Occult Roots of p. 159.
Hitler, Hitler’s Table Talk, ed. H.R.Trevor-Roper (London: Phoenix Press, 2000), p. 249.
Himmler’s reading list. BAK, NL Himmler, N 1126/9. no. 180.
to “Heini,” 08.09.1926. From Himmler’s private correspondence with friends. BAK, NL Heinrich Himmler, N1126/17.
three whole issues of the Edda Society’s publication in 1934 were devoted to Wiligut’s ideas. See Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, The Occult Roots of p. 160.
to Wiligut’s personal assistant, Gabriele Winckler-Dechend, Himmler often invited Wiligut and her for a dinner that consisted of a sandwich, a glass of wine, and a conversation that sometimes stretched on for hours. Under Wiligut’s influence, Himmler created a department in the Ahnenerbe called the Teaching and Research Center for Folktales, Fairytales and Sagas, whose work it was to collect ancient Germanic tales. The role of this center is clearly spelled out in the Klingspor portfolio. “Fairytales, sagas and comic fables are all varieties of stories that flow from the soul of the German people.… These folktales are to be understood as they are told, without false glorification, in essence to remain true to their words and sounds.” Das Ahnenerbe (Offenbach am Main: Gebrüder Klingspor, n.d.), p. 13.
to Wüst, 28.05.1940, BA, NS 21/227. See also Himmler to Wüst, 05.09.1938, in Reichsführer! … Briefe an und von ed. Helmut Heiber (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1968), pp. 59–60.
to Wüst, 28.05.1940, BA, NS 21 /227.
Reichskulturkammer Fragebogen, 06.05.1942, BA (ehem. BDC) RKK: Grönhagen, Yrjö von (03.10.1911). See also “Einige Angaben über das Geschlecht Grönhagen,” unpublished document in collection of Mr. Juhani von Grönhagen.
during the Second World War, Grönhagen wrote a book of German propaganda describing Karelia and its history of battling against Russian Bolsheviks. See Yrjö von Grönhagen, Karelien: Finnlands Bollwerk gegen den Osten (Dresden: Franz Müller Verlag, 1942).
über Jury Karlowitsch Grönhagen,” 02.10.1937, ARK: A 3860.
communication, Mr. Juhani von Grönhagen.
von Grönhagen, private unpublished journal. Collection of Mr. Juhani von Grönhagen. I am indebted to Mr. Juhani von Grönhagen, who kindly brought along the journal to an interview on March 19, 2004.
von Grönhagen, “Zum Geleit,” in Finnische Gespräche (Berlin: Nordland Verlag, 1941).
newspaper was the Frankfurter Yrjö von Grönhagen, private unpublished journal in the collection of Dr. Juhani von Grönhagen.
von Grönhagen, private unpublished journal in the collection of Mr. Juhani von Grönhagen. A copy of this entry also appears in ARK, A 3860, dated 13.10.1935.
Pentikäinen, “Finland as a Cultural Area,” in Cultural Minorities in ed. Juha Pentikäinen and Marja Hiltunen (Helsinki: Finnish National Commission for UNESCO, 1995), pp. 11–12.
über die Arbeitssitzung der Mitarbeiter des ‘Ahnenerbes,’” 25.10.1937, NARA, RG242, T580/128/47.
Martin Crawford, “Preface,” in The pp. vi–vii.
über die Arbeitssitzung der Mitarbeiter des ‘Ahnenerbes,’” 25.10. 1937, NARA, RG242, T580/128/47. Modern scholars have been unable to determine exactly who Tacitus was referring to when he mentioned the Fenni. It is possible, for example, that he was relating stories he had heard of the Sami in Scandinavia and Russia. See Juha Pentikäinen, “Finland as a Cultural Area,” pp. 12–13.
Pentikäinen, “Finland as a Cultural Area,” pp. 12–13.
and Yrjö von Grönhagen, Das Antlitz Finnlands (Berlin: Wiking Verlag, 1942), p. 20.
p. 22.
p. 30.
von Grönhagen, “Karelische Zauberbeschwöorungen,” Germanien (February 1937): pp. 54–57. “Georg” is the German version of “Yrjö.”
p. 54.
Sünner, Schwarze Sonne (Freiburg: Herder, 1999), p. 234, footnote 152.
communication, Mrs. Gabriele Winckler-Dechend, former personal assistant to Karl-Maria Wiligut.
communication, Mrs. Gabriele Winckler-Dechend. After the war, Grönhagen seems to have revised his opinion, describing Wiligut as an unscientific agitator in his book Himmlerin salaseura (Helsinki: Kansankirja, 1948).
“Zeugnis,” 15.11.1939, NARA, RG242, A3345 DS G119: Grönhagen, Yrjö von (03.10.1911).
communication, Dr. Juha Pentikäinen.
Padfield, Himmler (London: Cassell, 2001), pp. 172–174.
p. 172.
to Grönhagen, 19.04.1936, ARK, A3860.
communication, Dr. Juhani von Grönhagen.
to Grönhagen, 19.04.1936, ARK: A3860.
M. Potter, Most German of the Arts (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1998), p. 133.
Heinrich Eggebrecht and Pamela M Potter, “Fritz Bose,” in Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy, http://www.grovemusic.com. Indeed, Bose even published a book on this subject in 1934, entitled Racial Aspects in
“Bericht: Dr. Fritz Bose,” 01.03.1937, NARA, RG242, A3345 DS G113: Bose, Fritz: (28.07.1906.).
M. Potter, Most German of the pp. 106 and 132.
Ritter, An Introduction into Storage Media and Computer Technology (BASF, 1988), pp. 10–12.
to Himmler, 17.04.1937, NARA, RG242, A3345 DS G119: Grönhagen, Yrjö von: (03.10.1911).
communication, Dr. Hannu E. Sinisalo, University of Tampere, Finland. Between 1999 and 2001, Sinisalo interviewed Grönhagen, and during one of these interviews, Grönhagen described the route of the field trip of 1936. Viipuri is now known as Vyborg.
von Grönhagen, Finnische pp. 81–88. We know that Grönhagen went to see Timo Lipitsä during this field trip in 1936 because he presented a photograph he had taken of Lipitsä to Himmler in the autumn of 1936. Interview with Dr. Juha Pentikäinen. See also Fritz Bose, “Typen der Volksmusik in Karelien: Ein Reisebericht,” Archiv für Müsikforschung 3 (1938): 96–118.
von Grönhagen, Finnische p. 82.
p. 84.
is what Grönhagen told other informants, such as Juho Hyvärinen. See Juho Hyvärinen to Martti Haavio, 16.10.1936. SKS, Folklore Archives: Correspondences.
von Grönhagen, Finnische p. 84.
p. 86.
is possible that this is the version of the Kalevala creation story that is preserved today in a collection of Bose’s recordings at the Lautarchiv der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. See LHUB, LA1512-LA1514, which is described as: “Runengesang Karelisch.”
Bose, “Typen der Volksmusik in Karelien,” p. 100.
Abbildung 4, p. 108.
p. 107.
continue to debate the origins of the kantele today, pointing out its resemblance to instruments as diverse as the Russian gusli and the Arabic However, one of the world’s greatest historians of Eurasian stringed instruments, Bo Lawergren, suggests that the kantele likely developed from the lyres of Europe. “To convert a lyre into a zither (like the kantele), all one needs to do is fill the hole in its upper part.” Personal communication, Bo Lawergren and Victor Mair.
von Grönhagen, Finnische p. 54.
p. 55.
is very likely that this magical chant is preserved today in a collection of Bose’s recordings at the Lautarchiv der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. See LHUB, LA 1519: “Zauber Spruch. Karelisch.”
Bose, “Folk Music Research and the Cultivation of Folk Music,” Journal of the International Folk Music Council 9 (1957): 20–21.
von Grönhagen, Finnische p. 41.
LA 1504–1505. “Musik-ges.”
Bose, “Typen der Volksmusik in Karelien,” p. 102.
p. 117.
Ahnenerbe had entered into an agreement to publish this magazine together with the Society for the Friends of German Prehistory. The first joint issue rolled off the press in March 1936. For further details, see Michael Kater, Das ‘Ahnenerbe’ der SS 1935–1945 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1974), p. 105.
von Grönhagen, “Karelische Zauberbeschwörungen,” pp. 54–57.
Hyvärinen to Martti Haavio, 16.10.1936, SKS, Folklore Archives: Correspondences.
communication, Dr. Juha Pentikäinen.
Hyvärinen to Martti Haavio, 16.10.1936; Juho Hyvärinen to Martti Haavi, 29.10.1936; Juho Hyvärinen to Martti Haavio, 12.11.1936. SKS, Folklore Archives: Correspondences.
published an account of this extraordinary meeting in a book he wrote after the war, Himmlerin salaseura (Helsinki: Kansankirja, 1948). I am indebted to Dr. Juha Pentikäinen, who kindly paraphrased and translated the account into English during an interview.
communication, Dr. Juhani von Grönhagen.
to Wolff, 01.07.1937, NARA, RG242, A3345 DS G113: Bose, Fritz (28.07.1906); Sievers to Galke, 31.05.1938, NARA, RG242, A3345 DS G113. Bose, Fritz: (28.07.1906); Sievers to Reichsführer-SS.Persönlicher Stab, 13.03.1941, NARA, RG242, T580/151/229. In one of the primary SS training slide shows on German history, Das Licht aus dem one of the slides depicted two men playing lurs during an ancient summer solstice celebration. The accompanying text notes that “A tree with a decorated wreath, a symbol of the sun, is placed on a cliff. Next to it burns the bonfire, which is still customary today, and the lur players greet the sunlight with celebratory sounds.” Deutsche Geschichte. Lichtbildvortrag: Erster Tel: Germanische Frühzeit “Das Licht aus dem ed. Reichsführer-SS, IfZ, DC 25.10.
an American scholar, Pamela Potter, has pointed out, the lur also figured in an important German debate at the time over the origins of polyphony, a style of musical composition that juxtaposes two or more melodies in harmony. German nationalists claimed that ancient Germanic tribes had invented this sophisticated style of composition on their own. As evidence, scholars cited the fact that archaeologists usually found lurs in pairs. This, they claimed, proved that Germany’s ancestors had always been drawn to consonance and avoided the atonal music deemed typical of Jewish people. For further details, see Pamela M. Potter, Most German of the p. 134.
to Grönhagen, 28.04.1937, ARK, A3860.
Kater, Das “Ahnenerbe,” p. 134.
“Ungefährer Plan für die Arbeit der Abteilung Pflegestätte für indogermanische-finnische Kulturbeziehungen,” 25.02.1937, NARA, RG242, T580/206/716. Two months later, Grönhagen expanded this work plan and gave it a more academic-sounding tone, likely at the insistence of Walther Wüst. See Sievers to Wüst, 21.04.1937. This letter included a copy of Grönhagen’s report entitled, “Arbeitsplan der Abteilung ‘Pflegestätte für indogermanisch-finnische Kulturbeziehungen,’” 21.04.1937. NARA, RG242, T580/206/716.
to Grönhagen, 07.10.1937, NARA, RG242, T580/206/716.
8. THE ORIENTALIST
to Himmler, 24.09.1936, BA, NS 21/302.
to Hitler, 22.02.1933, BA, R 43II/334; “Die Meinung anderer Leute über Herman Wirth,” C.W. Mack to Sievers, 25.02.1933, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Wirth, Herman Felix (06.05.1885). Mack had discussed Wirth with Hitler in 1929. He noted that Hitler sees “Wirth’s prophecies and overestimations of himself as atrocities.”
Kershaw, Hitler (London: Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 1998), pp. 561–562; Ian Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945 (London: Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 2000), pp. 39–40.
great fondness for Wirth as a maverick scholar is evident in a letter he wrote shortly after deposing him as the head of the Ahnenerbe. See Himmler to Dr. Wacker, 28.09.1937, BA (ehem.BDC) REM: Wirth, Herman (06.05.1885).
to Wirth, 08.01.1937, BA, NS 21/703.
to Himmler, 26.10.1936, BA, NS 21/693.
to Galke, 28.10.1936, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Wirth, Herman Felix (06.05.1885).
to Himmler, 08.06.1936, BA (ehem.BDC) Ahnenerbe: Wüst, Walther (07.05.1901); SS Stammrollen-Auszug, 08.03.1937, NARA, RG242, A3343, SSO Wüst, Walther (7.05.1901).
Wüst, “Personalbericht,” NARA, RG242, A3343, SSO Wüst, Walther: (07.05.1901).
communication, Dr. Henry Hoenigswald.
des Ahnenerbe,’” BA (ehem.BDC) 0.879; “Amt Ahnenerbe,” BA, NS 19/1630; Wüst, Walther, “Führerstammkarte,” NARA, RG242, A3343, SSO Wüst, Walther: (07.05.1901).
communication, Dr. Raimund Pfister.
even after joining the party, Wüst complained bitterly about having to rub shoulders with ordinary party members. Wüst to Ahnenerbe, 26.03.1937, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Wüst, Walther (07.05.1901)
Orlow, The History of the Nazi (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1973), p. 48.
the party made some exceptions to this lockout of new members, it did not reopen the membership rolls until May 1937. For further details, see Dietrich Orlow, The History of the Nazi pp. 49–63 and pp. 202–206; Walther Wüst, “Führerstammkarte,” NARA, RG242, A3343, SSO Wüst, Walther (07.05.1901).
“SS-Stammrollen Auszug,” 08.03.1937, BA (ehem. BDC), SSO Wüst, Walther: (07.05.1901).
to Himmler, 08.06.1936, BA (ehem.BDC) Ahnenerbe: Wüst, Walther (07.05.1901); SS Stammrollen-Auszug, 08.03.1937, NARA, RG242, A3343, SSO Wüst, Walther (7.05.1901).
and Elsa Bruckmann were early supporters of Hitler and they donated generously to the Nazi party. For further details, see Ian Kershaw, Hitler pp. 187–188, 282, 299.
to Plassmann, 07.01.1936, BA, NS 21/351.
to Himmler, 08.06.1936, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Wüst, Walther: (07.05.1901).
Unterredung Prof. Dr. Walther Wüst und Michael H. Kater,” 22.04.1963, IfZ, ZS/A-25, vol. 3.
Wüst, “Die indogermanischen Bestandteile des Rigveda und das Problem der ‘urindischen’ Religion,” in Zweites Nordisches (Bremen: Angelsachsen-Verlag, 1934), pp. 155–164. It should be noted that the state of Pakistan had not yet come into existence at the time of this article. Thus when Wüst uses terms such as “the Northwestern Indian realm,” he is largely referring to what is now Pakistan.
p. 159.
Unterredung Prof. Dr. Walther Wüst und Michael H. Kater,” 22.04.1963, IfZ, ZS/A-25, vol. 3.
of the 346 books that Himmler noted on his booklist, which he kept until January 6, 1934, just ten of the entries—2.8 percent—have Asian subjects. Moreover, just two—or 0.5 percent—pertain to Asian religion. These are Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha and Karl Gjellerup’s Der Pilger Heinrich Himmler’s reading list. BAK, NL Himmler, N 1126/9. For an example of extremist writing on the subject of Nordic migrations to the East, see Hans F.K. Günther, Kleine Rassenkunde Europas (Munich: Lehmann, 1925), pp. 112–116.
the time Dr. Felix Kersten met Himmler, which was in 1939, he was reading the Vedic poems, the Rig and speeches by Buddha. Indeed his personal administrative officer Rudolf Brandt told Kersten that these books constituted Himmler’s main reading for “religious background.” See Victor and Victoria Trimondi, Hitler, Buddha, Krishna (Vienna: Ueberreuter, 2002), pp. 26–27.
very early use of this phrase occurs in an article entitled “Walls Within Walls,” The May 18, 1943.
Kater, Das ‘Ahnenerbe’ der SS 1935–1945 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1974), pp. 282–284.
Wüst, “Führerstammkarte,” NARA, RG242, A3343, SSO Wüst, Walther: (07.05.1901).
an example of the clippings he kept, see BStM, Ana 625: Himalaya-Expedition 1929, Dyrenfurth-Expedition 1935, Deutsche Himalaya-Expedition 1931.
kennt Kafiristan?” Münchener January 21, 1935, BA, NS 21/432. See also Walther Wüst, “Die indogermanischen Bestandteile des Rigveda,” in Zweites Nordisches p. 161.
Lixfeld, “Das Ahnenerbe Heinrich Himmlers und die ideologisch-politische Funktion seiner Volkskunde,” in Völkische Wissenschaft. Gestalten und Tendenzen der deutschen und österreichischen Volkskunde in der ersten Hälfte des 20. W. Jacobeit et al. (Vienna: Böhlau, 1994), pp. 217–255: “Bericht über die Arbeitssitzung der Mitarbeiter des ‘Ahnenerbes,’” 25.10. 1937, NARA, RG242, T580/128/47.
Unterredung Prof. Dr. Walther Wüst und Michael H. Kater,” 04.04.1963, IfZ, ZS/A-25, vol.3.
über die Arbeitssitzung der Mitarbeiter des ‘Ahnenerbes,’” 25.10.1937, NARA, RG242, T580/128/47.
1000 m. taikoja ja kansantapoja,” 14.09.1937, ARK, A3869.
to Himmler, 25.10.1937, NARA, RG242, A3345 DS G119: Grönhagen, Yrjö von (03.10.1911).
to Wüst, 1.11.1937, NARA, RG242, A3345 DS G119: Grönhagen Yrjö von (03.10.1911).
to Himmler via Sievers, 20.12.1937, NARA, RG242, A3345, DS G119: Grönhagen Yrjö von (03.10.1911).
9. INTELLIGENCE OPERATIONS
Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945 (London: Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 2000), pp. 81–85.
L. Shirer, The Nightmare Years 1930–1940 (Toronto: Bantam Books, 1985), p.315.
as historian Peter Padfield has noted, Heydrich’s “fascination with the English secret service later extended to signing himself ‘C’ in green ink after the style of Admiral Sir Mansfield Smith-Cumming, founder of MI6.” See Peter Padfield, Himmler: Reichsführer-SS (London: Cassell, 2001), p. 112.
Brissaud, The Nazi Secret trans. Milton Waldman (London: Bodley Head, 1974), pp. 31–32. See also Richard Rhodes, Masters of Death (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002), p. 5.
Padfield, p. 112.
p. 219.
to one author, these forces arrested an estimated seventy-six thousand people in two days alone in Vienna. See André Brissaud, The Nazi Secret p. 195.
L. Shirer, The Nightmare Years p. 317.
to Himmler, 13.07.1938, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Trautmann, Erika (15.04.1897).
communication, Dr. Ruth Altheim-Stiehl. See also Walther K. Nehring, “Erika und Eva Nehring aus Osterwieck,” Familie No. 2, 1973. No stories of this engagement have apparently passed down in the Nehring family, however, and one relative I talked to was skeptical of its authenticity.
communication, Waldemar Nehring.
Petroleum (New York: The Conference Board, 1946), p. 3. In 1938, Germany produced 0.19 percent of world crude oil. Romania, by contrast, was the largest producer in Europe excluding the USSR, and it produced 2.44 percent of world crude oil.
an article in May 14, 1938. As quoted in Nicholas M. Nagy-Talavera, The Green Shirts and Others (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1970), p. 300.
Eichler, “Biographie und künstlerischer Werdegang,” in Wilhelm Altheim: Bilder aus den Volksleben: eine Austellung der Frankfurter Sparkasse von 1822 (Polytechnische Gesellschaft) 1.10–9.11.1979 (Frankfurt: Frankfurter Sparkasse von 1822 [Polytechnische Gesellschaft], 1979), p. 6.
p. 14.
communication, Dr. Ruth Altheim-Stiehl.
Rössler, “Kosmopolitische Gelehrsamkeit,” Neue Zürcher 31.10./01.11.1976, Fernausgabe.
Radke, “Suche nacht Antwort: zum Tode des Althistorikers Franz Altheim,” Der October 20, 1976.
communication, Dr. Dieter Metzler.
communication, Dr. Ruth Altheim-Stiehl.
communication, Dr. Dieter Metzler.
Hungarian writer and historian Antal Szerb paints a thinly fictionalized portrait of Altheim, whom he calls Rodolfo Waldheim, in his novel Der Wanderer und der Mond (Budapest: Corvina, 1974), first published in 1937. He describes Waldheim showing this trophy from Wilhelm’s archaeological working group to the novel’s hero. Szerb was a Catholic of Jewish ancestry and perished in a forced labor camp at the end of the Second World War.
to Director of the Universität Erlangen, 25.06.1935, UAF/M, Abteilung 1, Nr. 1; Platzhoff to Neumann, 07.01.1936, UAF/M, Abteilung 1, Nr. 1.
“Gutachten,” 22.06.1935, UAF/M, Abteilung 1, Nr. 1.
to REM, 27.02.1935, IfZ, MA 116/1.
“Personalnachweis,” entry dated 20.03.1936, BA (ehem.BDC) REM: Altheim, Franz: (06.10.1898).
Goebbels, Michael: Ein deutsches Schicksal in as excerpted in George L. Mosse, Nazi Culture: Intellectual, Cultural and Social Life in the Third Reich (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1966), p. 41.
K. Nehring, “Würdigung des Oberbaudirektors Johann Arnold Nehring (Nering) in der Literatur,” Familienblatt des Familienverbandes Nehring-Moek-Wagner 8, (1966): 26–27.
Haus,” in Genealogie des Familienkreises Nehring 4 (1999): p. 86.
Nehring, “Die Schwestern Eva und Erika Nehring,” Familie Nehring 3 (September 1975): p. 77.
K. Nehring, “Erika und Eva Nehring aus Osterwieck,” Familie Nehring 2 (1973): pp. 51–52.
Nehring, “Die Schwestern Eva und Erika Nehring,” p. 77.
Tuchel and Reinhold Schattenfroh, Zentrale des Terrors (Berlin: Siedler, 1987), pp. 29–30.
UAKB, 7/324, SoSe 1923, 88, Nr. 132; 7/325, WS 1923/24, 27, Nr. 86. There is a sad footnote to this story. Otto Ludwig Haas-Heye’s daughter, Libertas Schulz Boysen, was arrested in the summer of 1942 by the Gestapo for her involvement in the Red Orchestra group, which smuggled Jews and political dissidents out of Germany. She was imprisoned in the former art school. At one point during her stay there, she reportedly laughed and noted that she was “‘sitting’ in the art school where her father had been the Rector.” She was executed on December 1 1942. For a literary account of these events see Peter Weiss, Die Ästhetik des Widerstandes (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1975).
