Ein Volk, Ein Reich E-Book

Louis Hagen

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 808

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

When Louis Hagen returned to Berlin immediately after the war, having survived not only incarceration and torture in a German concentration camp but also the Battle of Arnhem, it was through a desire to see the great German eagle toppled, its talons drawn. The son of a wealthy Jewish banker, he had seen his family flee their home, and many of his relatives had died at the hands of the Third Reich. He wanted to understand the German people; why had so many welcomed the Nazi Party, and were they now humbled and wiser? Hagen interviewed nine people he had known before the war who represented a wide spectrum of German society. They were an SA officer, a businessman, a doctor, a socialite, a journalist, a professional soldier, an SS wife, a member of the Hitler Youth and a mischling, or half Jew. Four were Nazis, three were collaborators, and two were anti-Nazi. The very fact that none of these people was a high-ranking Nazi official or a survivor of the Holocaust provides an insight into the Third Reich that is a revelation even for those who know this period of history intimately. How could the Baroness sent to Theriesenstadt concentration camp hold salons for ex-Nazis after the war? Through the lives of nine ordinary Germans, tracing their experiences of Nazism from the first hopeful days until the horrors of the Russian occupation of Berlin, Louis Hagen provides a salutary and unforgettable record of the German people in the shadow of the swastika.

Leseprobe

EIN VOLKEIN REICH

During a cross-country journey to a field hospital some shots were heard near a village. No one knew whence and why, but at once several hundred SS men surrounded the village and shouted to me that Polish snipers were hiding there. Every house was broken open and all the Polish men were driven into the church, which was set on fire with its human contents and completely burnt.

I was shocked and appalled by this summary justice. … But I had learnt well enough not to burn my fingers when the SS or Gestapo were stewing a broth.

Dr Franz Wertheim

He had a strange nervous twitch in his face when he spoke. But the most marvellous thing was his eyes; they were very large and radiant, with a peculiar gleam lighting them with an uncanny power. I had to summon all my strength to look into his eyes. But then I knew surely and certainly and calmly that whoever looked in his eyes would be ready to die for him.

From that day I knew that the Führer possessed supernatural powers over men.

Eric Dressler

No one amongst my friends could take the Nazis seriously. The economic foundations of the Nazi programme were both vague and crude. … The nebulous, vague and hardly comprehensible tone of their speeches, slogans and propaganda might serve to stir up certain sections of the population or to inflame unstable youths; but a businessman had no time for this kind of Valhalla hysteria.

Herman Voss

What could one say in school about the ‘poets’ who now found themselves hurled into an undreamt-of popularity and whose literary value was less than nothing? Every poem was a marching song. Interminably they sang the Führer’s praises in every stanza, every line, every foot. With sickly lumps in their sickly throats they bleated the words ‘Homeland, Fatherland, Germany, Race, Generosity, Blood, Soil, Honour, Mother Earth, Sorrow, Breeding, Sacrifice, Reproductive Force, Earthlove, Flags, Standards, Faith in Ancestry, Faith in Kindred, Faith in the Führer, Faith in Fate’

– which just about composed their complete vocabulary.

Verner Harz

I was never afraid of Goering or of any of the high-up Nazis whom I knew personally. They were not in the least touchy on the subject of their credo. In fact I was always amazed at their cynicism about most of the Nazi philosophy. They admitted quite freely that the Hitler salute, the blood and soil, German sacred destiny, Jewish-communist world domination and the innumerable oaths of allegiance, were nothing but so much eyewash; necessary only for the masses, to keep them marching blindly in the right direction.

Baroness Mausi von Westerode

LOUIS HAGEN

EIN VOLKEIN REICH

NINE LIVES UNDER THE NAZIS

SPELLMOUNT

I dedicate this book to the memory of my brother K.V. Hagen, former officer of the American DSS who was killed on the Berlin Air Lift.

