Nevertheless, because of the children, we did not do this. For their sake we wanted to take on our own shoulders all that was coming. But we should have done it. I have always regretted it since. We would all have been spared a great deal, especially my wife and the children. How much more suffering will they have to endure? We were bound and fettered to that other world, and we should have disappeared with it.
After her flight, Frau Thomsen, who had been our children’s governess at Auschwitz, had gone to live with her mother at St. Michaelisdonn in Holstein. I now brought my family there. I had no idea at that time where we, the Concentration Camp Inspectorate, were to go. I took my eldest child along, as he wanted to stay with me, and we still hoped we might have some active role to play, even in the last unoccupied patch of Germany and in the final hours.
We reported for the last time at Flensburg, where the Reichsführer SS had withdrawn with other members of the government. There was no more talk of fighting. Every man for himself was now the order of the day. I shall never forget my last meeting with the Reichsführer SS. He was beaming and in the best of spirits; yet the world, our world, had crumbled beneath our feet. He said: “Well, gentlemen, this is the end. You know what you now have to do.” So far I understood him, since these words were in accordance with what he had been preaching to the SS for years. Self-sacrifice for the ideal. But then he gave us his last order: hide in the, army!
Such was our farewell message from the man to whom I had looked up so respectfully, in whom I had had such implicit trust, whose orders and utterances had been gospel to me.
Maurer and I looked at each other in dumb astonishment. Our thoughts were identical. We were both veteran Nazis and SS officers, and had grown up in our ideals. Had we been alone, we would have committed some act of despair. But we had to look after our department chiefs, the officers and men of our staff, and our poor families.
Glücks was already half dead. We carried him to the naval hospital under another name. Gebhardt took charge of the women and children with the intention of getting them to Denmark.[99]
The rest of the departmental staff were issued with false papers that would enable them to vanish into the navy. I myself, under the name of boatswain’s mate Franz Lang, went to the island of Sylt, with orders to report to the Naval Intelligence School there. I sent my son back to my wife, along with my driver and car.
Since I knew a certain amount about naval life, I was able to make myself inconspicuous. There was not much work to be done, so I had time to ponder deeply on what had happened.
By chance I heard one day, on the radio, the news of Himmler’s arrest and his death by poison. I, too, had my vial of poison always with me. But I decided to wait on events.
The Naval Intelligence School was removed to the internment district between the Kiel Canal and the Schlei. The British moved the SS men from their zone to the School, and concentrated them on the Friesian Islands. So I was quite close to my family, whom I was able to see quite often. My eldest boy visited me every few days. Since my profession was given as farmer, I was soon released. I passed through all the British control points without difficulty, and was sent by the labor office to work on a farm near Flensburg. I liked the work and I was completely independent, for the farmer was still being held by the Americans. I worked there for eight months. With the help of my wife’s brother, who worked in Flensburg, I was able to keep in touch with my wife.
I learned through my brother-in-law that I was being hunted for by the British Field Security Police. I also heard that they were keeping a close watch on my family, and repeatedly searched the house.
I was arrested on March 11, 1946.
My vial of poison had been broken two days before.
When I was aroused from sleep, I thought at first I was being attacked by robbers, for many robberies were taking place at that time. That was how they managed to arrest me.
I was maltreated by the Field Security Police.
I was taken to Heide where I was put in those very barracks from which I had been released by the British eight months earlier.
At my first interrogation, evidence was obtained by beating me. I do not know what is in the record, although I signed it.[100]
Alcohol and the whip were too much for me. The whip was my own, which by chance had got into my wife’s luggage. It had hardly ever touched my horse, far less the prisoners. Nevertheless, one of my interrogators was convinced that I had perpetually used it for flogging the prisoners.
After some days I was taken to Minden-on-the-Weser, the main interrogation center in the British Zone. There I received further rough treatment at the hands of the English public prosecutor, a major.[101]
The conditions in the prison accorded with this behavior.
After three weeks, to my surprise, I was shaved and had my hair cut and I was allowed to wash. My handcuffs had not previously been removed since my arrest.
On the next day I was taken by truck to Nuremberg, together with a prisoner of war who had been brought over from London as a witness in Fritsche’s defense.[102]
My imprisonment by the International Military Tribunal was a rest cure compared to what I had been through before. I was accommodated in the same building as the principal accused, and was able to see them daily as they were taken to the court. Almost every day we were visited by representatives of all the Allied nations. I was always pointed out as an especially interesting animal.
I was in Nuremberg because Kaltenbrunner’s counsel had demanded me as a witness for his defense. I have never been able to grasp, and it is still not clear to me, how I of all people could have helped to exonerate Kaltenbrunner. Although the conditions in prison were, in every respect, good—I read whenever I had the time, and there was a well-stocked library available—the interrogations were extremely unpleasant, not so much physically, but far more because of their strong psychological effect. I cannot really blame the interrogators— they were all Jews.
Psychologically I was almost cut in pieces. They wanted to know all about everything, and this was also done by Jews. They left me in no doubt whatever as to the fate that was in store for me.
On May 25, my wedding anniversary as it happened, I was driven with von Burgsdorff and Bühler to the airport and there handed over to Polish officers.[103]
We flew in an American plane via Berlin to Warsaw. Although we were treated very politely during our journey, I feared the worst when I remembered my experiences in the British Zone and the tales I had heard about the way people were being treated in the East. Also the expressions and gestures of the spectators at the airfield on our arrival were not exactly reassuring. In prison several of the officials immediately came at me, and showed me their Auschwitz tattoo numbers. I could not understand them, but it was obvious that they were not extending friendly greetings toward me. Nevertheless I was not beaten. My imprisonment was very strict and completely isolated. I was frequently interrogated. I was kept there for nine weeks. The time weighed heavily on me, for I had absolutely no distractions, not being allowed either to read or to write.
On July 30 I was taken to Cracow with seven other Germans. We had to wait for some time in the station there until the car had arrived. Quite a large crowd collected, and the people hurled insults at us. Göth was recognized at once.[104]
99
Professor Dr. Karl Gebhardt was a childhood friend of Himmler’s. He was in the Oberland Bund and took part in the abortive Munich
100
A typewritten document of eight pages, which Hoess signed at 2:30 a.m. on March 14, 1946. It does not differ substantially from what he later said or wrote in Nuremberg or Cracow.
102
Hans Fritsche, a radio commentator and a close colleague of Goebbels, was one of the principal accused before the Nuremberg Tribunal.
103
Dr. Curt von Burgsdorff had served as Undersecretary of State for Administration in the Protectorate Bohemia-Moravia from 1939 to 1942. From December 1943 until January 1945 he was Governor of the Cracow District in the Government-General. Found guilty merely of participation in the “criminal fascist government,” he was given the minimum sentence by the Polish People’s Court, and, since he had already been in prison for three years awaiting trial, was immediately discharged and sent back to Germany.
The reference is apparently to Secretary of State, Dr. Josef Bühler, formerly deputy for the Government-General in Cracow. He was condemned to death in Warsaw on July 20, 1948.
104
Göth, an SS officer, had been dierctly responsible for the liquidation of the Cracow ghetto in March 1943. Later he was in command of the Jewish camp at Plaszow, near Cracow. In the autumn of 1944 proceedings for embezzlement were instigated against him in an SS court. On September 5, 1946, he was condemned to death by the Polish People’s Court in Cracow.