K. Nehring, “Erika und Eva Nehring aus Osterwieck,” p. 51.
Nehring, “Die Schwestern Eva und Erika Nehring,” p. 77.
Mitarbeiterstab des Forschungsinstituts für Kulturmorphologie,” 11.10.1935, BAK, R73/10112.
des Frobenius-Instituts,” in Das Frobenius-Institut an der Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität (Frankfurt a. M.: Frobenius Institut, 1998), pp. 36–40.
I (Felsbilder) Juli-August 1934: Südfrankreich und Ostspanien,” FIA, LF 514.
communication, Mrs. Katharina Lommel.
Expedition XIV Süd-Frankreich/Ost-Spanien 1934,” FIA, Fotoarchiv.
(Felsbilder) 1936: Val Camonica, Italien,” FIA, LF 519. See also Franz Altheim, “Forschungsbericht zur römischen Geschichte,” Die Welt als Geschichte 2, (1936): 68–94.
communication, Mr. Christoph Nehring.
educators in the Third Reich even offered this explanation in textbooks used in German schools. One textbook author, Walther Gehl, who was affiliated with the Ahnenerbe, penned a entire chapter entitled, “The Roman Empire as a Nordic creation.” See Walther Gehl, Geschichte (Breslau: Ferdinand Hirt, 1940), pp. 72–122.
also believed that Rome’s pedigree could be traced back to Germany’s ancestors. After visiting Rome in 1937, he wrote to Wüst requesting that he establish a new department in the Ahnenerbe to “find proof that the Romans … stem from Aryan Indo-Germanic groups who migrated from the North.…” For further details, see Himmler to Wüst, 10.12.1937, NARA, RG242, T580/207/725.
was well aware of the Italians’ attitudes towards this research. He observed to Wüst that the Italians “are solely interested in Caesar’s and the Emperor’s time. Where they came from is uninteresting to them—and perhaps it is good, in terms of politics, that it is so.” Himmler to Wüst, 10.12.1937, NARA, RG242, T580/207/725.
Altheim and Erika Trautmann, “Nordische und italische Felsbildkunst,” Die Welt als Geschichte 3 (1937): 1–82. The couple argued, in this paper, that the carvings of Val Camonica were several centuries younger than those of Bohuslän in Sweden. This suggested that ancient Scandinavians had developed this art in the north and carried it south to Italy. But rock art is notoriously difficult to date and the techniques for doing so in the 1930s were relatively crude. More sophisticated techniques today—employing several lines of evidence—suggest that the oldest rock art in Val Camonica may date back some nine thousand years. This is six thousand years older than Altheim and Trautmann suggested. The art of Val Camonica is at least as old—if not older—than the surviving rock art of Sweden. Thus no evidence exists today to support the contention that migrants from northern Europe left the carvings at Val Camonica. Instead archaeologists now theorize that the artists were of local Italian origins and merely shared religious beliefs and ideas common to many peoples across Europe.
to Höhne, 03.07.1937, BA, NS 21/687.
to the map prepared for the Klingspor volume, Altheim and Trautmann traveled from Berlin to Munich, Vienna, Zagreb, Split, Cattaro, Dubrovnic, Mitropica, Keztheley, Trieste, Venice, Val Camonica, Bologna, Florence, Rome, Syracuse, and Enna, then returned to Berlin. This route and the nature of the research conducted during the trip are confirmed by several surviving reports and letters, particularly those found in BA, NS 21/687. See Trautmann. “Deutsches Reich Reisepass,” BA, NS 21/165; Himmler to Höhne, 03.07.1937, BA, NS 21/687; Höhne to Trautmann, 15.07.1937, BA, NS 21/687; Altheim to Höhne, 24.08.1937, BA, NS 21/687; Altheim RFR ‘Personalnachweis,’ entry dated 31.08.1937, BA (ehem. BDC) RFR: Altheim, Franz (06.10.1898); Altheim to Höhne, 01.09.1937, BA, NS 21/687; Altheim to Höhne, 09.09.1937, BA NS 21/687; Altheim to Höhne, 01.10.1937, BA, NS 21/687; Trautmann to RFSS, 15.10.1937, BA (ehem. BDC) Trautmann, Erika (15.04.1897); Höhne to Ullmann (Reichsführer-SS), 23.10.1937, BA, NS 21/687.
to Trautmann, 01.11.1937, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Trautmann, Erika: (15.04.1897).
“Aktennotiz,” 16.11.1937, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Altheim, Franz: (06.10.1898).
to Professor [?], 16.03.1938, IfZ, MA 116/1.
communication, Dr. Dieter Metzler.
important government institutes, such as the Deutsche experienced grave difficulties in obtaining foreign exchange. See for example, DFG to Auswärtiges Amt. 05.02.1935, PAAA R65737, “Ausgrabungen im Irak” (1933–1937).
A. Boelcke, “Zur internationalen Goldpolitik des NS-Staates: Beitrag zu Deutschen Währungs und Außenwirtschaftspolitik 1933–1945,” in Hitler, Deutschland und ed. Manfred Funke (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1978), pp. 292–309.
“Anmerkung,” 30.06.1938, NARA, RG242, A3345 DS G112: Altheim, Franz (06.10.1898).
and Trautmann to Ahnenerbe, 30.06.1938, NARA, RG242, A3345 DS G112, Altheim, Franz (06.10.1898).
Price, “Cloak & Trowel,” Archaeology (September/October 2003): 30–35.
communication, Dr. Bernhard Caemmerer. Dr. Caemmerer was a former student of Altheim.
am indebted to a 1934 article in National Geographic for many of the details of this scene. See Henrietta Allen Holmes, “The Spell of Romania,” National Geographic (April 1934): 399–450.
and Trautmann, “(Vertraulicher) Bericht: Rumänien” n.d., BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Altheim, Franz. (06.10.1898). This large report is divided into subsections by country.
M. Nagy-Talavera, The Greenshirts and the Others (Stanford, California: Hoover Institute Press, 1970), pp. 251–254.
p. 247.
pp. 276–277.
p. 277.
and Trautmann, “(Vertraulicher) Bericht: Rumänien,” n.d., BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Altheim, Franz (06.10.1898).
Allen Holmes, “The Spell of Romania,” pp. 399–450.
and Trautmann, “(Vertraulicher) Bericht: Rumänien,” n.d., BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Altheim, Franz (06.10.1898).
and Trautmann “(Vertraulicher) Bericht: Syrien,” n.d. BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Altheim, Franz (06.10.1898).
des 2nd ed., ed. Israel Gutman (Piper: Munich, 1998), s.v. “Irak.”
Hirszowicz, The Third Reich and the Arab East (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966), p. 18.
des s.v. “Irak.”
and Trautmann, “(Vertraulicher) Bericht: Irak,” n.d., BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Altheim, Franz (06.10.1898); See also Jordan, “Personalnachweis.” BA (ehem. BDC) REM: Jordan, Julius (27.10.1877).
an example of this view, see Hans F.K. Günther, Die Nordische Rasse bei den Indogermanen Asiens (Munich: J.F. Lehmanns, 1934), pp. 124–125.
Bell to (her) father, 21.08.1921, RLUNT, Gertrude Bell Collection, online.
Altheim and Erika Trautmann, “(Vertraulicher) Bericht: Irak,” n.d., BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Altheim, Franz (06.10.1898).
communication, Dr. Dieter Metzler. Moreover, Altheim’s family made a point of listing this title among Altheim’s more conventional honors—memberships in various European academies of science and the like—in his official death notice. See “Todesanzeige, Franz Altheim,” Frankfurter Allgemeine 23.10.1976.
communication, Dr. Ruth Altheim-Stiehl.
Altheim and Erika Trautmann, “(Vertraulicher) Bericht: Irak,” n.d., BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Altheim, Franz (06.10.1898).
Altheim and Erika Trautmann, “(Vertraulicher) Bericht: Unsere Vorschläge sind,” n.d., BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Altheim, Franz (06.10.1898).
to Himmler, 14.01.1939, NARA, RG242, T580/124/35; Chef des Sicherheitshauptamtes, Der Leiter der Zentralabteilung II 2 to Sievers, 23.05.1939, NARA, RG242, T580, R124/35; Sievers to Altheim, 13.05.1939, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Altheim, Franz (06.10.1898).
des Sicherheitshauptamtes, Der Leiter der Zentralabteilung II 2 to Sievers, 23.05.1939, NARA, RG242, T580, R124/35; Sievers to Altheim. 13.05.1939. BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Altheim, Franz (06.10.1898).
to Ahnenerbe, 21.06.1939, BA, NS 21 / 166.
10. CRO-MAGNON
to Wüst, 05.09.1938, in Helmut Heiber, ed., Reichsführer!.… Briefe an und von Himmler (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1968), pp. 59–60.
“Aktenvermerk: Betr. Die Rolle der Ferse,” 05.11.1938, BA (ehem BDC) Wüst, Walther (07.05.1901); Brandt to Ahnenerbe, 10.08.1938, in Helmut Heiber, ed. p. 58.
to Sievers, 19.09.1938, BA, NS 21/225.
of the Ahnenerbe researchers remarked after the war that they often laughed at Himmler’s research requests and thought them ridiculous, but such comments may be more self-serving than truthful. Certainly, at the time, the Ahnenerbe staff responded to these requests in a serious way. See Wüst “Aktenvermerk: Betr.: Die Entwicklung des christlichen Kelches aus dem Gralskelch,” 05.11.1938, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Wüst, Walther (07.05.1901); Wüst, “Aktenvermerk: Herrscher-Abkunft-Sagen,” 05.11.1938, BA (ehem BDC) Wüst, Walther (07.05.1901); Himmler to Ahnenerbe, 14.02.1940, in Helmut Heiber, ed. Reichsführer! …, pp. 71–72; Sievers to Otto Huth, 19.02.1940, BA, NS 21/225.
friendship is at once apparent in the intimate tone that Himmler adopts in his letters to Wüst. For an example, see Himmler to Wüst, 10.12.1937, NARA, RG242, T580/207/725. Intriguingly, one of Wüst’s friends at the University of Munich, Dr. Franz Dirlmeier, remarked upon the friendship between Wüst and Himmler after the war. See “Gedächtnisprotokoll. Unterredung Prof. Dr. Dirlmeier und Michael H. Kater,” 09.07.1962, IfZ: ZS/A-25 vol. 1.
Unterredung Dr. Ernst Schäfer und Michael H. Kater,” 28.4.1964, IfZ: ZS/A-25, vol.2.
Heinemann, “Rasse, Siedlung, deutsches (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2003), p. 95, footnote 129. See also Alexander Langsdorff and Hans Schleif, “Die Ausgrabungen der Schutzstaffeln,” Germanien (January 1938), photograph 10, p. 10. The photograph shows SS men taking part in a dig. In addition, see Bettina Arnold, “The Past as Propaganda: Totalitarian Archaeology in Nazi Germany,” Antiquity 64 (1990): 464–478.
Bollmus, Das Amt Rosenberg und seine Gegner (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1970), pp. 332–334; Alexander Langsdorff and Hans Schleif, “Die Ausgrabungen der Schutzstaffeln,” Germanien (January 1938): 6–11; Rolf Höhne, “Die Ausgrabungen der Schutzstaffeln,” Germanien (1938): 224–230.
Ahnenerbe (Offenbach am Main: Gebrüder Klingspor, n.d.), p. 14.
Gehl, Geschichte (Breslau: Ferdinand Hirt, 1940), p. 6. Gehl was an archaeologist well known to the SS and the Ahnenerbe. In 1936, he was one of the experts chosen to lead a large group of high-ranking SS officers on a prehistorical tour of Iceland.
“Lebenslauf,” 29.04.1937, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Bohmers, Johan Christiaan Assien(16.01.1912).
communication, Prof. Dr. H.T. Waterbolk, a colleague of Bohmers after the war, at Groningen University; personal communication, Dr. Oebele Vries, a specialist in Frisian studies at Groningen University.
even seems to have tried to make his name sound Frisian. He was born Johan Christiaan Assien Böhmers, and at school he went by the name Han Böhmers—Han being a shortened form of Johan. Later, however, he dropped the umlaut from his surname and chose to be known as Assien. According to one of his former colleagues, Bohmers may have chose Assien because it was the diminutive of Asse, a very rare first name which might sound Frisian. Personal communication, Dr. H. T. Waterbolk.
“Lebenslauf,” 29.04.1937, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Bohmers, Johan Christiaan Assien (16.01.1912).
to Sievers, 12.05.1940, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Bohmers, Johan Christiaan Assien (16.01.1912). See also Sievers to Bohmers, 30.05.1938, BA, NS 21/60; personal communication, Dr. Oebele Vries.
“Lebenslauf,” 29.04.1937, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Bohmers, Johan Christiaan Assien (16.01.1912).
communication, Prof. Dr. H.T. Waterbolk.
to Höhne, 29.04.1937, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Bohmers, Johan Christiaan Assien (16.01.1912).
communication, Dr. Oebele Vries; Bohmers to Sievers, 12.05.1940, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Bohmers, Johan Christiaan Assien (16.01.1912).
to Höhne, 29.04.1937, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Bohmers, Johan Christiaan Assien (16.01.1912).
photograph of Johan Christiaan Assien Bohmers.
refer to this site today as the Weinberg Caves of Mauern. Bohmers himself, however, referred to this site in the 1930s as the Mauern caves and, for the sake of simplicity, I have used this name.
Müller-Karpe, Handbuch der Vorgeschichte (Munich: C.H. Beck’sche Verslagsbuchhandlung, 1966), pp. 299–301.
F.K. Günther, Rassenkunde des deutschen Volkes (Munich: J.F. Lehmanns, 1924), pp. 257–258.
Kater, Das “Ahnenerbe” der (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1974), pp. 80.
Johansen and Blake Edgar, From Lucy to Language (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), p. 244.
Trinkhaus and Pat Shipman, The Neandertals (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993), pp. 109–110.
Huxley and A.C. Haddon, We Europeans (London: Jonathan Cape, 1935), pp. 52–53.
F.K Günther, Rassenkunde des deutschen p. 257.
p. 259.
an example of this, see Eugen Fischer, “Sind die alten Kanarier ausgestor-ben? Eine anthropologische Untersuchung auf den Kanarischen Inseln,” Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 62 (1930): 258–273. Fischer, a prominent German anatomist, measured the heads of a sample group of modern and ancient Canary Islanders and compared the results to measurements of Cro-Magnon skulls. He observed from this that the Cro-Magnon looked very much like modern Canary Islanders. Then, since most of the Canary Islanders he examined had light or light brown hair, he concluded that the “Cro-Magnon race was blond when it arrived on the Canary Islands.”
to Sievers, 18.07.1937 (sic; the date should read 18.07.1938, as indicated by the stamped date of the receiver on the letter), BA, NS 21 / 60.
Bohmers, “Die Mauerner Höhlen und ihre Bedeutung für die Einteilung der Altsteinzeit,” in Ahnenerbe Jahrestagungen. Bericht über die Kieler Tagung ed. Herbert Jankuhn (Neumünster: Karl Wachholtz, 1944), p. 65, IfZ, DC 12.06.
Kater, Das p. 80; Hermann Müller-Karpe, Handbuch der pp. 299–301.
Müller-Karpe, Handbuch der p. 300.
Höhne, “Die Ausgrabungen der Schutzstaffeln,” p. 225.
Müller-Karpe, Handbuch der p. 300.
See also Sievers to Himmler, 13.07.1938, BA, NS 21/60; Bohmers, “Stellungnahme zum Vorbericht,” BA, NS 21 / 60.
“Stellungnahme zum Vorbericht,” BA, NS 21/ 60. See also Lothar Zotz, “Archaeological News: Germany,” American Journal of Archaeology 53, no. 2 (1949): 175. For currently accepted dates on the beginning and end of the Last Interglacial, see “2.4 How Rapidly Did Climate Change in the Distant Past?” in Climate Change 2001: the Scientific ed. J.T. Houghton et al (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
“Stellungnahme zum Vorbericht,” BA, NS 21 / 60. See Tables 1 and 2 specifically.
to Sievers, 18.07.1937 (sic; the date should read 18.07.1938, as indicated by the stamped date on the letter), BA, NS 21 / 60. As subsequent research has shown, Bohmers was very mistaken in these views. Most Paleolithic archaeologists now agree that the Neandertal did not give rise to anatomically modern humans. Instead, modern humans migrated to Europe from elsewhere, most likely Africa, and replaced the Neandertal. See David van Reybrouck, “Boule’s error: On the Social Context of Scientific Knowledge,” Antiquity 76 (2002): 158–164. See also Donald Johanson and Blake Edgar, From Lucy to p. 43.
surviving SS lesson plan boasts, for example, “Today, however, we know: all decisive cultural advancement and developments stemmed from our Nordic core area.” Translated from SS Hauptamt, Lehrplan für zwölfwöchige Schulung, Der Kampf um das NARA, RG242, A3345 B, 122/573.
the fall of 1938, Bohmers went to Brussels to examine Rutot’s collections. Bohmers to Abteilung Ausgrabungen des Ahnenerbes. 27.10.1938. BA, NS 21/60. Rutot believed in what he called “Tertiary man,” a missing link between humans and apes who made simple flint tools some 30 million years ago. For more details, see Raf De Bont, “The Creation of Prehistoric Man: Aimé Rutot and the Eolith Controversy, 1900–1920,” Isis 94 (2003): 604–630.
Rutot, “Note sur l’âge,” as translated and quoted in Raf De Bont, “The Creation of Prehistoric Man,” p. 617.
“Stellungnahme zum Vorbericht,” BA, NS 21/60.
Stab. RFSS to Sievers, 26.07.1938, BA, NS 21/60.
to Sievers, 18.07.1937 (sic; the date should read 18.07.1938, as indicated by the stamped date on the letter), BA, NS 21/60.
to Bohmers, 30.05.1938, BA, NS 21/60.
Chandler, “Belgium—Europe in Miniature,” National Geographic (April 1938): 447–449.
to Abteilung Ausgrabungen des Ahnenerbes, 27.10.1938, BA, NS 21/60.
Houghton Broderick, Father of Prehistory (New York: Morrow, 1963), pp. 151–152.
to Abteilung Ausgrabungen des Ahnenerbes, 27.10.1938, BA, NS 21/60.
H. Breuil, Four Hundred Centuries of Cave trans. Mary E. Boyle (Centre d’Études et Documentation Préhistoriques: Montignac, Dordogne, 1952), p. 16.
des Trois-Frères,” in L’Art des Cavernes: Atlas des Grottes Ornées Paléolithiques Françaises (Ministère de la Culture: Imprimerie Nationale, Paris, 1984), pp. 400–409.
to Abteilung Ausgrabungen des Ahnenerbes, 07.11.1938, BA, NS 21/60.
Peyrony, Les Eyzies: Ses Musées d’Art (Paris: Henri Laurens, 1931), pp. 9–11.
visited at least five of the caves: Les Combarelles, Font-de-Gaume, La Mouthe, Teyat, and Trois-Frères. Bohmers, “Memorandum,” 29.01.1939, BA, NS 21/60.
H. Breuil, Four Hundred Centuries of Cave p. 95.
“Memorandum,” 29.01.1939, BA, NS 21/60.
H. Breuil, Four Hundred Centuries of Cave p. 169.
to Ullmann and Wolff, 18.02.1939, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Bohmers, Johan Christiaan Assien (16.01.1912).
to Sievers, 12.03.1939, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Bohmers, Johan Christiaan Assien (16.01.1912).
Recent scientific evidence shows that Himmler was correct in his idea that modern humans did not evolve directly from the Neandertal. But the Neandertal were by no means lumbering embarrassments in the human pedigree. They possessed brains larger than modern humans and were even known to have played flutes and created simple forms of art.
to Sievers, 26.12.1938, BA, NS 21/ 60.
to Sievers, 12.03.1939, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Bohmers, Johan Christiaan Assien (16.01.1912). Also Sievers to Ullmann and Wolff, 18.02.1939, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Bohmers, Johan Christiaan Assien (16.01.1912).
“Memorandum,” 29.01.1939. BA, NS 21/60.
11. THE BLOSSOMING
Lixfeld, “Das Ahnenerbe Heinrich Himmlers und die ideologisch-politische Funktion seiner Volkskunde,” in Völkische ed. Wolfgang Jacobeit, Hannjost Lixfeld, and Olaf Bockhorn (Vienna: Böhlau, 1994), pp. 217–255.
Michael and Karin Doerr, Nazi-Deutsch/Nazi German (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 2002), s.v. “Bonzopolis.” The character in question, Bonzo, was the creation of English cartoonist George Studdy and starred in some twenty-six animated films in the 1920s. As a small dog, Bonzo fled from the first whiff of danger and freely indulged in all the manly vices—drinking, gambling, and womanizing.
“Wertbericht über das Grundstück in Berlin-Dahlem,” 26.10.1938, BA, NS21/27a.
Kaienburg, Die Wirtschaft der SS (Berlin: Metropol, 2003), p. 183.
“Wertbericht über das Grundstück in Berlin-Dahlem,” 26.10.1938, BA, NS21/27a.
Kaienburg, Die Wirtschaft der p. 183.
des 2nd ed., ed. Israel Gutman, (Munich: Piper, 1998), s.v. “Arisierung.”
“Wertbericht über das Grundstück in Berlin-Dahlem,” 26.10.1938, BA, NS 21/27a.
Sievers’s Diary 1941, 22.08.1941, BA, NS 21/127.
of the largest of these centers seems to have been the Research Site for Biology. See Greite, “Bericht der Forschungsstätte für Biologie,” 11.07.1939, NARA, RG242, A3345 DS G119: Greite, Walther (13.06.1907).
Kaienburg, Die Wirtschaft der p. 184.
to Wüst, 17.01.1940, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Wüst, Walther (07.05.1901); Hermann Kaienburg, Die Wirtschaft der p. 184; “Gedächtnisprotokoll Unterredung Prof. Dr. Walther Wüst und Michael H. Kater,” 04.04.1963, IfZ, ZS/A-25, vol. 3.
Heim, “Research for Autarky: The Contribution of Scientists to Nazi Rule in Germany,” in Geschichte der Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft im Nationalsozialismus (Berlin: Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften, 2001), p. 8.