Louis Hagen

‘Ich hatte einst ein schones Vaterland: es war ein traum …’

Heinrich Heine

This book would not have been republished were it not for the encouragement and conviction of my late mother, Anne-Mie Hagen. She had an unshakeable belief in my father’s ability to relate these stories without prejudice and to give full weight to their historical importance. This edition is dedicated to her memory. Caroline Hagen-Hall, England, 2011

This book was originally published in 1951 by Allan Wingate Ltd underthe title Follow my Leader. This edition first published 2011

Spellmount, an imprint of The History PressThe Mill, Brimscombe PortStroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QGwww.thehistorypress.co.uk

This ebook edition first published in 2011

All rights reserved© Louis Hagen, 2011

The right of Louis Hagen, to be identified as the Author of thiswork has been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs andPatents Act 1988.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied,reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publiclyperformed or used in any way except as specifically permittedin writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms andconditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted byapplicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of thistext may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights,and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

EPUB ISBN 978 0 7524 6933 1MOBI ISBN 978 0 7524 6934 8

Original typesetting by The History Press

CONTENTS

         About the Author

         Foreword

1       Fritz Muehlebach

2       Dr Franz Wertheim

3       Erich Dressler

4       Herman Voss

5       Werner Harz

6       Tassilo von Bogenhardt

7       Hildegard Trutz (nee Koch)

8       Claus Fuhrmann

9       Baroness Mausi von Westerode

         Conclusion

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Louis Hagen was born in Berlin in 1916, the second son of a wealthy Jewish banker. The family lived in an imposing Bauhaus-style villa on the banks of the Jungfernsee in Potsdam. In 1934 he was apprenticed at the BMW factory founded by his grandfather, but he was later dismissed for being non Aryan. One day he sent his sister Carla a joke on a postcard: ‘Toilet paper is now forbidden so there are even more Brownshirts.’ She left it lying around and it was picked up by a maid in the Hagen household; this maid had been caught stealing jewellery and was about to be sacked. She threatened to give it to her SS boyfriend if the family did not withdraw the accusation of stealing, but they would not be blackmailed. A few months later Louis, who was only sixteen at the time, was taken to the concentration camp in Schloss Lichtenburg.

While imprisoned Louis saw the true nature of the political giant that was taking control of Germany. Drunken guards would wake him at night, strip him naked and beat him with riding whips. He also watched as four other prisoners were forced to swim back and forth across a pond until they drowned.

Family connections were Louis’ salvation, a school friend told his father of Louis’ imprisonment. The latter was a judge and Nazi Party member, who wasted no time in driving to the camp in a chauffeur-driven BMW, asking to see the commandant, and taking Louis home. Louis had been forced to sign a document saying he had been well treated.

Louis’ parents realised that their children would have to flee the country – but thousands of other Jews were also desperately trying to leave. It was eighteen months before a business friend, Sir Andrew McFadyean, arranged for him to emigrate to England. In 1936 Louis left Germany, intending to go to the US, but he ended up staying in England and took a job with the Pressed Steel Company near Oxford. He spent several happy years in the city rubbing shoulders with people such as Robert Graves, Nye Bevan, Stephen Spender and Sir Peter Medawar. Meanwhile, back in Germany most of the Hagens had fled, and the family home was seized by the Nazis. Five of Louis’ relatives would die in concentration camps.

The Hagen family before the war. Louis Hagen stands third from right.

As war loomed, Louis lost his job; new rules stated that no foreigners could work in factories engaged in war work. He transferred to Prestcold Refrigerators in London, but lost that place too once war broke out, as he was classed as an ‘enemy alien’. He was called to a tribunal to ascertain whether he should be interned, but Sir Andrew McFadyean came to his rescue once again, testifying on his behalf. However, he was later arrested as a deserter for not having reported for military service. This was because he had no fixed address for his call-up papers to be sent to.

Louis joined the Pioneer Corps and in 1943 became a pilot with the Glider Pilot Regiment, No.22 Flight, D Squadron, No.1 Wing, changing his name to Lewis Haig to avoid problems in the event of his capture. On 18 September 1944 he was ordered into action, being amongst the first to take off. When his Horsa aircraft landing on the outskirts of Arnhem, he and the rest of the crew were greeted by ecstatic Dutch civilians. His conduct was more than impressive, especially since this was his first experience of combat. Louis attempted to destroy a machine-gun post single-handed, and managed to run to within 20 metres of it before he was forced to take cover. The Germans manning the post knew that he was there but not that he could understand every word of their bickering, which revealed how low their morale was. He was eventually able to report his information to an officer. He was wounded on the 24th when a splinter severed a vein in his hand as he manned a Bren gun, but he refused to leave the front line. When the Division pulled out, he and a friend, Captain Ogilvie, made their way to the banks of the Rhine for evacuation. With the embarkation point under fire and no boats to be seen, they decided to swim for it. Louis made it to the far bank but Captain Ogilvie drowned in the attempt.

