I too was once the victim of one of these rumors. It got about that it was now possible, through the influence of friends among the senior officials, for me to receive women in my cell at night. A prisoner smuggled this piece of information out of the prison, in the form of a complaint, and it eventually reached the ears of the prison board of control.
One night the president of the Prison Commission, accompanied by several other high officials, and by the prison governor who had been got out of bed, suddenly appeared in my cell, in order to convince themselves with their own eyes of the truth of this accusation. In spite of an exhaustive investigation neither the informant nor the man who had spread the rumor was ever found. On my eventual release my colleague in the stores, to whom I have referred, told me that he had invented the rumor, that the prisoner in the cell next to mine had written the complaint and had smuggled the letter out in order to get his own back on the prison warden, who had refused him a reprieve. Cause and effect! A malicious person could create a great deal of harm in this way.
Especially interesting to me in my job were the newcomers. The professional criminal was cheeky, self-confident, and insolent, and even the most severe sentence could not get him down. He was an optimist, who relied on luck turning in his favor sooner or later. Often he had been only a few weeks “outside,” on leave as it were. Prison had gradually become his real home. The first offender, or one who through an adverse stroke of fate was being punished for the second or third time, would be depressed, timid, often miserable, taciturn, and anxious. Unhappiness, distress, desolation, and despair could be read on his face. Material in plenty there for the psychoanalyst or the sociologist!
I was always glad, after a day of varied sights and sounds, to find refuge in the solitude of my cell. In peaceful meditation I reviewed the happenings of the day and formed my conclusions about them. I buried myself in my books and magazines, or read the letters sent me by my kind and dear friends. I read of the plans they had for me on my release, and smiled at their good intentions in offering me consolation and courage. I no longer needed such solace and had gradually, after five years, become inured and indifferent to my imprisonment.
A further five years lay ahead of me, without any prospect of the slightest remission. Several petitions for clemency from influential people, and even a personal request from someone who was very close to President von Hindenburg, had all been refused on political grounds. I no longer expected to be released before my full term had expired, but I now confidently hoped to be able to remain physically and mentally fit till the end. I had also made plans for keeping myself usefully occupied, for learning languages, and for educating myself further in my chosen profession. I thought of everything, but I never anticipated an early release.
Then it came overnight! In the Reichstag a sudden and unexpected majority was created by a coalition of the extreme right wing and the extreme left, both of which had a great interest in having their political prisoners set free. A political amnesty was granted almost on the spur of the moment, and along with many others I was set free.[20]
After six years of imprisonment, I was restored to freedom and to life!
I can see myself today, standing on the steps of the Potsdamer station in Berlin and gazing with interest at the milling crowds in the Potsdamer Platz. I stood there for a long time, until at last a gentleman spoke to me and asked me where I wanted to go. I must have seemed very stupid and my reply half-witted, for he at once turned and hurried away. All this bustle and activity were completely unreal to me. It was like watching a film. My release had been too sudden and unexpected, and everything appeared too improbable and strange.
A friendly Berlin family had invited me, by telegram, to stay with them. Although I knew Berlin well, and their house was within easy reach, it took me a very long time to get there. At first someone always accompanied me when I dared to go into the street, for I paid no attention to the traffic signs or to the frenzied streams of cars that filled the metropolis. I wandered about as though in a dream, and it was some days before I became reconciled to harsh reality.
People showed me every kindness. They dragged me to films and theaters and parties and to every possible place of entertainment, in fact to all those functions that a city dweller regards as a necessity of existence. It was all too much for me.
I was bewildered, and I began to long for peace. I wanted to get away as quickly as possible from the noise and rush and bustle of the big city. Away, and into the country. After ten days I left Berlin to take a job as an agricultural official. Many more people had indeed invited me to stay with them for rest and recuperation, but my desire was to work. I had rested long enough.
Many different plans were put forward by thoughtful families and friends interested in my well-being. All were eager to help me to earn a living and to make it easy for me to resume a normal life once more. I should go to East Africa, to Mexico, to Brazil, to Paraguay, or to the United States. All this was done with the honorable intention of getting me away from Germany, so that I would not become involved once more in the political struggles of the extreme right.
Others again, especially my old comrades, insisted that I take up a prominent position in the front rank of the fighting organization of the NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers Party).
I refused both these propositions. Although I had been a Party member since 1922 and was in firm agreement with the Party’s aims, I had nevertheless emphatically objected to their use of mass propaganda, their bargaining for the good will of the people, the way they appealed to the lowest instincts of the masses, and indeed their tone.[21]
I had become acquainted with “the masses” during the years from 1918 to 1923! I certainly wished to remain a member of the Party, but I wanted neither any official position nor to join any of the subsidiary organizations. I had other ideas.
Nor did I want to go abroad. I wished to stay in Germany and help in its rebuilding. Building with a farsighted goal in view. I wanted to settle on the land!
During the long years of seclusion in my cell I had come to this conclusion: there was for me only one object for which it was worth working and fighting, namely, a farm run by myself, on which I should live with a large and healthy family. That was to be the content and aim of my life!
Immediately after my release I established contact with the Artamanen.
I had learned about this organization and its objects through reading its literature during my imprisonment, and I had investigated it thoroughly. It was a community of young people of both sexes, who had the interests of their country at heart. They came from the youth movements of all the nationalist inclined parties and were people who all, at one time or another, had wanted to escape from the unhealthily dissolute, and superficial life of the towns and especially of the large cities, and to discover for themselves a healthy and tough but natural way of life on the land. They did not drink or smoke, and forswore everything that did not contribute to the healthy development of their minds and bodies. They wanted, furthermore, to return to the soil from which their forefathers had sprung, and to settle on the land which had given birth to the nation.
That was also my desire, and the goal for which I had searched so long.
I relinquished my post as an agricultural official and joined this community of people who held the same ideas as myself. I broke off all contact with my former comrades and the kind families I had met. They were too conventional to understand my disagreement with their preconceived ideas. I wanted to be left completely alone to start my life afresh.
21
Rossbach was responsible for Hoess visiting Munich, where he joined the NSDAP in November 1922 with Party number 3240.