Kaienburg, Die Wirtschaft der p. 181.
p. 199.
p. 202.
p. 203.
p. 494.
prevalent was this official form of theft that one modern German historian, Götz Aly, has argued that “economically, the Nazi state was a snowballing system of fraud.” In Aly’s view, Hitler managed to cut taxes and introduce expensive social benefits in Nazi Germany only because of his criminal policies of robbing others of their land, real estate, bank accounts, and art treasures. Theft, suggests Aly, was the engine that drove the Nazi state. For further details, see Götz Aly, “I Am the People,” Sign and 03.01.2004, http://www.signandsight.com/features/23.html; Jody K. Biehl, “How Germans Fell for the ‘Feel-Good’ Fueher,” Spiegel Online, http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,347726,00.html.
Kaienburg, Die Wirtschaft der pp. 224–226.
p. 184.
Küttner, “Gutachtliche Äußerung zum Denkmalwert: Bauernhäuser mit Höfen und Gartenland, Mehrow, Lankreis Barnim,” 29.09.1994, BLD; Kaufangebot der Eigenen Scholle an Frau Anna Bothe, 26.02.1937, Nr. 85 des Beurkundungsverzeichnisses des Kulturamtes Frankfurt (Oder) für 1937. As reproduced at http://www.mehrow.de/Geschichte/Bis_1945/Ende_des_Rittergutes.html.
Mehrow,” Magistrats der Stadt Hoppengarten/Orsteile Hönow, Mehrow, Eiche. Bodenfond Mehrow, 25.10.1945, as reproduced at http://www.mehrow.de/Geschichte/Nach_1945/Bodenreform.html.
Kaienburg, Die Wirtschaft der pp. 262–263.
p. 262.
R. Taylor, The Word in Stone (Berkeley, CA: Univ. of California Press, 1974), pp. 210–217.
Kaienburg, Die Wirtschaft der p. 262.
Hitler, Mein trans. Ralph Manheim (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1971), p. 410.
Küttner, “Gutachtliche Äußerung zum Denkmalwert: Bauernhäuser mit Höfen und Gartenland, Mehrow, Landkreis Barnim.” 29.09.1994. BLD Brandenburgisches Landesamt für Denkmalpflege. For more information about the antiquity of this housing style in Germany, see Hans Reichstein, Die Fauna des Germanischen Dorfes Feddersen Wierde (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1991), pp. 7–9; Hans-Jürgen Häßler, ed., Ur-und Frühgeschichte in Niedersachsen (Stuttgart: Theiss, 1991), p. 245.
Küttner, “Gutachtliche Äußerung zum Denkmalwert:” Bauernhäuser mit Höfen und Gartenland, Mehrow, Landkreis Barnim.” 29.09.1994. BLD.
Kaienburg, Die Wirtschaft der p. 262.
the war, Himmler’s officers argued continually about the size of the country estates they had been promised. See Felix Kersten, The Memoirs of Doctor Felix ed. Herma Briffault (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1947), pp. 49–50.
Ahnenerbe (Offenbach am Main: Gebrüder Klingspor, n.d.). This document lists some thirty different research sites. However, some of these departments seem to have existed only on paper, as future plans.
Wüst, for example, was a regular contributor to both the SS-Leitheft and Völkischer See Victor and Victoria Trimondi, Hitler, Buddha, Krishna (Vienna: Ueberreuter, 2002), p. 59.
Ahnenerbe organized a scientific conference in Kiel in the summer of 1939 that was covered widely in the press. Alfons Paquet, “Planmäßige Vorgeschichts-forschung: Die Kieler Jahrestagung der Gemeinschaft ‘Ahnenerbe,’” Frankfurter Zeitung (08.06.1939), IfZ, Presseauschnittsammlung; “Altsteinzeitliche Funde: Fortsetzung der Jahrestagung, ‘Das Ahnenerbe,’” Westdeutsche Beobachter (02.06.1939), IfZ, Presseauschnittsammlung; “Wikinger beherrschten Osteuropa: Die Kieler Tagung des ‘Ahnenerbes,’” Berliner Börsen-Zeitung (14.06.1939), IfZ, Presseauschnittsammlung.
p. 25.
pp. 32–33.
p. 33.
12. TO THE HIMALAYAS
and Victoria Trimondi, Hitler, Buddha, Krishna (Vienna: Ueberreuter, 2002), pp. 26–27.
Breitmann, The Architect of Genocide (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991), p. 39.
Activities of Dr. Ernst Schaefer, Tibet Explorer and Scientist with SS-sponsored Scientific Institutes,” Headquarters United States Forces European Theater, Military Intelligence Service Center, 12.02.1946, NARA, RG238, M1270/27. For further details on Oshima Hiroshi, see Ben Fischer, “The Japanese Ambassador Who Knew Too Much,” Center for the Study of Intelligence Bulletin 9 (Spring, 1999): 6–9.
F.K. Günther, The Racial Elements of European trans. G.C. Wheeler (Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1970), p. 133.
term Inner Asia refers to the interior of the Eurasian landmass. It encompasses Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, the Republic of Mongolia, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Tibet Autonomous Regions of the People’s Republic of China, and neighboring parts of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, China, and Siberia. I am indebted to the Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies, Indiana University, Bloomington, for this definition. By contrast, the term Central Asia refers to a smaller portion of this region. Central Asia encompasses Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Xinjiang, eastern Iran, and Afghanistan. I have borrowed this definition from the department of Inner Asian and Altaic Studies at Harvard University.
F.K.Günther, The Racial Elements of European p. 132. For further details, see Hans. F.K. Günther, Die Nordische Rasse bei den Indogermanen Asiens (Munich: J.F. Lehmanns Verlag, 1934), pp. 194–196. The notion of an Aryan elite in Japan would have been deeply offensive to Japanese leaders of the day, however. They insisted upon the racial purity of the Japanese nation. For further details, see John W. Dower, War without Mercy (New York: Pantheon, 1986), pp. 9 and 215.
F.K. Günther, The Racial Elements of European p. 134. As one key piece of evidence, Günther notes that the invaders called themselves the Hari in Armenia, a Sanskrit word that he translates as “the Blonds.” This translation is simply erroneous. The Sanskrit word “hari” describes a wide range of colors in the Rig including red, chestnut, and even green. For more details, see A. James Gregor, “Nordicism Revisited,” Phylon 22, no. 4 (1961): 351–360.
F.K Günther, Die Nordische p. 57.
pp. 70–71. Günther never seems to have considered that other factors, such as dietary differences between upper and lower castes, might account for the disparities in physical height.
to Wüst, 25.10.1937, NARA, RG242, T580/186/366.
Unterredung Prof. Dr. Walther Wüst und Michael H. Kater,” 04.04.1963, IfZ, ZS/A-25, vol.3.
Weisenburger, “Der Rassepapst: Hans Friedrich Karl Günther, Professor für Rassenkunde,” in Die Führer der ed. Michael Kißener and Joachim Scholtyseck (Konstanz: Universitätsverlag Konstanz, 1997), p. 181.
Konsulatto Deutsches Gesandtschaft, 04.11.1935, PAAA, R 65588.
to Heissmeyer, 13.12.1935, BAK, R73/14198.
Generalkonsulat to Geheimrat, 13.01.1936, PAAA: R65588.
Heissmeyer, 13.12.1935, BAK, R73/14198.
Auslands Amtsleiter to Dieckhoff, 17.02.1936, PAAA: R65588.
Ernst Schäfer, as quoted in Christopher Hale, Himmler’s Crusade (Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2003), p. 114.
Hedin, Ohne Auftrag in Berlin (Kiel: Arndt, 1991), pp. 139–140.
Tibet,” Das Schwarze 16.07.1936, BA, R135/80. This is the fifth installment in a series of articles the SS newspaper ran about Schäfer’s second expedition to Inner Asia. The article appears without a byline, but there can be no doubt that Schäfer supplied the racial information for it. In the first installment, dated 18.06.1936, the newspaper’s editors proudly noted that “we bring you the first part of a series for our readers using the original facts and picture material supplied for us by Ernst Schäfer.” Some of Schäfer’s surviving letters in public archives pointedly refer to grave fields at Batang that he discovered. See, for example, Schäfer to Greite, 26.08.1936, BAK, R73/14198.
Tibet,” Das Schwarze 16.07.1936, BA, R135/80.
NARA, RG242, A3343, SSO Schäfer, Ernst (14.03.1910).
one hearing after the war, Schäfer recounted a conversation he had had with Wüst during the war. “Wüst called me to him. He said to me, ‘You studied ethnology, too, you are not just a biologist.’ I said, ‘I studied ethnology and I was very interested in it, in connection with Tibet.’” For more details see “Vernehmung des Ernst Schaefer vom 31.03.1947,” Interrogation #1018-a. Mr. Lyon-Flick case. Question 18, NARA, RG238, M1019/62.
Tibet,” Das Schwarze 16.07.1936, BA, R135/80. For details on Schäfer’s factual contributions to this article, see footnote 21.
a private memoir that Schäfer wrote after the war for his family and friends, he claimed that Himmler asked him in this meeting whether he had encountered people with blond hair and blue eyes in Tibet and that he had denied this. This is almost certainly an evasion of the truth. Schäfer simply did not want to admit after 1945 that he had once had a strong personal interest in racial studies. For further details on Schäfer’s memoir, see Rüdiger Sünner, Schwarze Sonne (Freiburg: Herder, 1999), p. 48.
Activities of Dr. Ernst Schaefer, Tibet Explorer and Scientist with SS-sponsored Scientific Institutes,” Headquarters United States Forces European Theater, Military Intelligence Service Center, 12.02.1946, NARA, RG238, M1270/27. In the American report, the city in Inner Asia is spelled “Urbe.” It seems clear, however, that this is a transcription error by the American stenographers. In a later letter dated 26.05.1937, Himmler’s chief of staff, Karl Wolff, notes that Schäfer’s Tibet expedition has the aim of finding “the city of Obo in the Gobi Desert.” Wolff to Höhne, 26.05.1937, BA, NS 21/687. It is possible that Himmler and Schäfer specifically meant Bayan Obo in the northwestern part of Outer Mongolia. The famous Swedish explorer Sven Hedin had visited the spot in 1927.
Activities of Dr. Ernst Schaefer, Tibet Explorer and Scientist with SS-sponsored Scientific Institutes,” Headquarters United States Forces European Theater, Military Intelligence Service Center, 12.02.1946, NARA, RG238, M1270/27.
“Aktennotiz,” 06.08.1937, BA (ehem.BDC) Ahnenerbe: Schäfer, Ernst (14.03.1910); Wolff to Höhne, 26.05.1937, BA, NS 21/687.
Sünner, Schwarze p. 50. Sünner states that this story came from a book of memoirs written by an unnamed author. It is certain, however, that this author is Schäfer. During an interview I conducted with Mrs. Gabriele Winckler-Dechend, Wiligut’s female assistant, she recalled a visit that Schäfer had paid to Wiligut and clearly remembered their conversation about the telepathy of Tibetan lamas.
communication, Mrs. Gabriele Winckler-Dechend.
Tibet,” Das Schwarze 16.07.1936, BA, R135/80.
communication, Mr. Gerd Pucka.
communication, Mrs. Ursula Schäfer.
Tibet,” Das Schwarze 25.06.1936, BA, R135/80.
Diary, Academy of Sciences Archives, vol. 1.95 (August 5–6, 1934), as quoted in Karl E. Meyer and Shareen Blair Brysac, Tournament of Shadows (Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint, 1999), p. 538.
communication, Mr. Gerd Pucka.
NARA, RG242, A3343, SSO Schäfer, Ernst (14.03.1910).
Tibet,” Das Schwarze 25.06.1936, BA, R135/80.
to Himmler, 06.10.1936, NARA, RG242, T580/204/686.
“Aktennotiz,” 04.10.1937, NARA, RG242, T580/143/167.
“Aktennotiz,” 06.08.1937, BA (ehem.BDC) Ahnenerbe: Schäfer, Ernst (14.03.1910).
senior official was Dr. Rolf Höhne. For further details, see Bruno Beger, Mit der deutschen Tibetexpedition Ernst Schäfer 1938/39 nach Lhasa (Wiesbaden: Schwarz, 1998), pp. 5–6.
communication, Dr. Bruno Beger.
Heinemann, “Rasse, Siedlung, deutsches Blut” (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2003), p. 18.
to Reichsführer-SS, 20.09.1940, NARA, RG242, A3343, SSO Beger, Bruno (27.04.1911).
communication, Dr. Bruno Beger. For details on this proposed Hawaii expedition, see Head of RuSHA to RFSS, 04.05.1938, BA, NS 21/361; Brandt to Ahnenerbe, 31.03.1939, BA, NS 21/361.
to RFSS, 04.05.1938, BA, NS 21/361.
communication, Dr. Bruno Beger.
communication, Mrs. Ursula Schäfer and Dr. Ulrich Gruber. German scholar Isrun Engelhardt recently discovered a written eyewitness account of this tragic accident that confirms the stories told by Mrs. Schäfer and Dr. Gruber. For details of this report, see Christopher Hale, Himmler’s p. 131.
communication, Dr. Ulrich Gruber.
to RFSS Pers. Stab, 04.03.1938, NARA, RG242, T580/204/686.
letters sometimes prompted great puzzlement from the German manufacturers. For an example of this, see Carl Walther Waffenfabrik to Galke, 12.01.1938, NARA, RG242, T580/204/686.
Hitler, Mein trans. Ralph Manheim (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1971), pp. 290–291; Ian Kershaw, Hitler 1936–45: Nemesis (London: Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 2000), p. 26.
W. Dower, War without p. 203.
pp. 272–275.
ersten Weißen in Jalung Podrang,” Niedersächische Tageszeitung 04.08.1939, BA, NS 21/633. See also Schäfer to Sievers, 27.12.1937, BA (ehem.BDC) Ahnenerbe: Schäfer, Ernst (14.03.1910).
E. Meyer and Shareen Blair Brysac, Tournament of Shadows (Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint, 1999), p. 514.
to Sievers, 27.12.1937, BA (ehem.BDC) Ahnenerbe: Schäfer, Ernst (14.03.1910).
to Wolff, 23.01.1938, NARA, RG242, T580/204/686.
soon after the start of World War II, Himmler proceeded to place Schäfer in charge of a military expedition to Tibet. The purpose of the mission was to set up a base in Tibet from which to disrupt Indian railroads and telegraph and to carry out diversionary feints in order to keep British troops occupied. For further details, see Headquarters United States Forces European Theater Military Intelligence Service Center, “The Activities of Dr. Ernst Schaefer, Tibet Explorer and Scientist with SS-sponsored Scientific Institutes,” Headquarters United States Forces European Theater, Military Intelligence Service Center, 12.02.1946, NARA, RG238, M1270/27.
Advertising Council of the German Economy donated 46,000 reichsmarks. The German Research Council contributed 30,000 reichsmarks, while the Eher Verlag paid 20,000 reichsmarks. The remaining 16,111 reichsmarks in revenue came from small donors, including the Foreign Ministry and two private donors. See Schäfer, “Gesamt-Abrechnung,” 15.11.1940, NARA, RG242, T81/127/150165.
to Günther, 24.02.1938, BA-DH, ZM 1457 A5.
to Spitzi, 04.03.1938, BStU HA IX/11 FV 17/75 Bd. 17.
is the name that appears on the official letterhead of the expedition that Schäfer used in March 1938. See Schäfer to Beger, 01.03.1938, NARA, RG242, T81/130/163342.
Beger, Mit der deutschen p. 10.
Generalkonsulat, 11.06.1938, BA-DH, ZM 1457 A.5.
to Himmler, 05.06.1938, BA-DH, ZM 1457 A.5.
to Obersturmbannführer, 09.05.1938, BA-DH, ZM 1457 A.5.
to Sir Barry Domvile, 19.05.1938, BA-DH, ZM 1457 A.5.
addition, Domvile also passed word of Himmler’s complaints on to his journalist son, Compton Domvile, who put a positive public spin on both the expedition and on Himmler himself in The Anglo-German [Compton Domvile to RF-SS, translated 09.08.1938, NARA, RG242, A3343, SSO 067B: Schäfer, Ernst (14.03.1910).] Himmler, noted the younger Domvile, “has long taken a deep interest in the origin and prehistory of mankind. His studious and inquiring mind, which is held to be one of the keenest and most enlightened in Germany today, finds relaxation in archaeology, genealogy and kindred fields of research. Thus he holds the office of President of the Ahnenerbes (sic) organization, which is concerned with the study of the origins and early cultural development of the German people, and which, in pursuance of its researches into the early wanderings of man, has sponsored Dr. Schäfer’s expedition.” Compton Domvile, “Dr. Ernst Schäfer looks at India,” 17.07.1938, NARA, RG242, A3343, SSO: Schäfer, Ernst (14.03.1910).
to Himmler, 05.06.1938, BA-DH, ZM 1457 A.5.
Rumbold, India Office, to G.E. Hubbard, Political Intelligence Dept., FO, 13.01.43, as cited in Karl E. Meyer and Shareen Blair Brysac, Tournament of p. 513.
Spencer Chapman, Lhasa: The Holy City (London: Readers Union Ltd by arrangement with Chatto & Windus, 1940), p. 6.
Schäfer, Geheimnis Tibet: Erster Bericht der Deutschen Tibet-Expedition Ernst Schäfer 1938/39 (München: Bruckmann, 1943), pp. 57–58.
Schäfer, Geheimnis p. 56.
Beger, Mit der deutschen p. 14.
über die anthropologische Ausrüstung für SS-Untersturmführer Beger,” NARA, RG242, T580/143/167.
13. TIBET
an example of Beger’s measurements, see the data compiled for Kaiser Bahadur, the expedition’s interpreter. “II, 2 Kaiser, Bahadur, Nepali, Gangtok (Dolmetscher),” NARA, RG242, T81/131/165016.
F.K. Günther, The Racial Elements of European trans. G.C. Wheeler (Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1970), Map VIII, p. 105.
p. 10.
Boas, “Changes in Bodily Form of Descendants of Immigrants,” 1910, as quoted in Clarence C. Gravlee, H. Russell Bernard, and William R. Leonard, “Heredity, Environment and Cranial Form: A Reanalysis of Boas’s Immigrant Data,” American Anthropologist 105, no. 1 (March 2003): 127. It is interesting to note that two American anthropologists have recently questioned the statistical significance of Boas’s findings—the first major challenge to the study in ninety-two years. See Corey S. Sparks and Richard L. Jantz, “A Reassessment of Human Cranial Plasticity: Boas Revisited,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 99, no. 23 (November 12, 2002): 14636–14639. Gravlee and his colleagues conclude, however, that “Boas got it right.”
C. Gravlee, H. Russell Bernard, and William R. Leonard, “Heredity, Environment and Cranial Form,” pp. 125–138. As this paper points out, “Franz Boas’s classic study, ‘Changes in Bodily Form of Descendants of Immigrants,’ is a landmark in the history of anthropology. More than any single study, it undermined racial typology in physical anthropology and helped turn the tide against early-20th-century scientist racism.”
Beger, “10.Bild.,” NARA, RG242, T81/132/165403–165418. Although this document lacks both a title and a named author, these notes are clearly intended as a guide for a slide show presented by Beger. In this document, Beger briefly recalled the events of that day and the thoughts that went through his mind. “Suddenly a Tibetan with remarkably fine clothing arrives. My next thought is that I should measure him.”
Beger, “10.Bild.,” NARA, RG242, T81/132/165403–165418.
Schäfer, Geheimnis Tibet: Ers ter Bericht der Deutschen Tibet-Expedition Ernst Schäfer 1938/39 (Munich: Bruckmann, 1943), p. 86.
Schäfer, Geheimnis pp. 86–90.
Tibetan Council of Ministers to Schäfer, Third Day of the Tenth Month of the Fire-Tiger Year, as quoted in Christopher Hale, Himmler’s Crusade (Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2003), p. 200.
to Schäfer, 05.12.1938, NARA, RG242, A3343, SSO Schäfer, Ernst (14.03.1910).
Beger, “14. Bild.,” NARA, RG242, T81/132/165407.
Beger, “25. Bild.,” NARA, RG242, T81/132/165409.
is evident from the list of equipment that Beger took to Tibet that he used three substances—Negocoll, Hominit, and Celerit—to make casts and replica human heads. These three ingredients were all part of the Poller method of castmaking, favored by many physicians. “Aufstellung über die anthropologische Ausrüstung für SS-Untersturmführer Beger, NARA, RG242, T580/143/167; Alphons Poller, ed., Das Pollersche Verfahren zum Abformen (Berlin, Wien: Urban & Schwarzenberg, 1931).
Poller, “Vorwort,” Das Pollersche Verfahren zum p. vi.
dem ‘Gesammt-Verlags-Katalog’ des deutschen Buchhandels: Gebr. Schlagintweit, ‘Sammlung ethnographischer Köpfe,’” BA, R135/58/151779. What is particularly interesting is that this price list came from a file containing many of Beger’s personal papers on racial studies, including the racial measurements of his own wife, Hildegard.
the such exhibitions began opening all over Austria. See Klaus Taschwer, “Anthropologie ins Volk-Zur Austellungspolitik einer anwend-baren Wissenschaft bis 1945,” in Politik der ed. Herbert Posch and Gottfried Fliedl (Vienna: Turia and Kent, 1996) pp. 30–31; Gert Kerschbaumer, “Das ‘Deutsche Haus der Natur’ zu Salzburg,” in Politik der p. 198.
“Rassenkundliche Abformungen auf der Tibetexpedition Ernst Schäfer,” 09.11.1942, NARA, RG242, T81/129/151690.
Schäfer, Geheimnis p. 178.
Beger, “36.Bild,” NARA, RG242, T81/132/165410–165411.
mit Labrang Kugnoe, dem geistlichen Oberhaupt von Gyantse,” NARA, RG242, T81/128/151360.
“Sachbericht,” 23.01.1939, BA (ehem.BDC) Ahnenerbe: Schäfer, Ernst (14.03.1910). Intriguingly, this report reads as if it were intended for publication in Das Schwarze an important SS publication. Although it is unsigned, it was almost certainly written by Schäfer and is very similar in style to the “Unbekantes Tibet” articles that the zoologist wrote for Das Schwarze Korps in 1936.
Beger, Mit der deutschen Tibetexpedition Ernst Schäfer 1938/39 nach Lhasa (Wiesbaden: Schwarz, 1998), p. 160.
p. 161.