On his return to England he was decorated for his bravery by King George VI, and later remembered the then Queen Elizabeth staring at him, amazed, he felt, to discover a German in her palace. During his leave he wrote his first book, Arnhem Lift. It was an immediate success, selling over 150,000 copies in the first years, and was adapted into a film. He was posted to a glider unit in India and was then transferred to the staff of Phoenix magazine, travelling widely as a war correspondent. He wrote Indian Route March about his experiences.

After the war he was sent to Germany as a news correspondent, first by the London Sunday Express and then by Odhams Press. It was during this time that he collected material for the book that would become Ein Volk, Ein Reich (first published as Follow My Leader). He then translated and edited a book on gliding, wrote a biography of Joseph Goebbels called Evil Genius, and translated the books The Schellenberg Memoirs and Berlin. His next title was a book based on the diary of Alfred Boeldeke, With Graziela to the Head Hunters, tracing Boeldeke’s journey across South America along the Amazon river.

In 1950 he moved to north London with his Norwegian wife Anne Mie, a painter, with whom he had two daughters, Siri and Caroline. He set up a company, Primrose Film Productions, producing films with Lotte Reiniger – who had been engaged in 1923 by Louis’ father as a private art teacher to his children – and at the same time making Prince Achemd, the first full length animated film. Together at Primrose Films, they made over 24 animation films, several of which won international awards, including first prize for children’s films at the Venice Film Festival.

In 1964 he went to Germany to represent the Advertising and Documentary Film Division of the Rank Organisation. While there he collected the material for his 1969 book The Secret War for Europe, the story of espionage in Germany since the Second World War.

Louis Hagen died on 17 August 2000, at the age of 84. The day before he died, at a birthday party for his daughter, he declared that he had had a marvellous life. Death, he added, held no fear for him. He rests at Asker in Oslo, Norway.

FOREWORD

It was largely straightforward curiosity which prompted me to return to Germany as soon as possible after the war; curiosity and also some stirrings of an ignoble wish to see the great German eagle dethroned, stripped of its feathers and with its talons drawn. But when I got there it was too big for me. The appalling, relentless fact of 80 million people in the grip of famine, pestilence and despair left little room for exultation – none for idle curiosity. It is glib and easy to say ‘This must not happen again’; but it must be said, and meant. And to resolve that this tragedy must not come again means that one must know how and why it happened at all.

I had lived in Germany until 1936 and had witnessed and been involved in the opening scenes. The development of the action and the tragic climax I had seen only from outside. And although distance can lead clarity to a cold assessment of political factors, this was more than a political interlude. Politics anyway are only a mechanical projection of the wills and thoughts of the people. And this German tragedy was an evil nightmare projected from the minds of people I had known as kind, industrious and civilised. It was a political disease which had attacked the people themselves – a cultural cancer which had overwhelmed the once healthy minds of the German men and women.

I wanted desperately to know what it had felt like to suffer from this ‘German malady,’ or at least what it was like to have been an inmate of this political fever hospital; to have lived cheek by jowl with the disease and its carriers. I did not set out to find a cure. I realised from the start that it would take me all my time to discover the nature of the disease – although I have lived three-quarters of my life in Germany. I realised, too, that it was no use merely studying the leaders and the events they precipitated, or which precipitated them. The theory that the leaders were responsible for the people’s character, or lack of it, that Goebbels governed their thoughts, Hitler their actions, is an over-simplification of a much more involved problem. Unfortunately this theory is a very convenient one both for Germans and the Allies alike. It is an ideal excuse for the Germans to evade their own personal responsibility, and the Allies find it very convenient to explain the actions of tens of millions in terms of tens.

Louis Hagen in later life.

Nor could an answer be found by submitting a haphazard cross section of the people to a questionnaire and thus formulating a post-mortem Gallup poll. This would have been as unsatisfactory as was judging the average standard of nutrition by random weighing-machines on the streets of Berlin. The only hope was to reconstruct in detail the everyday lives of a number of ordinary people. This was the only way of finding out what Herr Schmidt thought about events; what he said to his family and friends; how he felt when he saw his Jewish neighbours being collected by the Gestapo; how enthusiastically he hung out the flags when Germany absorbed Austria and Czechoslovakia; what he did when his daughter in the BDM told him that Christianity was a Jewish decadence, and planned procreation the German woman’s ideal.