Das Schwarze Korps sprach mit Dr. Ernst Schäfer,” Mitte Januar, NARA, RG242, T81/132/165472–165477.
der Tibetforschung,” n.d., NARA RG242, T81 /128/151362–151363.
English translation of a field-journal account, “Visit to Gyaldzong Place,” NARA, RG242, T81/131/164706–07. This account is not signed, but it was found among a group of four other similar translated field-journal entries that all contained observations on anthropological matters. There seems to be no question that the original author was Bruno Beger. The original German version of this can be found in Beger’s “Ethnologische Aufzeichnungen” folder at NARA, RG242, T81/128/151356–151357.
Schäfer, Geheimnis p. 178.
p. 180.
p. 182.
to Brandt, 25.06.1940, NARA, RG242, T84/257/6617401–6617415.
durch Himmler in München,” Berliner 05.08.1939, NARA, RG242, T580/143/167.
Beger, “Rassen in Tibet,” 19.02.1943, NARA, RG242, T81/128/151657–151669.
to Brandt, 25.06.1940, NARA, RG242, T84/257/6617401–6617415.
Activities of Dr. Ernst Schaefer, Tibet Explorer and Scientist with SS-sponsored Scientific Institutes,” Headquarters United States Forces European Theater, Military Intelligence Service Center, 12.02.1946. NARA, RG238, M1270/27.
14. IN SIEVERS’S OFFICE
Clay Large, Berlin (New York: Basic Books, 2000), p. 316.
p. 317.
to Ullmann, 11.08.1939, BA (ehem. BDC) 0.996.
Kiss, Das Sonnentor von Tihuanaku und Hörbigers Welteislehre (Leipzig: Koehler & Amelang, 1937), p. 146; Donald Johanson and Blake Edgar, From Lucy to Language (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), p. 38.
“Personalangaben,” 04.04.1944, NARA, RG242, A3343, SSO: Kiss, Edmund (10.12.1886); Abschrift (Ärztlicher Untersuchungsbogen), n.d., Kiss, Edmund. BA (ehem.BDC) Ahnenerbe: Kiss, Edmund (10.12.1886).
of Edmund Kiss, “Dienstlaufbahn,” n.d., NARA, RG242, A3343, SSO Kiss, Edmund (10.12.1886).
“Leumundszeugnis,” 05.07.1948, HHA, Abt.520 KS-HL Nr.88, Spruchkammer Kassel; Rudolf Bury, “Eidesstattliche Erklärung,” 06.07.1948, HHA, Abt.520 KS-HL Nr.88, Spruchkammer Kassel.
“SS-Stammrollenauszug,” 31.01.1939, NARA, RG242, A3343, SSO: Kiss, Edmund (10.12.1886).
Bowen, preface to Universal (London: Bellhaven Press, 1993), p. viii.
Kiss and four other prominent believers in the World Ice Theory signed an official declaration, known as the Pyrmonter Protokoll, in 1936, stating that “Hans Hörbiger’s World Ice Theory in its fundamental form is the intellectual gift of a genius that is important to all humanity in both practical and worldview terms. To Germans, it is a true Aryan gift of special importance.” “Abschrift Pyrmonter Protokoll,” 19.07.1936, NARA, RG242, T580/194/465. For further details on the popularity of the World Ice Theory in Nazi Germany, see Robert Bowen, Universal pp. 146–150.
Bowen, Universal pp. 59–60.
p. 76.
Hitler, Hitler’s Table Talk ed. H.R.Trevor-Roper (London: Phoenix Press, 2000), no.125, p. 249.
Posnansky concluded that some twenty-seven degrees separated the current position of the sun from that when the temple was built. Adela Breton, “Proceedings of Americanists’ Congress,” Man 84 (1910). Subsequent archaeological excavation and radiocarbon dating—an absolute method of dating that came into use after the Second World War—has shown that Tiwanaku is no more than seventeen hundred years old. Alexei Vranich, “Tiwanaku Q&A,” Archaeology’s Interactive Dig, http://www.archaeology.org.
Kiss, Das Sonnentor von pp. 130–132.
Kiss, “Die Kordillerenkolonien der Atlantiden,” Schlüssel zum Weltgeschehen 8/9 (1931): 259.
261.
Kiss, “Nordische Baukunst in Bolivien?” Germanien 5 (May 1933): 144.
Kiss, Das Sonnentor von pp. 144–145.
Kiss, Das Sonnentor von pp. 106–107.
von Elmayer-Vestenbrugg, “Versunkene Reiche,” Die 24.04.1937, BA, NS 21/714.
to Koehler & Amelang, 09.12.1937, BA, NS 21/ 166.
to Himmler, 07.03.1938, BA, NS 21/ 166.
had taken a flight over Libya and, while soaring over mountains there, noticed what he believed to be the telltale white layers of fossil shorelines. He insisted that Kiss put aside his South American plans, take a leave of absence from his government post, and prepare immediately to depart for Libya. Kiss strongly suspected that the trip to Libya, an Italian possession at the time, would be futile. The North African coast was strewn with fossil records of rising and falling sea levels, but Kiss knew that these geological formations had nothing to do with the purported cataclysms of the World Ice Theory. Still, he agreed to take a look: he did not want to antagonize his powerful patron. He also agreed to include Sardinia on his itinerary, when someone in the Ahnenerbe pointed out an apparent similarity between stone towers there and the architecture at Tiwanaku.
Kiss set off by train for Rome on February 15 or 16, 1939. He had a cameraman and an assistant in tow. A short stint in a library there convinced him that a trip to Sardinia would be unnecessary. A few days later, he arrived in the Libyan capital of Tripoli. The Libyan governor, an ardent aviator and a friend of Charles Lindbergh, placed a plane, a pilot, and a truck at his disposal, and over the next two weeks, Kiss and his associates explored the Libyan countryside. The weather was not terribly conducive to aerial scouting—thick gray clouds heavy with rain hung over the coastal mountains, refusing to budge most days—but Kiss kept busy. He drew neat draftsmanlike maps of the mountains, carefully noting the coastal terraces and the notches of deep canyons and occasionally jotting down the word where he thought he found “pieces of evidence.” He walked plains and canyons dotted with occasional palm trees, sketching profiles of the low mountains, and mulled over the origins of the Nalut Canyon not far from the Algerian border. The more he looked at it and at a number of similar gorges in the Libyan mountains, the more intrigued he became. “Strong water currents on the scale imagined by the World Ice Theory most likely formed them through erosion,” he later wrote. “There is no other explanation.”
For further information on this research trip, see Kiss, “Programm der Forschungsreise des SS-Hauptsturmführers Kiss,” 30.01.1939, BA, NS 21/415; Sievers, “Abrechnung für die Tripolis-Reise von: SS-Hauptsturmführer Kiss, SS-Obersturmführer Bousset, SS-Anwärter Mohri” 16.02.1939, BA (ehem.BDC) Ahnenerbe, Kiss: Edmund (10.12.1886); Kiss to Sievers, 20.02.1939, BA NS, 21/415; “Niederschrift betreffend Vortrag des SS-Hauptsturmführers Kiss beim Reichsführer SS,” 08.05.1939, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Kiss, Edmund (10.12.1886); Kiss, “Ergebnisbericht der Forschungsreise des SS-Hauptsturmführers Kiss nach Tripolis,” 15.05.1939, BA, NS 21/415; “Protokoll der öffentlichen Sitzung am 05.August 1948,” HHA.Abt. 520 KS-HL Nr. 88. Spruchkammer Kassel.
to Himmler, 18.08.1939, BA, NS 21/123.
“Vorläufiges Programm,” 15.04.1939, BA, NS 21/171.
to Himmler, 18.08.1939, BA, NS 21/123.
to Menzel, 20.09.1938, BAK, R73/ 15896.
See also George G. Cameron, “Darius Carved History on Ageless Rock,” National Geographic (December 1950): 825–844.
Wüst, “Ein indogermanisches Dokument,” SS-Leitheft (July 1943), p. 5. NARA, RG242, A3345B, 124/ 646.
portrait of Darius in the relief would have been of immense interest to racial researchers such as Günther, who relied on such images to illustrate popular picture books on race. Indeed, Günther had already included a rather crude sketch of Darius I, based on a sculpted relief, in his book The Racial Elements of European trans. G.C. Wheeler (Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1970), pp. 145–147.
Campbell Thompson, “The Rock of Behistun,” in Wonders of the ed. Sir J.A. Hammerton. Vol. II (New York: Wise and Co., 1937), p. 765. See also George G. Cameron, “Darius Carved History on Ageless Rock,” p. 840.
to Menzel, 20.09.1938, BAK, R73/ 15896.
“Aktenvermerk,” 27.10.1938, BA (ehem.BDC) Ahnenerbe: Wüst, Walther (07.05.1901).
Guy, “Balloon Photography and Archaeological Excavation,” Antiquity 6 (June 1932):148–155. Others who followed this lead included the Polish excavators of Biskupin. See Jozef Kostrzewski, “Osada bagienna w Biskupinie, w pow. zininskim,” Przeglad Archeologiczny 5 (1938): 121–140.
Höhne, “Die Ausgrabungen der Schutzstaffeln,” Germanien (1938): 224–230.
to Menzel, 20.09.1938, BAK, R73/ 15896. Wüst does not mention the name of the Iranian student he had in mind, but it seems clear from other surviving pieces of correspondence that he planned to take Davoud Monchi-Zadeh. Monchi-Zadeh was working closely with him during this period. See Wüst: Aktenvermerk: Betr: Herrscher-Abkunft-Sagen, 05.11.1938, BA (ehem.BDC) Ahnenerbe: Wüst, Walther (07.05.1901).
to Menzel, 20.09.1938, BAK, R73/ 15896.
to Menzel, 20.09.1938, BAK, R73/ 15896.
“Fragebogen für Mitglieder: Reichsverband Deutscher Schriftsteller,” 05.12.1933, BA (ehem BDC) RKK: Huth, Otto Herbert (09.05.1906); Huth, “R.u.S.-Fragebogen.” 30.01.1939. BA (ehem.BDC) RS: Huth, Otto Herbert (09.05.1906).
“R.u.S.-Fragebogen,” 30.01.1939, BA (ehem.BDC) RS: Huth, Otto Herbert (09.05.1906).
Wirth, Der Aufgang der Menschheit (Jena: Diederichs, 1934), pp. 105–109.
Rodriguez-Martin, “The Guanche Mummies,” in Mummies, Disease and Ancient ed. Aiden Cockburn, Eve Cockburn, and Theodore A. Reyman, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 283.
Huth, “Die Gesittung der Kanarier als Schlüssel zum Ur-Indogermanentum,” Germanien 2 (February 1937): 50.
Hooton, The Ancient Inhabitants of the Canary Islands (Cambridge, MA: Peabody Museum of Harvard University, 1925), p. 44. In addition, as one modern mummy expert, Dr. Guido Lombardi, has pointed out to me, a form of malnutrition, known as kwashiorkor and caused by inadequate protein intake, can also lighten or redden the hair color of the living.
Huth, “Die Gesittung der Kanarier als Schlüssel zum Ur-Indogermanentum,” p. 54.
is one of the expeditions shown on the Ahnenerbe map in the Klingspor volume.
to Wüst, 14.02.1939, BA (ehem.BDC) Ahnenerbe: Huth, Otto. (09.05.1906).
Nußbaumer, Alfred Quellmalz und seine Südtiroler Feldforschungen (Innsbruck: Libreria Musicale Italiana, 2001), p. 163.
is akin to saying that the Pilgrim fathers of New England—who also spoke a Germanic language—were German forefathers and that the early remote New England colonies preserved a pure form of Germanic tradition.
Burkert to Notgemeinschaft (Arbeitsplan), 17.04.1935, BAK, R73/16788. In 1936, Burkert guided an SS study commission of scholars and very high-ranking SS officers—including Prinz Waldeck Pyrmont and Hermann Behrends, the first head of the SS Security Service—on a trip to Iceland and its ancient historic sites. The commission made a pilgrimage to Iceland’s national shrine, Thingvellir, and to the home of Snorri Sturluson, the author of the Prose Without a doubt, the trip was intended to inspire the top echelon of the SS with a sense of their Nordic heritage and to prepare them for the terrible work that Himmler envisioned ahead of them. For more details, see Grundherr, “Abschrift zu Pol II 424,” 19.06.1936, PAAA, Ges. Kopenhagen C 3 (1934/37) Band 1. For an account of the trip written by one of the scholars, see Otto Rahn, Luzifers Hofgesind (Leipzig: Schwarzhäupter, 1937). For a brief scholarly account of the trip, see Thór Whitehead, Íslandsaevintyri Himmlers (Reykjavík: Vaka-Helgafell, 1998).
to Himmler. 13.01.1938, BA, NS 21/599. Also, Schweizer, “Zu Zollerlassgesuch Schweizer vom 15.11.1938,” n.d., BA (ehem BDC) Ahnenerbe: Schweizer, Bruno: (03.05.1897).
“Zu Zollerlassgesuch Schweizer vom 15.11.1938,” n.d., BA (ehem BDC) Ahnenerbe: Schweizer, Bruno: (03.05.1897).
“Beiträge zum SS-Kalender,” n.d., NARA, RG242, T580/199/570.
to Gerlach, 18.04.1939, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Schweizer, Bruno (03.05.1897).
to Wüst, 21.04.1939, BA, NS 21/40.
so convinced was Himmler that Iceland was a repository of ancient Germanic lore that he sent a “study commission” of high-ranking SS officers to Iceland in 1936 to commune with the ancient past. See note 54.
Kaienburg, Die Wirtschaft der SS (Berlin: Metropol, 2003), p. 262.
it turned out, the Scandinavian reporters had learned of plans for a smaller SS research trip to Iceland led by Dr. Kurt Tackenberg and Dr. Walter Gehl. Tackenberg and Gehl intended on excavating ancient Icelandic temples.
aus der dänischen Zeitung: ‘Extrabladet,’” 11.03.1939, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Schweizer, Bruno (03.05.1897).
to Sievers, 22.03.1939, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Schweizer, Bruno. (03.05.1897).
to Ahnenerbe, 20.05.1939, BA, NS 21/40.
“Besprechung Sievers-Schweizer-Gerlach,” 21.04.1939, BA, NS 21/40.
“Betr. Islandreise,” 26.05.1939, BA, NS 21/ 123.
to president of Reichsgesundheitsamt, 25.01.1939. BA, NS 21/40.
F.K. Günther, The Racial Elements of European p. 74. Even the vile anti-Semitic film Der Ewige produced in 1940 at Josef Goebbels’s request, publicly acknowledged the difficulty that many Nazis had in identifying Jews who did not wear forelocks or skullcaps. “Hair, beard, skullcap and caftan,” noted the film’s narrator, “make the Eastern Jew recognizable to all. If he appears without his trademarks, only the sharp-eyed can recognize his racial origins.”
further details on the quest for racial diagnosis in Germany, see Ernst Klee, Deutsche Medizin im Dritten Reich (Frankfurt: S. Fischer, 2001), pp. 158–165.
Heinemann, “Rasse, Siedlung, deutsches Blut” (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2003), p. 552. See also Himmler to Bormann, 22.05.1943, in Reichsführer! ed. Helmut Heiber (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1968), p. 213.
“Lebenslauf,” 28.11.37, NARA, RG242, SSO: Greite, Walther: (13.06.1907).
des 2nd ed., ed. Israel Gutman (Munich: Piper, 1998), s.v. “Reichszentrale für Jüdische Auswanderung.”
Polt-Heinz, review of Die Rothschilds. Porträt einer by Frederic Mortons, Wiener 03.12.2004.
“Abschrift,” 11.07.1939, NARA, RG242, A3345 DS G119. Greite, Walter (13.06.1907).
Unterredung Frau Hella Sievers und Michael H. Kater,” 26.04.1963, IfZ, ZS/A-25 vol. 2.
“Aktenvermerk für den Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler,” 25.05.1939, BA (ehem.BDC) 0.996.
15. THIEVES
Kersten, The Memoirs of Doctor Felix ed. Herma Briffault (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1947), p. 44.
Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945: Nemesis (London: Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 2000), p. 223
Kershaw, Hitler p. 226.
Kershaw, Hitler pp. 240–241.
Rhodes, Masters of Death (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002) pp. 3–4.
C. Lukas, The Forgotten Holocaust (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1986), p. 3. As quoted in Richard Rhodes, Masters of p. 6.
Kershaw, Hitler p. 241.
Heinemann, “Rasse, Siedlung, deutsches Blut” (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2003), p. 188.
Padfield, Himmler: Reichsführer-SS (London: Macmillan, 2001), p. 291.
to Himmler, 04.09.1939, BA (ehem BDC) Ahnenerbe: Paulsen, Peter (08.10.1902).
Wolf, “Peter Paulsen Nachruf,” Fundberichte aus Baden Württemberg 10, (1985): 727–728.
“Gutachten,” 27.03.1938, BA (ehem. BDC) PK: Paulsen, Peter (08.10.1902).
“R.u.S.–Fragebogen, Lebenslauf,” 28.11.1936, BA (ehem BDC) RS: Paulsen, Peter (08.10.1902).
“Lebenslauf,” 28.11.1936, BA (ehem. BDC) PK: Paulsen, Peter (08.10.1902).
Jacobs, “Peter Paulsen: Ein Wanderer zwischen zwei Welten,” in Prähistorie und ed. Achim Leube and Morten Hegewisch (Heidelberg: Synchron, 2002), pp. 451–459.
“R.u.S.-Fragebogen, Lebenslauf,” 28.11.1936, BA (ehem BDC) RS: Paulsen, Peter (08.10.1902).
to Himmler, 04.09.1939, BA (ehem BDC) Ahnenerbe: Paulsen, Peter (08.10.1902).
to Sievers, “Schutz-Maßnahmen für kulturgeschichtliche Denkmäler in Polen,” 15.09.1939, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Paulsen, Peter (08.10.1902). This letter is also quoted in “Document 2, Poland,” in Hellmut Lehmann-Haupt, Cultural Looting of the Ahnenerbe: Report prepared by Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives OMGUS, March 1, 1948, NARA, RG 260, M1926/R151. Paulsen’s memo actually refers to the “protection of monuments in Poland.” But as Lehmann-Haupt points out, the Ahnenerbe correspondence during the war is replete with ambiguity and the distortion of facts. Indeed, Lehmann-Haupt himself counted twenty-one different euphemisms for “looting” in the documents, from sicherstellen (“to secure”), to aufnehmen (“to register”). “Protection” should be added to this list.
to Sievers, 18.09.1939, as reproduced in Andrzej Mezynski, Kommando Paulsen (Cologne: Dittrich-Verlag, 2000) pp. 26–33.
to Sievers, 21.09.1939, as reproduced in Andrzej Mezynski, Kommando p. 24.
Six, “Führerstammkarte,” BA (ehem. BDC) SSO: Six, Franz Alfred (12.08.1909).
“Dienstreisebericht von Peter Paulsen,” 04.01.1940, as reproduced in Andrzej Mezynski, Kommando pp. 55–67.
Burkhard, The Cracow Altar of Veit Stoss (Munich: Bruckmann, 1972), p. 26, footnote 21.
p. 23.
to Kaiser, 05.10.1939, as quoted in “Document 183, Poland,” in Hellmut Lehmann-Haupt, Cultural Looting of the Ahnenerbe: Report prepared by Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives OMGUS, March 1, 1948, NARA, RG260, M1926/R151.
“Aktenvermerk,” 18.04.1941, as reproduced in Andrzej Mezynski, Kommando pp. 39–42.
Aktenvermerk, 14.10.1939, BA (ehem. BDC) SS HO–1324.
title of prince-bishop is a very old one, dating back to the Roman era. During that time, prince-bishops wielded great secular power in a city, in addition to their clerical authority.
“Dienstreisebericht von Peter Paulsen,” 04.01.1940, as reproduced in Andrzej Mezynski, Kommando pp. 55–67. The Black Madonna was painted sometime after the sixth century and was presented to the monks of Jasna Gora, near Czestochowa, in the fourteenth century. Miracles have reportedly befallen pilgrims traveling to see it, and in 1717 it was crowned “Queen of Poland” by the faithful.
to Lammers, 16.11.1939, as noted in Jonathan Petropoulos, Art as Politics in the Third Reich (Chapel Hill & London: University of North Carolina Press, 1996), p. 108.
p. 109.
Hitler, Hitler’s Table Talk ed. H.R.Trevor-Roper (London: Phoenix Press, 2000), no.77, pp. 146–149.
1942, members of the Polish resistance in Switzerland discovered that the altar had been hidden either in or near Nuremberg. They relayed the information to American authorities, who began searching for the altar after they entered Nuremberg in 1945. The American army retrieved it and sent it back to Kraków in 1946. After eleven years of restoration, it was reinstalled in St. Mary’s Church. For further details, see Ferdinand and Delia Kuhn, “Poland Opens Her Doors,” National Geographic (September 1958): 357–398.
Aktenvermerk, 14.10.1939, BA (ehem. BDC) SS HO–1324.
Aktenvermerk, 14.10.1939, BA (ehem. BDC) SS HO–1324.
“Dienstreisebericht von Peter Paulsen,” 04.01.1940, as reproduced in Andrzej Mezynski, Kommando pp. 55–67.
“Aktenvermerk,” 14.10.1939, BA (ehem. BDC) SS HO-1324.
Scheel to Martin Bormann, 12.11.1942, as translated and quoted in Jonathan Petropoulos, Art as Politics in the Third p. 105.
“Dienstreisebericht von Peter Paulsen,” 04.01.1940, as reproduced in Andrzej Mezynski, Kommando pp. 55–67.
to Sievers, 06.01.1940, BA (ehem.BDC) Ahnenerbe: Schleif, Hans (23.02.1902).
“Dienstreisebericht von Peter Paulsen,” 04.01.1940, as reproduced in Andrzej Mezynski, Kommando pp. 55–67.
to Sievers, 06.01.1940, BA (ehem.BDC) Ahnenerbe: Schleif, Hans (23.02.1902).
to Sievers, 01.11.1940, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Petersen, Ernst (28.04.1905).