In surveys and histories, biographies of the leaders and newspaper articles, this story remains untold. It is the story of a highly civilised and moral people, industrious, gifted and efficient, who managed within twelve years to destroy not only Germany but also their own minds. Every German is part of this story – and this story is part of every German. I decided to tell the story – not as it seemed to me – but as it actually occurred in the lives of a number of Germans. This could not be the whole story: but through these lives the shape of the whole might be discovered.

I found it necessary to pick my representative characters amongst people I had known before I left Germany; amongst people I had known and observed before 1933 and during the first three years of the Nazi regime. This knowledge of their previous lives and characters would be my principal safeguard against being misled by conscious or unconscious misrepresentations of the past. Every conversation was taken down word for word as it happened. Afterwards I checked every fact carefully through cross-questioning of common acquaintances, examining official records and by further questioning. I am now sure that these stories depict the feelings, emotions and reactions of the people concerned as accurately and as truthfully as possible.

Nine people emerged as representatives of the whole. Each typifies a class, a kind of character, a group of motives, a way of thinking. Three are Nazis, from a simple SA man to a fashionable physician; three are non-Nazis, but fellowtravellers: a regular officer, a business man and a politically minded socialite; two are anti-Nazis: one by accident of birth, the other from sincere inner conviction. There are no Jews amongst these biographies: they are no more representative than the high-up Nazis and atrocity fanatics who also find no place in this book. Much has been written about the Jews, and those who are left are being looked after. Much has been written about the master criminals, and most of them have been looked after too. These – the full blacks and whites – present no problem compared with the millions of ordinary men and women in their varying shades of grey who are going to be the citizens of the Fourth Reich – if there should be a Fourth Reich.

For reasons of policy, I have had to change the names of my nine characters, and in certain cases it has been necessary to alter some unimportant details to ensure their anonymity. This in no way affects the basic truth of these stories; every thought, action and event recounted is, to the best of my knowledge, true and accurate. It should be remembered that these opinions are their own opinions, freely and honestly expressed. I believe them to be completely sincere – not only from my own knowledge of my characters, but also because, on re-reading their stories objectively, their innate sincerity seems to be too obvious to need stressing.

I leave the reader to judge for himself where the responsibility lies, and who contributed most to the ruin of these people’s Fatherland. At least these nine stories will, when viewed as representative parts of a greater whole, give some idea of the nature of the German disease. It may, after all, not be solely a ‘German’ disease. One may have to look for the symptoms not only in Germany, but in the world; not only in the wreckage of the Third Reich, but also in Britain, France, Russia and America; not only in the black hearts of the Nazi sadists, but also in the hearts of our own countrymen – perhaps even in our own hearts.

1

FRITZ MUEHLEBACH

I have known Fritz for as long as I can remember; he was the brother of our gardener Karl Muehlebach. Fritz used to come to Potsdam at irregular intervals to see Karl. He was the ‘sailor brother,’ and possessed a certain glamour for us children. Whenever he came we used to spend a good deal of time at Karl’s cottage at the end of the kitchen garden, plying Fritz with questions; he was reserved but quite friendly and always ready to answer in his rather serious way. Being friends with Fritz, and talking to him ‘man to man’ about his experiences at sea, made us feel grown up. He had seen the world, and besides he was always so spruce and tidy. There was a shiny, scrubbed look about him which we admired as being thoroughly nautical.

Then, in 1932, I remember hearing that Fritz had joined the SA. When we asked Karl what he thought about this, he shrugged and said that as Fritz was out of work and times were hard, at least it meant that he would be making a bit extra over his unemployment relief.

It was some time before I had a chance to ask Fritz what it felt like to be a storm trooper, and when eventually he did turn up he had changed a lot. He was still serious but nothing like as reserved, which was surprising, as I had expected him to be stand-offish. He was as friendly as ever and certainly not anti-Semitic so far as my family was concerned. He was also bursting with enthusiasm and was only too anxious to tell me anything I wanted to know about his life in the SA.

Time went on and things got more and more difficult for us. Fritz continued to visit his brother and was always friendly and even sympathetic. He never actually said anything against the Party line, but he was full of vague consolations such as ‘they’ll never do anything to you; you’re not the sort of people we are after,’ and ‘you’ve been in Germany for centuries, it’s the Jews from the East that we’ve got to get rid of,’ or ‘Your father was an officer in the last war, and anyway none of you looks Jewish.’