Bogucki, “Konrad Jazdzewski (1908–1985) European Prehistorian,” The Polish Review 31, no. 1 (1986): 73–77. See also Konrad Jazdzewski, Poland (London: Thames and Hudson, 1965).
to Sievers, 01.11.1940, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Petersen, Ernst (28.04.1905). Petersen even reported in this letter a complaint of Jazdzewski that there was “no civility in these ‘men of the SS.’”
to Sievers, 01.11.1940, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Petersen, Ernst (28.04.1905).
however, returned after Paulsen’s detachment had plundered the collection, and remained there throughout the war, trying to rebuild the museum. For further details, see Petersen to Sievers, 01.11.1940, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Petersen, Ernst (28.04.1905). As Jazdzewski himself noted in a book he published on Polish archaeology after the war, “The Nazi invasion of Poland was a catastrophe without precedent for all branches of the nation’s cultural life and archaeology was no exception. One quarter of Polish archaeologists perished on the battlefield or in concentration camps. Others, threatened with arrest and almost certain death, had to live in hiding (as did the doyen of Polish archaeologists, Professor Józef Kostrzewski in Poznán); the few remaining ones were forbidden to engage in scientific work.” See Konrad Jazdzewski, pp. 18–19.
“Dienstreisebericht von Peter Paulsen,” 04.01.1940, as reproduced in Andrzej Mezynski, Kommando pp. 55–67.
Tratz, “Abschrift: Verzeichnis der in Polen beschlagnahmten naturwissenschaftlichen Gegenstände,” n.d., BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Tratz, Eduard (25.09.1888). This list was originally included in a letter from Sievers to Six dated 18.12.1939. “Document 203, Poland,” in Hellmut Lehmann-Haupt, Cultural Looting of the Ahnenerbe: Report prepared by Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives OMGUS, March 1, 1948, NARA, RG 260, M1926/R151.
Tratz, “Über die Aufgaben der naturwissenschaftlichen Museen im allgemeinen und über Arbeiten im ‘Haus der Natur’ in Salzburg im besonderen,” Der Biologe 8 (1939), as cited in Gottfried Fliedl, Das Haus der Natur in Salzburg als In stitut des http://homepage.univie.ac.at/gottfried.fliedl/mouseion/hausdernatur.html.
“Abschrift: Verzeichnis der in Polen beschlagnahmten naturwissenschaftlichen Gegenstände,” n.d., BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Tratz, Eduard (25.09.1888).
Kerschbaumer, “Der Deutsche Haus der Natur zu Salzburg,” in Politik der ed. Herbert Posch and Gottfried Fliedl (Vienna: Turia and Kant, 1996), pp. 180–212.
“Abschrift: Verzeichnis der in Polen beschlagnahmten naturwissenschaftlichen Gegenstände,” n.d., BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Tratz, Eduard (25.09.1888).
Schroeder, “Die Bibliotheken des RSHA: Aufbau und Verbleib” (lecture, Weimar, November 9, 2003). Online transcript: http://www.initiativefortbildung.de/pdf/provenienz_schroeder.pdf.
Angrick, Besatzungspolitik und Massenmord (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2003), pp. 326–331. Worren Green, “The Fate of the Crimean Jewish Communities,” Jewish Social Science 46, no. 2 (Spring 1984): 169–176.
“Dienstreisebericht von Peter Paulsen,” 04.01.1940, as reproduced in Andrzej Mezynski, Kommando pp. 55–67.
to Apfelstädt, 03.04.1942, “Document 214, Poland,” in Hellmut Lehmann-Haupt, Cultural Looting of the Ahnenerbe: Report prepared by Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives OMGUS, March 1, 1948, NARA, RG260, M1926/R151.
“Dienstreisebericht von Peter Paulsen,” 04.01.1940, as reproduced in Andrzej Mezynski, Kommando pp. 55–67.
Kersten, The Kersten Memoirs, 1940–1945 (New York: Macmillan, 1957), p. 23.
Frank eventually adopted such a regal lifestyle in Warsaw that Hitler himself sardonically referred to the former lawyer as King Stanislaus V For further details, see Jonathan Petropoulos, Art as Politics in the Third p. 226.
“Aktenvermerk,” 24.07.1939, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Schleif, Hans (23.02.1902).
to Sievers, 24.01.1940, in “Document 205, Poland,” in Hellmut Lehmann-Haupt, Cultural Looting of the Ahnenerbe: Report prepared by Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives OMGUS, March 1, 1948, NARA, RG260, M1926/R151.
“Dienstreisebericht von Peter Paulsen,” 04.01.1940, as reproduced in Andrzej Mezynski, Kommando pp. 55–67.
“Aktenvermerk,” 20.05.1940, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Paulsen, Peter (08.10.1902).
found Paulsen a teaching job in the Germanische Leitstelle and later in the Junker school in Bad Tölz. For more details, see Mezynski, Kommando p. 78.
quoted in Stanislaw Strzetelski, Where the Storm Broke (New York: Roy Slavonic Publications, 1942), p. 110.
to Sievers, 24.01.1940, “Document 205, Poland,” in Hellmut Lehmann-Haupt, Cultural Looting of the Ahnenerbe: Report prepared by Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives OMGUS, March 1, 1948, NARA, RG260, M1926/R151.
H. Kater, Das “Ahnenerbe” der SS 1935–1945 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1974), pp. 150–153.
to Kommans, 14.09.1940, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Schleif, Hans (23.02.1902).
“Report on activities of Generaltreuhänder in the occupied Eastern Territories,” 28.03.1941, “Document 33, Poland,” in Hellmut Lehmann-Haupt, Cultural Looting of the Ahnenerbe: Report prepared by Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives OMGUS, March 1, 1948, NARA, RG260, M1926/R151.
H. Kater, Das “Ahnenerbe” der SS p. 153.
16. THE TREASURE OF KERCH
quoted in Steven Lehrer, Hitler Sites (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2002), p. 182.
Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945 (London: Allen Lane: The Penguin Press, 2000), p. 389.
p. 393 and p. 579.
p. 397.
Trevor-Roper, “The Mind of Adolf Hitler,” introductory essay in Adolf Hitler, Hitler’s Table Talk, 1941–1944 ed. H.R.Trevor-Roper (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. xvii; Ian Kershaw, Hitler p. 397.
Hitler, Hitler’s Table Talk, 1941–1944 ed. H.R.Trevor-Roper (London: Phoenix Press, 2000), pp. 13, 25, 48, 290.
no. 245, p. 548.
no. 248, pp. 621–622.
no. 11, p. 16.
no. 20, p. 35.
Bishop and Chris McNab, Campaigns of World War II Day by Day (Hauppauge, NY: Barron’s, 2003), p. 68.
Clark, Barbarossa (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1965), p. 55.
der Ortskommandantur I/853 von Simferopol vom 14.11.1941,” as reproduced in Verbrechen der ed. Hamburger Institut für Sozialforschung (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2002), p. 176.
Jean B., ehemaliger Angehöriger der Geheimen Feldpolizei 647. 14.03.1969,” in Verbrechen der p. 177.
Verbrechen der p. 175.
des 2nd ed., ed. Israel Gutman (Piper: Munich, 1998), s.v. “Krim.”
of Otto Ohlendorf, 5.11.1945,” Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Vol. 4, Case 9: The Einszatzgruppen Case (Washington, D.C: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949–1950) pp. 205–207. The volumes from the Trials of War Criminals before the Nuremberg Military Tribunal are in the process of being placed online at http://www.mazal.org.
des s.v. “Krim.”
Kershaw, Hitler p. 455.
“SS-Befehl,” 24.02.1943, BA, NS 19/ 281.
Wolfram, History of the Goths (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990) pp. 36–39.
should be noted that the term “Germanic” here refers simply to the name of a broad subgroup of languages that includes English, Frisian, German, Yiddish, Icelandic, Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish. Just because someone speaks a Germanic language, it does not follow that they are of German ancestry.
Wolfram, History of the p. 44.
communication, Dr. Alexander Gertsen.
one of the world’s experts on the Goths points out, “it is often necessary, however, to remind Central Europeans of the plain fact that a history of the Goths is not part of a history of the German people and certainly not part of ‘the history of the Germans in foreign countries.’” For more details, see Herwig Wolfram, History of the pp. 1–2.
a good example of this, see Wilhelm Wolfslast, Die Germanische Völkerwanderung (Stuttgart: Robert Lutz Nachfolger, 1941), pp. 24–25.
Alexandrovich Vasiliev, The Goths in the Crimea (Cambridge, MA: The Mediaeval Academy of America, 1936), p. 51.
communication, Dr. Alexander Gertsen, University of Simferopol.
communications, Dr. Thomas S. Burns and Dr. David Braund.
in der Krim und Wikinger in Nowgorod,” Kriegsausgabe 4a (1941), NARA, RG242, A3345, 124/ 69; “Das Germanenreich am Schwarzen Meer/Ein Gespräch unter dem Himmel der Krim,” Kriegsausgabe 6b (1941), NARA, RG242, A3345, 124/ 161–164; “Von der Ostsee bis zum Schwarzen Meer,” Germanische Leithefte 3/4 (1942), NARA, RG242, A3345, 124/1198–1199.
Germanenreich am Schwarzen Meer/Ein Gespräch unter dem Himmel der Krim,” Kriegsausgabe 6b (1941), NARA, RG242, A3345, 124/ 161–164.
Bishop and Chris McNab, Campaigns of World War pp. 66–67.
Rössler and Sabine Schleiermacher, “Der ‘Generalplan Ost’ und die ‘Modernität’ der Großraumordnung,” Der ‘Generalplan Ost,’ ed. Mechtild Rössler and Sabine Schleiermacher (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1993), p. 8; Czelsaw Madajczyk, “Vom ‘Generalplan Ost’ zum ‘Generalsiedlungsplan,’” in Der ‘Generalplan Ost,’ pp. 13–14.
Madajczyk, “Vom ‘Generalplan Ost’ zum ‘Generalsiedlungsplan,’ in Der ‘Generalplan Ost,’” pp. 13–14.
p. 14.
Heinemann, “Rasse, Siedlung, deutsches Blut,” (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2003), p. 368–372.
Madajczyk, “Vom ‘Generalplan Ost’ zum ‘Generalsiedlungsplan,’” in Der ‘Generalplan Ost,’ p. 16
Kersten, The Kersten Memoirs 1940–1945 (New York: Macmillan, 1957), p. 133.
p. 134.
p. 133. Also Himmler, “Allgemeine Anordnung Nr.20/VI/42 über die Gestaltung der Landschaft in den eingegliederten Ostgebieten vom 21.12.1942,” as reproduced in Der ‘Generalplan Ost’ pp. 142–144.
“Allgemeine Anordnung Nr.20/VI/42 über die Gestaltung der Landschaft in den eingegliederten Ostgebieten vom 21.12.1942,” in Der ‘Generalplan Ost,’ pp. 136–147.
Kersten, The Kersten Memoirs p. 137.
Hoßfeld, “Im Spannungsfeld von ‘Deutscher Biologie,’ Lyssenkoismus und evolutions-ideologischer Axolotl-Forschung,” Lomonossow: Sonderheft “Der Agrarbiologe Lyssenko—ein Exempel für die Ideologisierung der Wissenschaft 3 (1999), http://www.lomonossow.de/1999_03/.
Schleiermacher, “Begleitende Forschung zum ‘Generalplan Ost,’” in Der ‘Generalplan Ost,’ pp. 339–340; “The Activities of Dr. Ernst Schaefer, Tibet Explorer and Scientist with SS-sponsored Scientific Institutes,” Headquarters United States Forces European Theater, Military Intelligence Service Center, 12.02.1946, NARA, RG238, M1270/27.
from Ludolf von Alvensleben to Dr. Rudolf Brandt, 17.07.1942, as quoted in Andrej Angrick, Besatzungspolitik und Massenmord (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2003) pp. 530–531.
“Bescheinigung,” 21.07.1942, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert (08.08.1905).
Gehl, “Bild 145. Gotische Kinderkrone von Kertsch,” (Breslau: Ferdinand Hirt, 1940), p. 36 of plate insert; “Von der Ostsee bis zum Schwarzen Meer,” Germanische Leithefte 3/4 (1942), NARA, RG242, A3345, 124/1198–1199; Alfred Frauenfeld, Die Krim (Aufbaustab für den Generalbezirk Krim, n.d.) p. 41.
to Sievers, 27.05.1941, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert (08.08.1905). Jankuhn was an immensely intelligent and perceptive man, and he had somehow learned of the impending mobilization against the Soviet Union almost a month before Operation Barbarossa began. As soon as he caught word of the forth-coming invasion, he pointed out the importance to Sievers of studying the “The Gothic empire in Russia.” See also Jankuhn, “Aktenvermerk,” 04.06.1941, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert (08.08.1905).
Steuer, “Herbert Jankuhn und seine Darstellungen zur Germanen-und Wikingerzeit,” in Eine hervorragende nationale Wissenschaft (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter 2001), p. 417.
Dr. phil. Herbert Georg-August Universität Göttingen, Oktober 1990.
Hassman and Detlef Jantzen, “‘Die Deutsche Vorgeschichte—eine nationale Wissenschaft,’ Das Kieler Museum vorgeschichtlicher Altertümer im Dritten Reich,” Offa 51 (1994): 9–23.
to Jankuhn, 26.11.1937, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert (08.08.1905).
to Jankuhn, 30.04.1938, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert (08.08.1905).
Hassmann, “Archaeology in the Third Reich,” Archaeology, Ideology and ed. Heinrich Härke (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2000), p. 85.
to Ahnenerbe, Oslo, 20.06.1940, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert: (08.08.1905).
to Sievers, 16.10.1940, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert: (08.08.1905). See also Jankuhn, “Bericht über meinen Aufenthalt in der Bretagne,” 24.01.1941, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert (08.08.1905).
to Sievers, 04.09.1940, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert (08.08.1905).
Padfield, Himmler (London: Macmillan, 2001), p. 382.
to Seefeld, 25.06.1942, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Seefeld, Wolf von (19.06.1912).
“Bericht über die Tätigkeit des Sonderkommandos Jankuhn bei der SS-Division Wiking, für die Zeit vom 20. Juli bis 1. Dezember 1942,” BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert (08.08.1905).
Angrick, Besatzungspolitik und pp. 581–582.
to Sievers, 06.09.1942, BA (ehem.BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert (08.08.1905).
to Ahnenerbe, 16.08.1942, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn (08.08.1905).
Angrick, Besatzungspolitik und pp. 581–582.
Jonah Goldhagen, Hitler’s Willing Executioners (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996), pp. 200–201.
“Die Goten auf der Krim,” 14.07.1942, BA, NS 19/ 2212. Beumelburg was a major in the Luftwaffe and it seems almost certain that it was von Alvensleben, who forwarded this report to Himmler. See Sievers to Jankuhn, 07.09.1942, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn (08.08.05).
“Die Goten auf der Krim,” 14.07.1942, BA, NS 19/ 2212.
exact dates of the Maikop massacres are currently unknown because few documents regarding the massacres have survived. Most scholars agree that they occurred in late summer and fall of 1942. However, it is clear that the Einsatzgruppe squads were present in Maikop when Jankuhn was there, because some assisted him in packing up the museum collection. For further details, see Jankuhn to Amt Ahnenerbe, 29.08.1942, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert (08.08.1905).
Angrick, Besatzungspolitik und pp. 581–585.
reality, the helmet was made in Rome between the third and first century B.C. See Christian Hufen, “Gotenforschung und Denkmalpflege: Herbert Jankuhn und die Kommandounternehmen des ‘Ahnenerbe’ der SS,” in ‘Betr.: Sicherstellung’ NS-Kunstraub in der ed. Wolfgang Eichwede and Ulrike Hartung (Bremen: Temmen, 1998) p. 84, footnote p. 35.
to Amt Ahnenerbe, Anlage 2 & 3 zum Bericht vom, 29.08.1942, “Liste der beim EK 11 in Maikop sichgergestellten Funde aus dem Museum in Maikop,” BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert (08.08.1905).
of Karl Rudolf Werner Braune, 8 July 1947,” Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Vol. 4, Case 9: The Einsatzgruppen Case (Washington, D.C: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949–1950) pp. 214–226.
Angrick, Besatzungspolitik und pp. 445–446.
to Amt Ahnenerbe, 29.08.1942, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert: (08.08.1905).
“Bericht über die Tätigkeit des Sonderkommandos Jankuhn bei der SS-Division Wiking, für die Zeit vom 20. Juli bis 1. Dezember 1942,” BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert (08.08.1905).
Angrick, Besatzungspolitik und pp. 445–446.
I. Vdovichenko, Antique Painted Vases from the Collections of the Crimean Museums (Simferopol: SONAT, 2003), p. 55; Jankuhn, “Bericht über die Täatigkeit des Sonderkommandos Jankuhn bei der SS-Division Wiking, für die Zeit vom 20. Juli bis 1. Dezember 1942,” BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert (08.08.1905).
“Bericht über die Tätigkeit des Sonderkommandos Jankuhn bei der SS-Division Wiking, für die Zeit vom 20. Juli bis 1. Dezember 1942,” BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert (08.08.1905).
“Liste der in Armawir durch das Sonderkommando Jankuhn sichergestellten Funde aus der Krim,” 02.09.1942, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert (08.08.1905).
“Bericht über die Tätigkeit des Sonderkommandos Jankuhn bei der SS-Division Wiking, für die Zeit vom 20. Juli bis 1. Dezember 1942,” BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert (08.08.1905). The current whereabouts of these objects is unclear; Christian Hufen, “Gotenforschung und Denkmalpflege,” pp. 92–95.
17. LORDS OF THE MANOR
Witte et al., eds. Der Dienstkalender Heinrich Himmlers (Hamburg: Christians Verlag, 1999), pp. 527–528. For a brief description of Himmler’s Hegewald compound, see Wendy Lower, “A New Ordering of Space and Race: Nazi Colonial Dreams in Zhytomyr, Ukraine, 1941–1944,” German Studies Review 25, no.2 (May 2002): 227–254.
Padfield, Himmler (London: Cassell & Co. 2001), p. 204.
and Norbert Lebert, My Father’s Keeper (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 2001) p. 113.
Padfield, p. 366.
p. 279.
Activities of Dr. Ernst Schaefer, Tibet Explorer and Scientist with SS-sponsored Scientific Institutes,” Headquarters United States Forces European Theater, Military Intelligence Service Center, 12.02.1946, NARA, RG238, M1270/27.
Lower, “A New Ordering of Space and Race: Nazi Colonial Dreams in Zhytomyr, Ukraine, 1941–1944,” German Studies Review 25, no.2 (May 2002): 227.
Hitler, Hitler’s Table Talk ed. H.R. Trevor-Roper (London: Phoenix Press, 2000), no. 245, p. 548.
Kater, Das ‘Ahnenerbe’ der SS 1935–1945 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1974), p. 164.
Frauenfeld, Die Krim (Aufbaustab für den Generalbezirk Krim, n.d.), p. 39. Frauenfeld was also the author of the proposal concerning the colonization of the Crimea. His views on the Crimea were of great interest to Hitler. Adolf Hitler, Hitler’s Table Talk ed. H.R.Trevor-Roper (London: Phoenix Press, 2000), no. 245, p. 548.
Nußbaumer, Alfred Quellmalz und seine Südtiroler Feldforschungen 1940–1942 (Innsbruck: Studien Verlag, 2001), p. 93.
Hitler, Hitler’s Table Talk no. 245, p. 548.
is unclear precisely when Himmler first disclosed these plans to Hitler. However, the SS leader told his personal physician on July 16 that Hitler had just given him verbal approval for the Wehrbauern settlements. Felix Kersten, The Kersten Memoirs, 1940–1945 (New York: Macmillan, 1957), pp. 132–134.
It is possible that Himmler began to press for a decision on the Master Plan East during a dinner he had with Hitler on July 8, soon after the fall of Sevastopol. As two prominent German historians have noted, the purpose of the dinner meeting was very likely to discuss the “Germanization” of the Crimea. Moreover, three days earlier, Wolf-Karl Wolff, Himmler’s liaison officer at Hitler’s headquarters, had informed him that an important meeting would take place on July 6 and advised him that the SS should attend. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss “the position of the collection camps, the resettlement, the racial recordings, the necessary security needed for resettlement, the defense of the camps, the liquidation by the Einsatzkommandos and all the problems associated with these questions.” For further details, see Jochen von Lang, Der Adjutant (Munich: Herbig Verlag, 1985), p. 177. See also Peter Witte et al., eds., Der Dienstkalender Heinrich Himmlers pp. 480–481.
Kersten, The Kersten p. 132.
pp. 132–133.
p. 228.
pp. 239–240.
p. 239.
p. 240.
Kersten, The Memoirs of Doctor Felix ed. Herma Briffault (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1947), pp. 49–50.
Frauenfeld, Die pp. 78–79.
“Betrifft: Geplante Fahrt des Reichsführers-SS zur Besichtigung der gotischen Bergfestungen und Höhlenstädte auf der Krim,” 04.10.1942, BA (ehem.BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert (08.08.1905).
“Lebenslauf,” Berlin, 15.10.1944, BA (ehem. BDC) REM: Kersten. Karl. (08.08.1909).
“Gutachten über Dr.Karl Kersten,” n.d., BA (ehem. BDC) REM: Kersten, Karl (08.08.1909); Jes Martens, “Die Nordische Archäologie und das ‘Dritte Reich,’” in Prähistorie und ed. Achim Leube and Morten Hegewisch (Heidelberg: Synchron, 2002), p. 609.
“Betrifft: Geplante Fahrt des Reichsführers-SS zur Besichtigung der gotischen Bergfestungen und Höhlenstädte auf der Krim,” 04.10.1942, BA (ehem.BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert (08.08.1905).
“Betrifft: Bergfestung Tschufut-Kale bei Bachtschissaraj,” 02.10.1942, BA (ehem.BDC): Jankuhn, Herbert (08.08.1905).
“Betrifft: Bergstadt Tepe-Kermen bei Schury auf der Krim,” 04.10.1942, BA (ehem.BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert (08.08.1905).
Alexandrovich Vasiliev, The Goths in the Crimea (Cambridge, MA: The Mediaeval Academy of America, 1936) p. 51.
“Betrifft: Gotische Bergfestung Eski-Kermen bei Tscherkess-Kermen,” 04.10.1942, BA (ehem.BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert (08.08.1905).
Dobrynina, “Report Summarizing Russian Scholarly and Scientific Literature on the History of four Crimean Cave Cities,” p. 7.
“Betrifft: Gotische Bergfestung Eski-Kermen bei Tscherkess-Kermen,” 04.10.1942, BA (ehem.BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert (08.08.1905).
“Betrifft: Geplante Fahrt des Reichsführers-SS zur Besichtigung der gotischen Bergfestungen und Höhlenstädte auf der Krim,” 04.10.1942, BA (ehem.BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert (08.08.1905).
Witte et al., eds. Der Dienstkalender Heinrich Himmlers pp. 600.
Hitler, Hitler’s Table Talk, no. 285, pp. 621–622.
Angrick, Besatzungspolitik und Massenmord (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2003), pp. 540–544.
Witte et al., eds., Der Dienstkalender Heinrich Himmlers p. 601. See also Kersten, “Betrifft: Museum in Bachtchissaraj,” 04.10.1942, BA (ehem.BDC): Jankuhn, Herbert: (08.08.1905).
Witte et al., eds., Der Dienstkalender Heinrich Himmlers p. 601.
Angrick, Besatzungspolitik und pp. 540–544.
18. SEARCHING FOR THE STAR OF DAVID
Britannica (Chicago: Britannica Inc, 1968), s.v. “Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics.”
Freiherr von Verschuer, “Rassenbiologie der Juden,” Forschungen zur Judenfrage 3 (Hamburg: Hanseatische Verlaganstalt, 1938): 137–151.
pp. 140–141.
racial scientists went to enormous lengths in their attempt to develop reliable methods of accurately detecting an individual’s race. They searched for measurable differences in everything from skull seams, calf muscles, heart rates, and earwax to body odor, fingerprints, and blood groups. They were unable to find any quick, accurate way of identifying even supposedly “pure” groups, such as the Nordic or Mediterranean races. So Jews, who were purportedly mixtures of many different races, presented an immensely difficult “diagnostic” problem. For further details on the quest for racial diagnosis in Germany, see Ernst Klee, Deutsche Medizin im Dritten Reich (Frankfurt: S. Fischer, 2001) pp. 158–165.
Angrick, Besatzungspolitik und Massenmord (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2003), p. 326.
Jewish Encyclopedia (New York and London: Funk and Wagnalls, 1902), s.v. “Krimchaks.”
Ascherson, Black Sea (London: Jonathan Cape, 1995), p. 23; Andrej Angrick, Besatzungspolitik und p. 330.
cited in Ian Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945 (London: Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 2000), p. 470.
Angrick, Besatzungspolitik und pp. 326–331.
Angrick, Besatzungspolitik und p. 330; Warren Green, “The Fate of the Crimean Jewish Communities: Ashkenazim, Krimchaks, and Karaites,” Jewish Social Science 46, no. 2 (Spring 1984): 169–176.
Jewish s.v. “Caucasus.”
Kater, Das “Ahnenerbe” der SS 1935–1945 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1974) pp. 231–232.
to Himmler, 10.02.1942, NARA, RG242, A3345 DS G119: Greite, Walter (13.06.1907).
to Stuck, 18.08.194(?), NARA, RG242, A3345 DS G119: Greite, Walter (13.06.1907).
“Tagebuch: 10.12.1941,” BA, NS 21/127. The entry reads: “SS O’stuf Dr. Beger: discussion of a proposal to get Jewish skulls for anthropological examination. Cooperation with Hirt. Strassburg. Cooperation with RuSHA [Race and Settlement office]. Report on the meeting Beger-Schäfer at Munich. Permission to employ a (female) assistant.”
Heinemann, “Rasse, Siedlung, deutsches Blut” (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2003), pp. 75–76, 544–559; Beger, ‘Führerstammkarte,’ NARA, RG242, A3345, SSO Beger, Bruno (27.04.1911).
Heinemann, “Rasse, Siedlung, deutsches Blut,” p. 610
“Tagebuch: 10.12.1941,” BA, NS 21/127. In the statement that Beger gave during his trial after the war, he stated that “part of my assignment was to find as many varieties of Jewishness as possible.” “IV. Die Einlassung der Angeschuldigten und die Beweiswürdigung 1.) Der Angeschuldigte Dr.Beger,” p. 80. Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971. IfZ, Gf 03.32.
Wastl, as quoted in Klaus Taschwer, “‘Anthropologie ins Volk,’—Zur Ausstellungspolitik einer anwend-baren Wissenschaft bis 1945,” in Politik der ed. Herbert Posch and Gottfried Fliedl (Vienna: Turia und Kant, 1996), p. 248.
Purin, “Die museale Darstellung jüdischer Geschichte und Kultur in Österreich zwischen Aufklärung und Rassismus,” in Politik der pp. 33–34. Wastl did eventually obtain permission in 1942 to dig up bodies from one of Vienna’s largest Jewish cemeteries, the Währinger Friedhof. Indeed, he and his colleagues exhumed some 220 skeletons from the cemetery for their studies.
Aly, “The Posen Diaries of the Anatomist Herman Voss,” in Cleansing the ed. Götz Aly, Peter Chroust, and Christian Pross (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994) p. 141. Posen is the German name for the city of Poznan in western Poland.
p. 144.
Elon, “Death for Sale: Masks, an Attempt about Shoah,” New York Review of November 20, 1997.
communication, Dr. Guido Lombardi. See also Tony Waldron, Counting the Dead (Chichester, New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1994) pp. 24–25.
or as it is often spelled in English, Strassburg, is the German name for Strasbourg.
Die Angeschuldigten: Lebensläufe und politische Werdegang. 1) Dr. Bruno Beger,” pp. 953–957, Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971, StA Mchn, Stanw 34.878/91. See also Beger “Führerstammkarte,” NARA, RG242, A3343, SSO Beger, Bruno (27.04.1911); Hirt “Führerstammkarte,” NARA, RG242, A3343, SSO Hirt, August (29.04.1898). In a letter that Hirt wrote to Beger in the fall of 1942, the anatomist addressed the younger man as “comrade Beger” and “du.” This suggests that the two men knew each other quite well. Hirt to Beger, 05.09.1942, BA, R135/49.
“Lebenslauf,” BA (ehem. BDC) PK, Hirt, August (29.04.1898); Hans-Joachim Lang, Die Namen der Nummern (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 2004), p. 210.
H. Kasten, “Unethical Nazi Medicine in Annexed Alsace-Lorraine: The Strange Case of Nazi Anatomist Professor Dr. August Hirt,” Historians and Archivists: Essays in Modern German History and Archival ed. George O. Kent (Fairfax, Virginia: George Mason University Press, 1991) p. 178.
“Gesundheitsbogen,” BA (ehem. BDC) PK Hirt. August (29.04.1898). “Gedächtnisprotokoll Unterredung Prof. Dr. Walther Wüst und Michael H. Kater.” 22.04.1963. IfZ, ZS/A-25, vol.3.
Frederick H. Kasten has observed, it is very difficult to determine when Hirt became a strident anti-Semite. It is possible, however, that he became infected with this bigotry in his youth and merely concealed it while working with his Jewish colleague, Dr. Phillipp Ellinger. Ellinger was an important medical researcher at the time, and Hirt may have swallowed his prejudice in order to advance his career. See Frederick H. Kasten, “Unethical Nazi Medicine in Annexed Alsace-Lorraine,” p. 178.
further details on the plans for the university, see Frederick H. Kasten, “Unethical Nazi Medicine in Annexed Alsace-Lorraine,” pp. 180–182.
Lachman, “Anatomist of Infamy: August Hirt,” Bull.Hist.Med 51 (1977): 594–602.
H. Kasten, “Unethical Nazi Medicine in Annexed Alsace-Lorraine,” p. 190. Mustard gas goes by a variety of names, including yperite, sulphur mustard, and LOST. The latter name is the one most frequently found in the archival documents concerning Hirt’s experiments.
C. Ellis and Donald I. Perry, “The ABC of Safe Practices for the Biological Sciences Laboratory: An Easy to Use Reference Manual for Laboratory Personnel,” 2001, http://www.hoslink.com/Ellis/INDEX.html.
H. Kasten, “Unethical Nazi Medicine in Annexed Alsace-Lorraine,” p. 191.
to Hirth (sic), 03.01.1942, BA (ehem.BDC) Ahnenerbe: Hirt, August (29.04.1898).
Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936 (London: Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 1999), p.97.
to Sievers, 29.12.1941, BA (ehem.BDC) WI Hirt August (29.04.1898).
is impossible to determine with certainty who among these three men first came up the idea of obtaining the heads from executed commissars. There are no surviving documents to shed light on this question. All three men, moreover, were in a position to have heard something about the commissar policy. Sievers was an extremely well-informed SS officer. Hirt was a former military physician with excellent army contacts. And Beger had done a month-long stint at the eastern front in 1941. Indeed, he had traveled as a propagandist with the Viking Division as it pushed east from Ternopol toward Dnepropetrovsk in the Ukraine. Beger, “SS Kriegsberichterkompanie Bogen,” 07.11.1941, NARA, A3356, RG242, German Army Officer Personnel File T201–1.1. Beger, Bruno (27.04.1911).
Breitmann, The Architect of Genocide (New York: Alfred A. Knopf 1991), p. 149
Immediately after the invasion of the Soviet Union, for example, the SS education office published photos of Russian officials whom it described as Jewish political commissars. “Sonnenwende-Schicksalswende,” Germanische Leitheft 1, no. 2 (1941): 11. BA, NSD, 41/78.
Securing Skulls of Jewish-Bolshevik Commissars for the purpose of scientific research at the Strassburg Reich University,” February 1942, NARA, Records of the U.S. Nuremberg War Crimes Trials: United States of America v. Karl Brandt et.al. (Case 1), Nov. 21, 1946–Aug. 20, 1947, RG238, M887/16/Jewish Skeleton Collection. Historians have debated over the authorship of this memo. For the best summation of these arguments, see Michael H. Kater, Das pp. 245–248. I find it particularly interesting that Sievers’s personal secretary, Dr. Gisela Schmitz, explained to investigators after the war that Beger was the author of all but the last section of the memo, which Hirt wrote. Nevertheless, Beger’s handwriting does not match that in the document. See “Anklage der Generalstaatsanwalt Frankurt gegen Beger, Fleischhacker, Wolff” Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971, pp. 984–985. StA Mchn, Stanw 34.878/91; Schmitz, “Eidesstattliche Erklärung Dr. Schmitz,” 27.03.1947. Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971. StA Mchn, Stanw 34.878/11.
Breitmann, The Architect of p. 229. As Breitmann and many other historians have pointed out, the Final Solution began well before the Wannsee Conference. Himmler’s Einsatzgruppen had already embarked upon a massive slaughter of Jews during the invasion of the Soviet Union. Moreover, the first death camp, complete with gas chambers, went into operation at Chelmno in Poland on December 8, 1941, and the SS staff had already designed other such facilities.
to Bormann, 22.05.1943, in Reichsführer! ed. Helmut Heiber (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1968), p. 213.
Frischauer, Himmler: The Evil Genius of the Third Reich (London: Odhams Press, 1953), p. 127.
to Sievers, 27.02.1942, NARA, RG242, T175/103/2625109.
Witte et al., eds. Der Dienstkalender Heinrich Himmlers 1941/42 (Hamburg: Christians Verlag, 1999), pp. 390–391.
Kater, Das “Ahnenerbe,” pp. 231–233.
E. Conot, Justice at Nuremberg (New York: Harper & Row, 1983), p. 292.
p. 286.
Witte et al., eds., Der Dienstkalender Heinrich Himmlers pp. 390–391.
to Vogt, 05.01.1970, StA Mchn, Stanw. 34.878/5; Wüst, “Prof. Dr.Hirt,” 06.02.1944, StA Mchn, Stanw. 34.878/75; Wüst to Sievers, 16.03.1944, StA Mchn, Stanw. 34.878/75. See also Michael H. Kater, Das “Ahnenerbe,” p.256.
to Hirt, end of August or beginning of September, 1942, as quoted in “Urteil. V Die Beteiligung des Angeklagten Dr. Beger,” p. 23. Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971. IfZ, Gf 03.32.
to Brandt, 13.04.1943, as translated and quoted in Benno Müller-Hill, Murderous Science (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 52.
often refer to this camp today as Natzweiler-Struthof. However, the vast majority of surviving German documents concerning the Jewish Skeleton Collection refer to it as Konzentrationlager Natzweiler, or concentration camp Natzweiler. I have thus chosen to refer to it simply as Natzweiler throughout the text.
Kramer, Statement 26.07.1945, NARA, Records of the U.S. Nuremberg War Crimes Trials: United States of America v. Karl Brandt et.al. (Case 1), Nov. 21, 1946–Aug. 20, 1947, RG238, M887/16/Jewish Skeleton Collection.
to Hirt, 22.04.1943, BA, NS 21/906.
to Firma Franz Bergmann u. Paul Altmann K.G., 04.11.1942, BA, NS 21/905.
Moser et al., Marine Mammal Skeletal Preparation and Articulation, Poster Presentation at the Biennial Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals, November 28–December 3, 2002, Vancouver, B.C.
to Firma Franz Bergmann u. Paul Altmann K.G., 04.11.1942, BA, NS 21/905.
Miklós Nyiszli, Auschwitz: A Doctor’s Eyewitness Account (Geneva: Ferni Pub. House, 1979), p. 204. During his imprisonment at Auschwitz, Nyiszli was forced to work for Dr. Josef Mengele, a physician and racial biologist. At one point, Mengele ordered Nyiszli to perform anatomical measures on two Jewish prisoners, a father and a son. The two prisoners were then taken away and murdered. Mengele then instructed Nyiszli to render their bodies down to skeletons for the anthropological museum in Berlin. In his book, Nyiszli described the chemicals commonly used at the time for chemical maceration, and I have borrowed upon his description for this passage.
Moser et al., Marine Mammal Skeletal Preparation and Articulation, Poster Presentation at the Biennial Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals, November 28–December 3, 2002, Vancouver, B.C.
to Firma Franz Bergmann u. Paul Altmann K.G., 04.11.1942, BA, NS 21/905.
to Hirt, 08.10.1942, BA, NS 21/905.
to Sievers, 03.10.1942, BA, NS 21/905.
Vrba, I Cannot Forgive (Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 1997), p. 123.
Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle 1939–1945 (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1990), pp. 202–247.
to Reichssicherheitshauptamt, 10.08.1942, BA, NS19/ 3638.
of the proposed team included Dr. Davoud Monchi-Zadeh, the Iranian student who was to accompany Wüst on his proposed Bisitun expedition; Dr. Viktor Christian, Dean of the Philosophy Faculty at the University of Vienna and an authority on Near Eastern studies; Dr. Alfred Rust, an archaeologist; Dr. Karl Vogt, a racial scientist interested in the Transcaucasus region; and Wolfram Sievers. See Sievers, Vermerk. Betr: Einsatz des ‘Ahnenerbes’ im vorderen Orient, Iran und indoiranischen Raum, 12.02.1942, LOC Manuscript Division. Captured German Documents. Section 19, ODN 511, Reel 46.
to Sievers, 17.08.1942, BA, NS 21/42; “Personalaufstellung für das geplante Unternehmen,” 18.08.1942, NARA, RG242, T81/131, 164290–164292; Sievers to Reichssicherheitshauptamt, 20.08.1942, NARA, RG242, T175/34.
für das geplante Unternehmen,” 18.08.1942, NARA, RG242, T81/131, 164290–164292.
Activities of Dr. Ernst Schaefer, Tibet Explorer and Scientist with SS-sponsored Scientific Institutes,” Headquarters United States Forces European Theater, Military Intelligence Service Center, 12.02.1946, NARA, RG238, M1270/27.
Ernst Schäfer, 08.12.1970,” p. 4, Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971, StA Mchn, Stanw 34.878/18. Exactly when Schäfer proposed the Caucasus mission is unclear, but in August 1942, he wrote to Sievers, noting that “as I was already able to inform you months ago, the total research of the Caucasus area has great importance and weight for science and for worldview.” Schäfer to Sievers, 17.08.1942, BA, NS 21/ 42.
to Reichssicherheitshauptamt, 20.08.1942, NARA, RG242, T175/34. See also Sonderkommando K documents found in file NARA, RG242, T81/131/164293–164311, which includes documents titled, “Fahrzeugaufstellung,” “Persönliche Ausrüstung,” and “Allgemeine Ausrüstung.”
to Sievers, 24.08.1942, NARA, RG242, T175/34.
to Reichsführer-SS, 29.01.1943, NARA, RG242, T175/R124; “Betr.Eskorte” n.d. NARA, RG242, T81/131/164293–164294.
Activities of Dr. Ernst Schaefer, Tibet Explorer and Scientist with SS-sponsored Scientific Institutes,” Headquarters United States Forces European Theater, Military Intelligence Service Center, 12.02.1946, NARA, RG238, M1270/27.
“Kurzgefasste Darstellung der im Rahmen des Sonderkommando ‘K’ geplanten Rassenkundlichen Untersuchungen,” n.d., BA, R135/44, 164287–164288. “Gedächtnisprotokoll Unterredung Dr. Ernst Schäfer und Michael H. Kater,” 28.04.1964, IfZ, ZS/A-25, vol. 2. Moreover, as Beger himself noted in a letter to the Security Service, about Special Command K, “For the realization of the above mentioned undertaking, which has political goals but is of a purely military character, it is necessary to conduct scientific work partially as a cover-up, but also partially to clarify specific ethnic questions.” Beger to Kern. 06.10.1942. BA, R135/50.
Darstellung der im Rahmen des Sonderkommando ‘K’ geplanten Rassenkundlichen Untersuchungen,” n.d., BA, R135/44, 164287–164288.
Ernst Schäfer, 08.12.1970,” p. 5, Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971, StA Mchn, Stanw 34.878/18. See also “Gedächtnisprotokoll Unterredung Ernst Schäfer und Michael H. Kater,” 28.4.1964, IfZ, ZS/A-25. vol.2.
Ernst Schäfer. 08.12.1970,” p. 5, Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971, StA Mchn, Stanw 34.878/18.
Universal Jewish Encyclopedia (New York: The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia Inc, 1939–43), s.v. “Mountain Jews.”
für das geplante Unternehmen,” 18.08.1942, NARA, RG242, T81/131, 164290–164292; “Kurzgefasste Darstellung der im Rahmen des Sonderkommando ‘K’ geplanten rassenkundlichen Untersuchungen,” n.d., BA, R135/44, 164287–164288.
“Auffassung der Hilfsmannschaft,” NARA, RG242, T81/131/164289.
Heinemann, “Rasse, Siedlung, deutsches Blut,” pp. 615–616.
p. 632.
pp. 615–616, 632.
pp. 234–238.
pp. 615–616, 632. A program for one of these courses, taught in Prague in 1942, has survived, and demonstrates the high opinion that RuSHA held of both Rübel and Fleischhacker as racial specialists. The two men teach many of the sessions, from Racial Diagnosis using Photographs, Part I, II, III, and IV to the Soul of European Races, Part I and II. “Programmfolge für den Eignungsprüferlehrgang in Prag v. 20.7.-8.8.42,” BA, NS 2/89.
to Reichsdozentenführung, 26.01.1943, BA (ehem. BDC) PK: Trojan, Rudolf (26.02.1917). See also Ernst Klee, Deutsche Medizin im Dritten p. 165.
“Auffassung der Hilfsmannschaft,” NARA, RG242, T81/131/164289.
Darstellung der im Rahmen des Sonderkommando ‘K’ geplanten rassenkundlichen Untersuchungen,” n.d., BA, R135/44, 164287–164288.
to Beger, 31.10.1942, BA, R135/44.
moreover, favored this deception. In 1940, he asked the head of the Race and Settlement Department, Otto Hofmann, to develop a deceptive questionnaire to send to school doctors in Czechoslovakia. In addition to a number of standard medical questions, Himmler instructed Hofmann to include questions that would elicit racial biological characteristics of Czech schoolchildren, such as height, weight, and eye, skin, and hair color. This practice seems to have been endemic in RuSHA. On the advice of the department, for example, Reinhard Heydrich ordered such camouflaged investigations to be carried out on adults in Czechoslovakia in 1942. For further details, see Himmler to Otto Hofmann, 09.10.1940, and Hofmann to Himmler, 24.10.1940, in Die Deutschen in der Tschechoslowakei 1933–1947 ed. Václav Král (Prague: Nakladatelstvi Ceskioslovenske Akademie Ved, 1964), p. 424. See also Isabel Heinemann, “Rasse, Siedlung, deutsches Blut,” pp. 159–160; Richard Breitmann, The Architect of p. 94.
Beger noted in his plan for a racial project in Norway, “It might be useful to disguise the racial investigations as medical research on physical fitness.” Beger to RFSS via RuSHA, 30.06.1941, NARA, R135/ 52/162779–162784.
Freiherr von Verschuer, “Rassenbiologie der Juden,” p. 141.
Darstellung der im Rahmen des Sonderkommando ‘K’ geplanten rassenkundlichen Untersuchungen,” n.d., BA, R135/44, 164287–164288.
to Beger, 27.09.1942, BA, R135/48/164005–164006.
Darstellung der im Rahmen des Sonderkommando ‘K’ geplanten rassenkundlichen Untersuchungen,” n.d., BA, R135/44, 164287–164288.
der Ausrüstung für Sonderkommando K,” n.d., BA, R135/44.
to Chef des RuSHA, 18.07.1941, BA, NS 2/79. Bl 118–120, as quoted in Isabel Heinemann, “Rasse, Siedlung, deutsches Blut,” p. 532.
Heinemann, “Rasse, Siedlung, deutsches Blut,” p. 531–32.
Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945 (London: Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 2000), p. 534.
p. 547.
p. 550.
to Schäfer, 05.02.1943, BA NS 19/2681.
19. THE SKELETON COLLECTION
Lang, Die Namen der Nummern (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 2004), p. 278. After painstaking research, German journalist Hans-Joachim Lang has recently identified the names and compiled brief biographies of all eighty-six victims of the Jewish Skeleton Collection conspiracy.
story of the Hospital of the Jewish Community is a particularly remarkable one. During the war, the hospital was under the authority of the Reich Main Security Office, which took over several of its buildings for a soldiers’ hospital and a prison camp for Jews. But the Nazi authorities permitted the Jewish hospital to continue providing medical services to Jews, and, astonishingly, the hospital survived until the end of the war, thanks largely to the tenacity of its director, Dr. Walter Lustig. Daniel B. Silver, Refuge in Hell: How Berlin’s Jewish Hospital Outlasted the Nazis (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2004).
Reineck und Toch.” Anklage der Generalstaatsanswaltschaft Frankfurt gegen Beger, Fleischhacker, Wolff, pp. 1006–1008, Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971, StA Mchn, Stanw 34.878/91. Other former Auschwitz prisoners remembered details of this event a little differently. The Polish doctor Wladyslaw Fejkiel, for example, recalled seeing groups of prisoners assembled near Block 24. I have based my description on the testimony of witnesses Reineck and Toch, which agrees on several key points.
Jay Lifton and Amy Hackett, “Nazi Doctors,” in Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death ed. Yisrael Gutman and Michael Berenbaum (Published in Association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), p. 305.
Lang, Die Namen der p. 115.
Reineck und Toch.” Anklage der Generalstaatsanwaltschaft Frankfurt gegen Beger, Fleischhacker, Wolff, pp. 1006–1008, Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971, StA Mchn, Stanw 34.878/91.
Holocaust survivor, Gershon Evan, underwent similar racial measurements after being arrested by the Gestapo in 1939 in Vienna. Like the prisoners of Auschwitz, Evan was measured by an anthropologist. He later wrote a poignant account of his experience. Unlike the Auschwitz prisoners, Evan was alerted ahead of time by other prisoners as to what was going to happen. “Had I not known what to expect,” he explained in his account, “the instruments would have given me the creeps.” For further details, see Gershon Evan, Winds of Life (Riverside, California: Ariadne Press, 2000), pp. 153–154.
Toch.” Anklage der Generalstaatsanwaltschaft Frankfurt gegen Beger, Fleischhacker, Wolff, pp. 1007–1008, Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich-Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971, StA Mchn, Stanw 34.878/91.
Beger claimed after the war to have arrived in Auschwitz on June 11, 1943, he seems to have arrived several days earler. A report written by Wolff states that Beger left for Auschwitz on June 6. The train trip from Berlin to Auschwitz took only one day. Moreover, Beger had already selected prisoners and begun some measurements by June 11. Wolff, “Vermerk,” 11.06.1943, BA NS21/ 907; Schäfer to Beger, 24.06.1943, BA, R135/45/151544.
Gabel,” Anklage der Generalstaatsanwaltschaft Frankfurt gegen Beger, Fleischhacker, Wolff, pp. 1003–1004. Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971, StA Mchn, Stanw 34.878/91.
“R.u.S.-Fragebogen: Lichtbilder,” BA (ehem. BDC) RS: Fleischhacker, Hans (10.03.1912).
of Johann Paul Kremer. April 30th, 1942,” in KL Auschwitz Seen by the ed. Jadwig Bezwinska (New York: Howard Fertig, 1984), p. 213.
pp. 213–220.
to Fleischhacker, 16.06.1943, NS 21/907.
Gabel.” Anklage der Generalstaatsanwaltschaft Frankfurt gegen Beger, Fleischhacker, Wolff,” pp. 1003–1004. Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971, StA Mchn, Stanw 34.878/91.
of Johann Paul Kremer. Sept. 5th, 1942,” in KL Auschwitz Seen by the SS p. 216.
communication, Dr. Bruno Beger.
Gutman, “Auschwitz—An Overview,” in Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death p. 10 See also “Reminiscences of Pery Broad,” in KL Auschwitz Seen by the p. 139.
Vrba, I Cannot Forgive (Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 1997), p. 77.
Gutman, “Auschwitz—An Overview,” in Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death pp. 20–21.
Nyiszli, Auschwitz: A Doctor’s Eyewitness Account (Geneva: Ferni Pub. House 1979), p. 36.
“Affidavit,” 17.11.1946, Office of U.S. Chief of Counsel. Translation of Document No. NO-880. StA Mchn. Stanw 34878/14.
IV. Die Einlassung der Angeschuldigten und die Beweiswürdigung,” p. 80, Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971. IfZ, Gf 03.32.
to Schäfer, 24.06.1943, NARA T 81/ 128/151545.
of human testicles in the Strasbourg Institute,” 25.05.1945, Document N0–521. NARA, Records of the U.S. Nuremberg War Crimes Trials: United States of America v. Karl Brant et al. (Case 1), Nov. 21, 1946–Aug. 20, 1947, RG238 Nuernberg, Organization Series 516–517. Box 11, Entry 174. NM-70.
Toch.” Anklage der Generalstaatsanwaltschaft Frankfurt gegen Beger, Fleischhacker, Wolff,” pp. 1007–1008, Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971, StA Mchn, Stanw 34.878/91.
Wörl.” Anklage der Generalstaatsanwaltschaft Frankfurt gegen Beger, Fleischhacker, Wolff,” pp. 1005, Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971, StA Mchn, Stanw 34.878/91. For details about the conditions inside Block 10, see Robert Jay Lifton and Amy Hackett, “Nazi Doctors,” in Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death pp. 301–316.
Jay Lifton and Amy Hackett, “Nazi Doctors,” in Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death p. 304.
is possible, as Hans-Joachim Lang suggests, that the selected men and women were drawn from prisoners confined in the barracks used for medical experiments. See Hans-Joachim Lang, Die Namen der p. 114.
Jay Lifton and Amy Hackett, “Nazi Doctors,” in Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death p. 305.
Gabel.” Anklage der Generalstaatsanwaltschaft Frankfurt gegen Beger, Fleischhacker, Wolff, pp. 1003–1004, Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971 Staatsarchiv München. Stanw 34.878/91. pp. 1003–1004; “Urteil. V. Die Einlassung der Angeschuldigten und die Beweiswürdigung,” p. 79, Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971 IfZ, Gf 03.32. p. 79.
Gabel.” Anklage der Generalstaatsanwaltschaft Frankfurt gegen Beger, Fleischhacker, Wolff,” pp. 1003–1004, Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971, StA Mchn, Stanw 34.878/91.
Freiherr von Verschuer, “Rassenbiologie der Juden,” Forschungen zur Judenfrage 3 (Hamburg: Hanseatische Verlaganstalt, 1938): 137–151.
notes 16 and 17 in Chapter 13.
Gabel.” Anklage der Generalstaatsanwaltschaft Frankfurt gegen Beger, Fleischhacker, Wolff,” pp. 1003–1004, Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971, StA Mchn, Stanw 34.878/91.
V. Die Einlassung der Angeschuldigten und die Beweiswürdigung,” p. 81, Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971. IfZ, Gf 03.32.
to Fleischhacker, 16.06.1943, NS 21/907; Sievers to Eichmann, 21.06.1943, NARA T-175/103 2625099.
to Eichmann, 21.06.1943, NARA, RG242, T175/103/2625099. In all likelihood, Beger lacked all the inoculations necessary for immunity to typhus. Physicians at Auschwitz gave the SS staff members three innoculations, spaced out over three weeks, to ensure that they possessed sufficient immunity. Beger was not at Auschwitz long enough, however, to receive all three. See “Diary of Johann Paul Kremer, Sept. 5th, 1942,” in KL Auschwitz Seen by the pp. 214–219.
to Sievers, 09.07.1943, BA, NS 21/907.
Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1990) p. 191.
Joachim Lang, Die Namen der p. 161.
to Eichmann, 21.06.1943, NARA, RG242, T175/103/2625099.
to Hirt, 07.07.1943, BA, NS 21/907.
to Beger, “Telegramm,” 30.07.1943, NARA, RG242, T580/R153/241.
were housed in Hotel Struthof before construction was finished on the camp facilities at Natzweiler. Thus the camp was sometimes called Struthof.
H. Kasten, “Unethical Nazi Medicine in Annexed Alsace-Lorraine,” Historians and Archivists: Essays in Modern German History and Archival ed. George O. Kent (Fairfax, Virginia: George Mason University Press, 1991), p. 175.
p. 192.
to Brandt, 27.04.1943, BA (ehem. BDC) WI, Hirt, August (29.04.1898).
Kramer, “Statement,” 26.07.1945, NARA, Records of the U.S. Nuremberg War Crimes Trials: United States of America v. Karl Brant et.al. (Case 1), Nov. 21, 1946–Aug. 20, 1947, RG238, M887/16/Jewish Skeleton Collection.
to Hirt, Approx. date 20.04.1943, BA, NS 21/906.
In this letter, Wolff explains that the machines should be ready in six weeks’ time.
IV. Die Einlassung der Angeschuldigten und die Beweiswürdigung,” p. 19, Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971. IfZ, Gf 03.32.
“Reisekostenabrechnung,” 06.10.1943, BA, NS 21/506.
Lang, Die Namen der p. 172.
Heinemann, “Rasse, Siedlung, deutsches Blut,” (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2003) pp. 544–547; Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1950), Vol. 1, pp. 695–696.
Jay Lifton and Amy Hackett, “Nazi Doctors,” in Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death pp. 306–308.
of human testicles in the Strasbourg Institute,” 25.05.1945, Document No-521 NARA, Records of the U.S. Nuremberg War Crimes Trials: United States of America v. Karl Brandt et al. (Case 1), Nov. 21, 1946–Aug. 20, 1947, RG238 Nuernberg, Organization Series 516–517. Box 11, Entry 174. NM-70. In 1958, a team of British biologists demonstrated that mouse spermatozoa treated with Trypaflavine were less motile. Indeed the treatment “lowered the fertilization rate.” Hirt had experimented with this dye for years, and may well have suspected that it would damage human fertility. For further details on the 1958 British work, see R. G. Edwards, “The Experimental Induction of Gynogenesis in the Mouse. III. Treatment of Sperm with Trypaflavine, Toluidine Blue, or Nitrogen Mustard,” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences 149, no. 934 (July 1, 1958): 117–129.
of human testicles in the Strasbourg Institute,” 25.05.1945, Document NO-521. NARA, Records of the U.S. Nuremberg War Crimes Trials: United States of America v. Karl Brandt et al. (Case 1), Nov. 21, 1946–Aug. 20, 1947, RG238 Nuernberg, Organization Series 516–517. Box 11, Entry 174. NM-70.
Lang, Die Namen der p. 173.
Lengyel, Five Chimneys: The Story of Auschwitz (London: Mayflower, Granada Publ., 1972) p. 143.
is some doubt whether the women were executed in one group or in two. I believe that the balance of evidence suggests that they were murdered in two groups, the first on April 11 and the second on April 13.
Kramer, Statement, 26.07.1945, NARA, Records of the U.S. Nuremberg War Crimes Trials: United States of America v. Karl Brandt et al. (Case 1), Nov. 21, 1946–Aug. 20, 1947, RG238, M887/16/Jewish Skeleton Collection.
A British military court sentenced Kramer to death for his war crimes in November 1945. He was executed on December 13, 1945.
“Affidavit,” 17.11.1946, Office of U.S. Chief of Counsel. Translation of Document No. NO-880. StA Mchn. Stanw 34878/14. Hirt, however, was mistaken about the number. He ultimately received eighty-six corpses—twenty-nine females and fifty-seven males.
Lang, Die Namen der p. 176.
“Affidavit,” 17.11.46, Office of U.S. Chief of Counsel. Translation of Document No. NO-880. StA Mchn. Stanw 34878/14.
Schwab, “Identifizierung nach 60 Jahren,” Die September 23, 2003, p. 7.
“Affidavit.” 17.11.1946, Office of U.S. Chief of Counsel. Translation of Document No. NO-880. StA Mchn. Stanw 34878/14.
20. REFUGE
Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945 (London: Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 2000), p. 596.
Kershaw, Hitler p. 597; W.G. Sebald, “A Natural History of Destruction,” The New November 4, 2002, p. 66–77.
Himmler, 29.07.1943, BAK, NS 21/265.
Greif, Der SS-Standort Waischenfeld 1934–1945 (Erlangen: Palm & Enke, 2000) pp. 45–50.
historian Michael Kater has pointed out, Schäfer often insisted after the war that this institute was not part of the Ahnenerbe, but the documentary evidence demonstrates that this allegation is untrue. Michael H. Kater, Das “Ahnenerbe” der SS 1935–1945 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1974), p. 213.
Greif, Der SS-Standort Waischenfeld p. 19, pp. 54–58.
pp. 18–19.
to Ludwig Müller. 02.11.1943. BA, NS 21/67.
of 10 October 1942, on cooling experiments on human beings,” Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Vol. 1 Case 1: The Medical Case (Washington, D.C: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949–1950), pp. 226–243.
was greatly disturbed to find that one of the female prostitutes showed “unobjectionably Nordic racial characteristics: blond hair, blue eyes, corresponding head and body structure, years of age.” As he noted in a memorandum, “I questioned the girl, why she had volunteered for the brothel. I received the answer: ‘To get out of the concentration camp, for we were promised that all those who would volunteer for the brothel for half a year would then be released from the concentration camp.’” Impressed by her “Nordic” appearance, Rascher refused to use her in the experiments. “Memorandum of Rascher on women used for rewarming in freezing experiments, 5 November 1942,” Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Vol. 1, Case 1: The Medical Case (Washington, D.C: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949–1950), p. 245.
from Rascher to Himmler, 17 February 1943, and Summary of Experiments for Rewarming of Chilled Human Beings by Animal Warmth, 12 February 1943,” Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Vol. 1, Case 1: The Medical Case (Washington, D.C: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949–1950), pp. 249–251.
Experiments,” Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Vol. 2, Case 2: The Milch Case (Washington, D.C: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949–1950), pp. 847–848.
from the Closing Brief against Defendant Sievers: Freezing Experiments,” Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Vol. 1, Case 1: The Medical Case (Washington, D.C: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949–1950), p. 200.
Klee, Auschwitz, die NS-Medizin und ihre Opfer (Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer, 1997), p. 351.
Rascher, “Affidavit 31 December 1946,” Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Vol. 1, Case 1: The Medical Case (Washington, D.C: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949–1950), pp. 670.
from Haagen to Hirt, 15 November 1943,” Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Vol. 1, Case 1: The Medical Case (Washington, D.C: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949–1950), pp. 578–579.
Klee, Auschwitz, die NS-Medizin und ihre pp. 378–380. Later in 1944, Sievers also obtained the services of Dr. Wilhelm Beiglböck, who conducted experiments at Dachau on making seawater drinkable. As part of these experiments, Beiglböck forced his subjects to drink chemically treated seawater, resulting in serious medical injuries. “Sea Water experiments,” Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Vol. 1, Case 1: The Medical Case (Washington, D.C: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949–1950), pp. 418–493.
Klee, Auschwitz, die NS-Medizin und ihre pp. 389–391. As Klee points out, some of the best evidence concerning these tests comes from one of the prisoners, Rudolf Guttenberger, a young Gypsy. My description of the experiment is drawn from Guttenberger’s recollection of the events.
p. 381.
“Zur Filmvorführung in Mittersill,” n.d., BA, R135/31. In this speech, Schäfer outlines some of the rumors about Mittersill castle circulating among the local inhabitants.
Exhibition, Writers’ Room, 24.04.2002, Schloss Mitersill.
of Dr. Ernst Schäfer, 27.11.1945, BA (ehem.BDC) 0.916.
H. Kater, Das “Ahnenerbe” der p. 213. In January 1943, Schäfer’s department was renamed the Sven Hedin Reich Institute for Inner Asian Studies in order to win support from the University of Munich and the Reichs Ministry of Education. It remained, however, a department of the Ahnenerbe.
Nr. Verlängerung. Der Umsiedler Evert, Maria,” 10.05.1944, NARA, RG242, T81/132/166106; “Aufstellung der am 24. März 1944 in Schloß Mittersill eingetroffenen 15 Bibelforscherinnen,” NARA, RG242, T81/132/166107; Forschungsstätte für Innerasien to Reichsgesundheitsführer, 23.06.1944, NARA, RG 242, T81/132/166157; “Forderungsnachweis: 1.10–31.10.1944,” 01.11.1944, NARA, RG242, T81/132/166138; “Forderungsnachweis: 01.08.-31.08.44,” 01.08.1944,” BA, R135/12, 166145. These documents record the use of concentration-camp prisoners at Mittersill, which became a subcamp of Mauthausen. It should be noted that many of the prisoners that Himmler sent to Mittersill were Jehovah’s Witnesses: no Jewish prisoners worked at the castle. Perhaps this explains why, as Mauthausen historian Andreas Baumgartner has pointed out, “the conditions at Mittersill were probably slightly better than elsewhere.” For further details on this see Andreas Baumgartner, Die vergessenen Frauen von Mauthausen (Vienna: Verlag Österreich, 1997), pp. 133–139.
“Vermerk: Betr. Ethnologische Tibetgegenstände,” 27.09.1943, NARA T81/130/162887.
H. Kasten, “Unethical Nazi Medicine in Annexed Alsace-Lorraine: The Strange Case of Nazi Anatomist Professor Dr. August Hirt,” in Historians and ed. George O. Kent (Fairfax, Virginia: George Mason University Press, 1997), p. 188.
Beger seems to have worked on the anthropological research data from the murdered prisoners throughout the fall of 1943 and into the spring of 1944. “Urteil. V. Die Beteiligung des Angeklagten Dr. Beger,” pp. 34–35, Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.. IfZ, Gf 03.32.. See also Wolff to Beger, 03.11.1943, BA, 135/49/163551; Beger to Wolff, 06.11.1943, BA, R135/52/162956.
to Beger, 23.06.1944, NARA, RG242, T81/131/164370. In this letter, Rudolf Trojan, one of the racial experts at Mittersill, asks Beger, “What is supposed to happen with the Jewish skulls? They are just lying around here and taking up space. What was originally planned for these? I think it would be best if you send them to Strassburg and they should deal with them.” It is indeed possible that these skulls came from Strassburg. When Allied investigators arrived at the anatomical institute in Strassburg in late 1944, they discovered only sixteen complete bodies from those murdered at Natzweiler. In addition to these, they discovered a number of other defleshed bodies missing their heads. The investigators concluded that the heads had been incinerated in the crematorium of Strassburg, in order to prevent their identification. But it is possible that Hirt’s staff managed to deflesh these skulls earlier by other methods of maceration, such as boiling in water. They could then have been sent to Beger. For further details, see “Photographs of treatment inflicted upon political and racial deportees and others detained at the Struthof camp (Laboratory for medical experiments),” translation of document No-483. NARA, Records of the U.S. Nuremberg War Crimes Trials: ‘United States of America v. Karl Brandt et al.’ (Case 1), Nov. 21, 1946–Aug. 20, 1947, RG238, M887/16/Jewish Skeleton Collection.
to Beger, 08.08.1944, NARA, RG238, T81/131/164382–164385.
to Oberste Stelle für Kriegsgefangene Torgau, 10.02.1944, BA, R135/51/162463–162464.
“Entwurf! Waffen SS. Wehrwissenschaftliche Forschungen des ‘Ahnenerbes,’” BA, R135/52/162729; Sievers to Beger, 23.11.1943, NARA, RG242, T81/132/166160.
“Vermerk,” 24.03.1945, BA, NS 21/329.
communication, Mrs. Ursula Schäfer.
to Grau, 07.12.1944, BA, NS 21/ 329.
communication, Mrs. Ursula Schäfer.
States Fleet Headquarters of the Commander in Chief, “Amphibious Operations: Invasion of Northern France Western Task Force, June 1944,” COMINCH Pub 006, October 1944.
to Brandt, 05.09.1944, NARA, RG242, T175/103/2625096.
“Note re: skeleton collection in the Strassburg anatomical institute: dated 15.10.1944,” translation of document NO-091. NARA, Records of the U.S. Nuremberg War Crimes Trials: ‘United States of America v. Karl Brandt et al.’ (Case 1), Nov. 21, 1946–Aug. 20, 1947, RG238, M887/16/Jewish Skeleton Collection.
to Hirt, 18.10.1944, BA, NS 21/908.
“Affidavit,” 17.11.1946, Office of U.S. Chief of Counsel. Translation of Document No. NO-880. StA Mchn. Stanw 34878/14.
“Aktenvermerk für Brandt,” 26.10.1944, BA, NS 19/1582. Also Sievers to Brandt, 07.12.1944, BA, NS 21/908.
of human testicles in the Strasbourg Institute,” 25.05.1945, translation of Document NO-521. NARA, Records of the U.S. Nuremberg War Crimes Trials: ‘United States of America v. Karl Brandt et al. (Case 1),’ Nov. 21, 1946–Aug. 20, 1947, RG238 Nuernberg, Organization Series 516–517. Box 11, Entry 174. NM-70.
Greif, Der SS-Standort Waischenfeld: pp. 80–82.
to Hirt, 20.01.1945, BA, NS 21/909.
to Sievers, 19.10.1944, BA, NS 21/908.
to Six, 28.03.1945, BA, NS 21/909.
“Stellungnahme zu der Veröffentlichung der ‘Daily Mail’ vom 03.01.1945,” 25.01.1945, BA, NS 19/2281.
to Six, 16.02.1945. BA, NS 21/909.
to Trojan, 19.02.1945, BA, NS 21/909; Wolff to Beger, 19.02.1945. BA, NS 21/909.
Greif, Der SS-Standort p. 83.
21. THOR’S HAMMER
Speer, Infiltration (New York: Macmillan, 1981) p. 146.
quoted in Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb (New York: Touchstone, 1988) p. 403.
Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic pp. 404–405.
historian Rainer Karlsch has suggested that the German government did indeed succeed in building a “hybrid tactical nuclear weapon,” but his contentions have been met with skepticism. See Rainer Karlsch, Hitlers Bombe (Munich: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 2005).
by Elektro-Mechanische Apparatebaugesellschaft, 28.10.1944, as quoted in Albert Speer, p. 146.
Kersten, The Memoirs of Doctor Felix ed. Herma Briffault (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1947), pp. 252–253.
VI to Dr. R. Brandt, 08.01.1945, as translated and quoted in Albert Speer, p. 146.
to Brandt, 07.02.1945, as translated and quoted in Albert Speer, p. 147.
Beever, The Fall of Berlin 1945 (New York: Viking, 2002), pp. 28–32, 67.
Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945 (London: Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 2000) p.818.
pp. 817–819.
pp. 716–717.
Cook and Stuart Russell, Heinrich Himmler’s Camelot (Andrews, N.C.: Kressmann-Backmeyer, 1999), p. 204.
p. 204–205.
p. 206.
Kr.Paderborn.-Museumeinrichtung 1935–1944,” Nach Erinnerungen von Wilhelm Jordan, 29.12. 1979, KWA 70/1/2/14.
is currently unknown exactly how much wartime plunder made its way to Wewelsburg. But some inkling can be gained from a few surviving documentary sources. Paulsen. “Dienstreisebericht von Peter Paulsen,” 04.01.1940, as reproduced in Andrzej Mezynski, Kommando Paulsen (Cologne: Dittrich-Verlag, 2000) pp. 55–67; Jordan, “Verzeichnis von vorgeschichtlichen Funden aus dem Museum für Vorgeschichte in Dnjepropetrowsk,” 31.12.1943, BA, NS 19/3638.
von Lang, Der Adjutant (Munich: Herbig Verlag, 1985), p. 162.
Russell and Jost W. Schneider, Heinrich Himmlers Burg (Essen: Heitz & Höffkes, 1989), pp. 180–181.
Cook and Stuart Russell, Heinrich Himmler’s p. 212.
Kershaw, Hitler pp. 816–817.
p. 819.
Padfield, Himmler (London: Cassel & Co, 2001), p. 608. See also Willi Frischauer, Himmler, the Evil Genius of the Third Reich (London: Odhams Press, 1953) p. 256.
Sure Himmler Faces a Glowing Future,” The New York May 17, 1945.
of Himmler’s companions was SS-Hauptsturmführer Macher, the man Himmler had sent to destroy Wewelsburg.
for Himmler Widens,” The New York May 15, 1945.
Padfield, p. 610.
Caught, Ends Life by Poison: Arch Criminal Dies,” The New York May 25, 1945.
Padfield, p. 610.
Padfield, p. 611.
Grave on the Heath,” June 26, 1945. For a picture of one of these plaster casts, see “Time’s Winged Chariot, Heinrich Himmler,” June 24, 1945.
Frischauer, p. 258.
22. NUREMBERG
Gellhorn, The Face of War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1959) p. 213.
of Proceedings,” Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers, The Conference of Berlin (The Potsdam Vol. II (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1960), p. 1483.
Greif, Der SS-Standort Waischenfeld 1934–1945 (Erlangen: Palm & Enke, 2000) p. 82.
fact, there are two accounts of how the files were hidden. One, provided by Sievers’s assistant, Wolff, noted that they were placed behind the rubble of a blast. A second, provided by the Ahnenerbe’s cave expert, Dr. Hans Brand, suggested that they were placed behind a false wall. I think Wolff’s version is somewhat more credible, as Brand and his coworkers noted after the war that they had not taken part in this action. As Sievers’s trusted assistant at Waischenfeld, Wolff would more likely know what had happened to the files. For further details see Thomas Greif, Der SS-Standort p. 82.
Greif, Der SS-Standort pp. 85–86.
Frank Wallace to Murray Bernays, as quoted in Robert E. Conot, Justice at Nuremberg (New York: Harper & Row, 1947), p. 38.
H. Kater, Das “Ahnenerbe” der SS 1935–1945 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1974), pp. 239–243. Some doubt now exists about whether all the children were stolen. See Ernst Klee, Auschwitz, die NS-Medizin und ihre Opfer (Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer, 1997), p. 353.
H. Kater, Das “Ahnenerbe,” pp. 243.
officials arranged for Hirt’s body to buried, and it was not until the mid-1960s that Israeli investigators closed the books on the case. According to medical historian Frederick Kasten, the Israeli secret service contacted officials in the Black Forest region and had them exhume the body of the man who committed suicide there in the early summer of 1945. An Israeli pathologist conclusively identified the bones as those of Dr. August Hirt.
Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Vol. 1, Case 1: The Medical Case (Washington, D.C: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949–1950), pp. 8–10.
Statement of the Prosecution by Brigadier General Telford Taylor, 9 December 1945,” Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Vol. 1, Case 1: The Medical Case (Washington, D.C: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949–1950), pp. 27–29.
Statement of Defendant Sievers,” Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Vol. 2, Case 1: The Medical Case. (Washington, D.C: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949–1950), pp. 157–159.
Unterredung Frau Hella Sievers-Michael H. Kater, 26–27.4.1963, IfZ. ZS/A-25. vol. 2.
years, prominent historians such as Michael Kater cast considerable doubt on the existence of this resistance group. Recently, however, a German sociologist, Ina Schmidt, has conducted interviews with several close associates of Hielscher, who claim that this group did indeed exist and that Sievers was a member. Ina Schmidt, “Der Herr des Feuers” (dissertation, Hamburger Universität für Wirtschaft und Politik, 2002), p. 229, pp. 235–239.
poem that Sievers kept among his Ahnenerbe papers is entitled “Poem dedicated to Wolfram Sievers to remember the [ ] nights from 21–24.01.1933.” The author of the poem is identified as “F.H.” One stanza reads “We burn like flames/and taste every pleasure/and fall together/and fight breast to breast.” BA (ehem BDC) RS Sievers, Wolfram (10.07.1905).
H. Kater, Das “Ahnenerbe,” p. 313.
Schmidt, “Der Herr des Feuers,” pp. 228–229.
pp. 235–236.
pp. 228–229.
from the Closing Statement of the Prosecution,” Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Vol. 2, Case 1: The Medical Case (Washington, D.C: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949–1950), p.4–5.
23. SECRETS
Funder, Stasiland (London: Granta Books, 2003), p. 284, footnote for p. 119.
Encyclopedia of the Third ed. Christian Zentner and Friedemann Bedürftig (New York: Da Capo Press, 1997), s.v. “Questionnaire.”
Rückerl, NS-Verbrechen vor Gericht (Heidelberg: C.F. Müller, 1984), pp. 117–120.
Clark, “West Germany Confronts the Nazi Past,” The European Legacy 4, no. 1 (1999): 114–115.
Rückerl, NS-Verbrechen vor pp. 117–120.
Clark, “West Germany Confronts the Nazi Past,” p. 116.
p. 117; The Encyclopedia of the Third ed. Christian Zentner and Friedemann Bedürftig (New York: Da Capo Press, 1997), s.v. “Persil Certificate”; Adalbert Rückerl, NS-Verbrechen vor pp. 117–120.
Clark, “West Germany Confronts the Nazi Past,” p. 116.
to Zaharia, 18.07.1946, StA Mchn, SpkA K2015 vol.2.
to Wüst, 04.01.1940, BA, NS 21 /46.
Wiwjorra, “Herman Wirth—Ein gescheiterter Ideologe zwischen ‘Ahnenerbe’ und Atlantis,” Historische eds. Barbara Danckwortt et al (Hamburg: Argument, 1995). p. 108.
communication, Dr. Luitgard Löw.
to Wirth Roeper Bosch, 20.03.1965, ATA Stockholm.
to Wirth Roeper Bosch, 20.03.1965, ATA Stockholm.
communication, Mr. Paul Rohkst.
Adam, “Schenkel der Göttlichen,” Der Spiegel 34, No. 40 (29.09.1980).
communication, Mr. Paul Rohkst.
the opening of the museum exhibit of Wirth’s casts, the government of upper Austria established a commission to investigate the role of Wirth and his colleague Ernst Burgstaller during the Nazi regime. Personal communication, Dr. Luitgard Löw.
Mandl, “Das Erbe der Ahnen: Ernst Burgstaller/Herman Wirth und die österreichische Felsbildforschung,” Archäologie und Felsbildforschung: Mitteilungen der ANISA 19/20, no.1/2 (1999).
communication, Mr. Juhani von Grönhagen. Yrjö von Grönhagen does indeed seem to have worked in some capacity for the Finnish foreign ministry during the war. But the exact nature of this work is unclear. For further details, see Grönhagen, “RKK Fragebogen,” 07.03.1942, BA (ehem. BDC) RKK: Grönhagen, Yrjö von (03.11.1911); Herta von Grönhagen to Mag. Puntila, 10.11.1940, ARK, A 3860.
“RKK Fragebogen,” 07.03.1942, BA (ehem. BDC) RKK: Grönhagen, Yrjö von (03.11.1911).
“Erkläring,” 01.07.1946, ARK, A 3860.
Security Service, “To whom it may concern,” 28.06.1946, ARK, A 3860.
Angaben über das Geschlecht Grönhagen,” unpublished document in collection of Mr. Juhani von Grönhagen.
researching this book, I and my colleague Charlotte Stenberg managed to track down many of these lost recordings in an archive in Berlin, bringing to scholarly attention again the voices of long-dead singers.
communication, Dr. Juha Pentikäinen.
communication, Mr. Juhani von Grönhagen.
communication, Dr. Ruth Altheim-Stiehl.
and Trautmann, “(Vertraulicher) Bericht über eine im Sommer und Herbst 1938 unternommen Forschungsreise in Schweden, Rumänien, Syrien und Irak,” approximate date 05.12.1938, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Altheim, Franz. 06.10.1898; Altheim and Trautmann. “(Vertraulicher) Bericht” n.d. BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Altheim, Franz (06.10.1898); Sievers to RFSS, 15.01.1941, NARA, RG242,T175/48/2585099; Altheim and Trautmann, “Notwendigkeit einer deutschen Initiative im arabischen Raum Vorderasiens,” 14.01.1941, NARA, RG242, T175/48/2585100.
to RFSS, 15.01.1941, NARA, RG242, T175/48/2585099. This letter included an attachment entitled “Notwendigkeit einer deutschen Initiative im arabischen Raum Vorderasiens,” 14.01.1941, NARA, RG242, T175/48/2585100.
über Iran,” 11.06.1941, BA, NS 21/2414. The original covering letter for this report appears to have been lost, thus making indisputable identification of the author extremely difficult. However, a number of clues point to Altheim and Trautmann. The report was found in a file belonging to Himmler’s personal staff. This same file contained the secret Iraq report that Altheim and Trautmann submitted five months earlier. In addition, the Iran report was typed in a similar format to the Iraq report. Also, it contained information similar to that which Altheim and Trautmann gleaned during their 1938 trip to Iraq. For example, this Iran report notes that “in the lower classes, one can often come across the opinion that the Führer is the thirteenth imam who will deliver all Islamic Iranians from earthly suffering.”
communication, Dr. Ruth Altheim-Stiehl.
Surviving letters show that Altheim did indeed try to obtain the release of the young Hungarian woman—Grazia Kerényi, the daughter of the prominent Hungarian historian Karl Kerényi, who had been a close friend of Altheim before the war—from an Austrian concentration camp in 1944. For further details, see Völker Losemann, “Die ‘Krise der Alten Welt’ und der Gegenwart,” Völker Imperium ed. Peter Kneissl and Völker Losemann (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1998).
communication, Dr. Ruth Altheim-Stiehl.
by 1944, Altheim had taken to describing Trautmann as an “elderly” lady. She was forty-seven years old. See Altheim to Neugebauer, 16.08.1944, DAI Nachlass Neugebauer, Karl Anton.
communication, Dr. Ruth Altheim-Stiehl.
communication, Dr. Bernhard Caemmerer.
communication, Dr. Dieter Metzler.
Merkel, “Bibliographie Franz Altheim,” Beiträge zur Alten Geschichte und deren ed. Ruth Stiehl and Hans Erich Stier (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter &Co., 1970), pp. 390–426.
17. Oktober 1976 verstarb im 79.Lebensjahr,” Der Berlin, October 24, 1976.
communication, Dr. Bernhard Caemmerer.
unsere verstorbene Base Erika Trautmann,” Familienblatt Nehring 9 (1968): 54.
communication, Dr. Dieter Metzler.
Bohmers’s former colleagues at the Ahnenerbe found this claim utterly unbelievable. “The idea that Bohmers was part of the resistance is absurd,” wrote Lothar Zotz, a fellow Ahnenerbe archaeologist, after the war. “Gedächtnisprotokoll. Unterredung Zotz/Freund und Michael H. Kater,” 18.03.1963, IfZ, ZS/A-25 vol. 3. p. 787.
communication, Dr. Oebele Vries.
communication, Dr. H.T. Waterbolk.
to Sievers, 11.11.1940, BA (ehem.BDC) Ahnenerbe: Bohmers, John Christiaan Assien (16.1.1912).
communication, Dr. H.T. Waterbolk.
communication, Dr. Oebele Vries.
is clear from surviving pieces of correspondence that Bohmers did indeed meet Himmler, but it seems highly unlikely that he ever addressed him to his face as Heini.
Dr. Schäfer,” 07.11.1962, StA Mchn, Stanw 34878/18. See also Wüst to Kater, 07.06.1964, IfZ, ZS/A-25. vol. 3.
communication, Mrs. Ursula Schäfer. Also, “Zeuge Dr. Schäfer,” 07.11.1962, StA Mchn, Stanw 34878/18.
Ernst Schäfer,” 13.06.1949, StA Mchn, Spruchkammer-Akt 1573.
communication, Mrs. Ursula Schäfer.
Anti-Disney,” Der No. 13 (1959): 60–61.
on Mittersill’s history in Writers Room, 24.04.2002, Schloss Mittersill.
Lycett, Ian Fleming (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1995), pp. 294–295.
p.295.
and Victoria Trimondi, Hitler, Buddha, Krishna (Vienna: Ueberreuter, 2002), p. 111.
19.06.1947, HHA, Wiesbaden. Abt. 520 KS-HL Nr. 88, Spruchkammer Kassel; Kellner to Spruchkammer Kassel. 29.06.1948, HHA. Abt. 520 KS-HL Nr. 88 Spruchkammer Kassel.
to Spruchkammer Kassel, 14.07.1948, HHA, Wiesbaden. Abt. 520 KS-HL Nr. 88 Spruchkammer Kassel.
der öffentlichen Sitzung am: 5 August, 1948,” HHA, Wiesbaden. Abt. 520 KS-HL Nr. 88, Spruchkammer Kassel.
05.08.1948, HHA, Wiesbaden. Abt. 520 KS-HL Nr. 88, Spruchkammer Kassel.
E. Lester, ed., Art Looting and Nazi Germany (Bethesda, MD: LexisNexis, 2002), p. v.
Wolf, “Nachruf Peter Paulsen 1902–1985,” Fundberichte aus Baden-Württemberg 10 (1985): 727–728.
Kerschbaumer, “Das Deutsche Haus der Natur zu Salzburg,” in Politik der ed. Herbert Posch, and Gottfried Fliedl (Vienna: Turia and Kant, 1996), p. 182.
pp. 182–183.
Fliedl, Das Haus der Natur in Salzburg als Institut des http://homepage.univie.ac.at/gottfried.fliedl/mouseion/hausdernatur.html.
communication, Dr. Dieter Jankuhn.
Steuer, “Herbert Jankuhn und seine Darstellungen zur Germanen-und Wikingerzeit,” in Eine hervorragend nationale ed. Heiko Steuer, (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2001), p. 425.
communication, Dr. Dieter Jankuhn.
Dr. phil. Herbert Jankuhn,” Georg-August Universität Göttingen, October 1990.
communication, Dr. Anders Hagen.
became so worried that the courageous resistance of Norwegian archaeologists against Jankuhn and the Ahnenerbe would be forgotten that he wrote an article on the subject in 1985 and published it in a prominent Norwegian archaeological journal, Jankuhn had retired from teaching by then, but he remained active in European archaeology, working as a consultant for the Commission for Antiquities Studies in Middle and Northern Europe in Göttingen. Soon after the article was published, one of Hagen’s students translated the article into German and passed it around among archaeological students in Germany. Most, noted Hagen, had never heard of the Ahnenerbe and had little idea that one of the leading figures in German archaeology had played such an important role in it. “They were shocked,” recalled Hagen. “They hadn’t heard about this.”
Unterredung Dr. Herbert Jankuhn und Michael H. Kater,” 14.05.1963, IfZ, ZS/A-25, vol. 1.
communication, Dr. Dieter Jankuhn.
06.07.1941, as quoted in Victor and Victoria Trimondi, Hitler, Buddha, p. 39.
to Sievers, 13.11.1944, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Wüst, Walther (07.05.1901); Wüst. “Garantieschein.” 01.11.44. BA, R51/10146.
the institute was an integral part of the Ahnenerbe can be seen from a letter that Wüst wrote to Himmler’s personal staff on February 6, 1944. In this letter, Wüst notes that Hirt’s experiments “are conducted under the Institute for Military Scientific Research in the Amt Ahnenerbe.” StA Mchn. Stanw 34878/75.
of Detailed Interrogation, Prof. Dr. Walther Wüst,” AIC NO. 1760. n.d. StA Mchn. SpKa Karton 2015, Wüst Walther.
fur politische Befreiung, Bayern. “Entwurf.” 18.03.1953, BHA, MSo 1921; Wüst to Hauptkammer Munich, 27.06.1952, StA Mchn. SpkA K2015.
Gustav Freytag to Wüst, 05.08.1954, BStM, Ana 625: Correspondence.
communication, Dr. Helmut Humbach.
Rückerl, NS-Verbrechen vor Gericht (Heidelberg: C.F. Müller, 1984) pp. 139–167.
Stelle Ludwigsburg, “Vermerk über Sievers Tagebücher,” 18.05.1967, StA Mchn. Stanw 34878/1.
Vogt, “Aktenvermerk,” 24.11.1969, StA Mchn, Stanw 34878/5. Recent efforts by several researchers to locate Wüst’s missing records have also met with failure.
München I, 23.03.1972, StA Mchn, Stanw 34878/10; Staatsanwalt München I, 13.06.1972, StA Mchn, Stanw 34878/10.
to Pers. Stab., 06.02.1944, StA Mchn, Stanw 34878/75.
Die Angeschuldigten: Lebenslauf, Dr. Bruno Beger,” p. 6, Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971. IfZ, Gf 03.32; Grau to Sievers, 19.12.44, BA, NS 21/39; Beger to Sievers, ? 02.45, BA, NS 21/39.
II. Der Angeklagte Dr. Beger,” p. 10, Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–-04.1971. IfZ, Gf 03.32.
publishing house was run by Margarete Landé and therein lies a very complicated story. Landé was a German woman of Jewish ancestry who was raised as a Christian and who entered into a close and rather enigmatic relationship with Clauss. Clauss was a handsome, charismatic man who attracted much adulation from his female students. During the war, Clauss was accused of breaking the Nazi racial laws by employing Landé. Beger intervened on behalf of Clauss, helping to get him off. Clauss then proceeded to hide Landé at his hunting lodge, where Beger finally discovered her. But Beger kept the information secret, quite possibly out of his deep friendship for Clauss. For further details, see Peter Weingart, Doppel-Leben (Frankfurt am Main.: Campus, 1995).
Die Angeschuldigten: Lebenslauf, Dr. Bruno Beger,” p. 6, Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971. IfZ, Gf 03.32.
communication, Bruno Beger. See also Vareschi, “Dienstvertrag,” 15.06.1943, NARA, T81/130/163316; “Urteil I. Die Angeschuldigten: Lebenslauf und politischer Werdegang,” Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971; “Zeuge Prof. Clauss 30.10.1962,” Voruntersuchungsache gegen Dr. Beger, StA Mchn, Stanw. 34878/13.
Beger, Mit der deutschen Tibetexpedition Ernst Schäfer 193S/39 nach Lhasa (Wiesbaden: Schwarz, 1998), p. 5.
Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971. HHA, 4 Ks 1/70.
V. Die Beteiligung des Angeklagten Dr. Beger,” pp. 33–34. Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971. IfZ, Gf 03.32.
Kaase, “Demokratische Einstellungen in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland,” Sozialwissenschaftliches Jahrbuch fur vol. 2, ed. Rudolf Wildenmann (Munich: Olzog, 1971), Vol. 2, p.325.
gegen Dr. Beger, Dr. Fleischhacker und Wolff wegen Beihilfe zum Mord,” IfZ, ZS/A-25, vol.1.pp. 20–21.
“Im Namen des Volkes: Strafsache gegen Beger und Wolff,” Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971. StA Mchn, Stanw 34878/93. See also “SS-Anthropologe Beger zu drei Jahren Freiheitsstrafe verurteilt,” Frankfurter Allgemeine April 7, 1971, p. 8.
gegen Dr. Beger, Dr. Fleischhacker und Wolff wegen Beihilfe zum Mord,” IfZ, ZS/A-25, vol.1.pp. 20.-21; “Im Namen des Volkes: Strafsache gegen Beger und Wolff,” Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971. StA Mchn, Stanw 34878/93.
gegen Beger,” Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971. StA Mchn, Stanw 34878/93.
four prisoners listed in a letter of commendation that Sievers sent at Beger’s request to the commander of the Auschwitz camp were Ludwig Wörl, Kasimir Kott, Josef Weber, and Adolf Laatsch. Ludwig Wörl was born in Munich on February 28, 1906. He was arrested for his political activities as a Communist and imprisoned first in Dachau and deported to Auschwitz on August 20, 1942. There he became a or senior block prisoner in charge of a barrack. Josef Weber, also known as Józef Weber, was born in Poland on July 27, 1920. He, too, was arrested as a political prisoner and transported to Auschwitz on May 2, 1941. Kasimir Kott, also known as Kazimierz Kot, was born in Poland on February 11, 1914. He arrived in Auschwitz on May 22, 1942, as a political prisoner. Adolf Laatsch was born on April 18, 1892, in the German city of Witten. He was sent first to Dachau, and then to Auschwitz on April 1, 1943. There he quickly became a Blockältester responsible for one of the camp barracks. Sievers to Commander of KZ Auschwitz, 22.07.1943, BA, NS 21/907; Jerzy Wróblewski, Panstwowe Muzeum Auschwitz-Birkenau, to Charlotte Stenberg, 24.03.2005, collection of the author; personal communication, Professor Rudolf Vrba. Professor Vrba is not only one of the few prisoners who succeeded in escaping from Auschwitz, but he also coauthored The Vrba Wetzler Report in 1944, which described the Auschwitz killing machine, supplied estimates of the numbers of Jews murdered, and warned that an additional eight hundred thousand Hungarian Jews were in danger of extermination at Auschwitz. Professor Vrba knew one of the prisoners, Ludwig Wörl, personally,
gegen Beger,” Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971. StA Mchn, Stanw 34878/93; “Im Namen des Volkes: Strafsache gegen Beger und Wolff,” Frankfurter Schwurgerichts. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971. StA Mchn. Stanw34878/93.
to author, 03.10.2004, author’s collection.
24. SHADOWS OF HISTORY
Montagu, Statement on Race (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972) p. 143.
p. 146.
p. 146.
of the most famous inner emigrants include poet and novelist Ricarda Huch, sculptor and playwright Ernst Barlach, composer Carl Orff, and the artist Emil Nolde. Personal communication, Dr. Peter Stenberg.