When I saw him after I came out of a concentration camp he was genuinely sorry, because it was me. He said so rather awkwardly in a way which embarrassed us both, but he added rather feebly that ‘there must have been a reason for it.’ of course in 1934 to Fritz, the SA man, there was a very good reason for everything his party did. He was a good party member; so he had nothing to worry about.

When I met him again in 1946, poor Fritz had plenty to worry about. At first – apart from looking ten years older and rather as it he had shrunk in the wash – he seemed to have altered very little. His suit was shabby, but looked impeccably tidy and neat, and he still had the scrubbed look.

He was very hang-dog at first, but when I eventually got him talking, he did so quite freely, provided we were alone. Soon an urgency and passion crept into his voice. It was as if he felt that talking about the past might help him to solve his innermost problems. But although telling his story seemed to help him for the moment, he was as crushed and bewildered as ever when we said goodbye. He reminded me more than anything of a child whose illusion of his father’s infallibility had been shattered. In a strange, dark world with no one to guide him, Fritz was utterly lost, with no idea what to do or think.

Fritz Muehlebach, born 1907

My father was a market gardener in Weissensee. Although my brother Karl carried on the family tradition when he left school I felt that it did not lead anywhere. When I left school I got a job as assistant to a chemist, but, owing to the bad times, that did not last long. After my father passed away I would have liked to have stayed at home with my mother. But there was no work to be had, so I finally decided to try my luck at sea. I left home at the age of twenty – that was in 1927 – and went to Rotterdam. There was a lot of unemployment there too, but I was lucky enough to get a ship right away.

For the next five years I was a sailor and enjoyed myself very much. I went all over the world, saw foreign countries and foreign people and brought back souvenirs and curios from all over the place: Chinese beads, snakes in bottles, painted coconuts, native weapons and brass idols. My mother was very proud of them and used to show them off whenever one of the family came to an evening meal.

In 1931 we were in the North Sea when there was a bit of a rough-house between several lads and some of the older seamen. As the youngsters seemed to be getting the worst of it, I sided with them. I got a broken wrist and a torn ear, but we got the better of them and when the mate caught us we got two of the older fellows locked up. I never did find out the reason for the row.

When we landed at Stettin I was told by two of the youngsters that they were in the Hitler Youth. To show their gratitude, because I’d helped them in the fight, they asked me to come to one of their gatherings at what they called their Sturmlokal [a pub in which Party members regularly met]. Here I was introduced to other Party members and men who were in the SA.

Until then I had only heard vaguely about the National Socialist doctrine. Now, I began to realise that it was a very large party and its leaders really did know what they wanted, not like all the other parties.

One of the lads called Erwin Eckhart took me back to his flat. As we had been signed off and it looked as though I would have to stay ashore a bit, I rented a room from Erwin and used to share his kitchen. He told me a whole heap of things about politics that I never knew before. We hadn’t talked about politics at home. I suppose my mother and father were only simple, old-fashioned people and they couldn’t grasp the new, modem ideas about politics. Erwin knew it all and used to jaw away by the hour. And then he started taking me to the Party meetings and lectures. It’s wonderful how it broadens your mind to think about important things like politics. I was bowled over by some of the lectures – I was beginning to get my eyes opened to a few things: the way all the other parties were just muddling through because they hadn’t got one ideal and one leader and the way our German industry was being smothered by Jewish moneylenders. And the way the other countries were trying to pin the war guilt on the German people. We had to throw the Versailles lie back in their teeth, and throw over all the unjust burdens which the Treaty had laid on us. Socialism was the answer – finish the class struggle, and no one must earn more than a thousand marks a month. Put Germany in the hands of the Germans and throw out the Jews and foreigners.

At these meetings there was often a good deal of heckling by communists and other political groups. It annoyed me that people holding different political views should disturb these lectures. I, for one, wanted to know what the Nazis stood for, so that I could form an opinion. The shouting and heckling often made it impossible for the speaker to complete his speech. The SA men always tried to keep order, and I always used to give them a hand with the disturbing elements so that the lectures could continue undisturbed. Quite often it led to serious fights.

In the Sturmlokal near the place where I lived I met a lot of students and unemployed SA men. I went there a lot and the talk was mostly on political problems. I enjoyed these discussions which were interesting and always to the point. But the others were much better talkers than I was for I had not had any political training. But I liked the general atmosphere of comradeship and in the end, I decided to send in my application forms for the SA. It was time for me to belong to an organisation and take an active part in shaping the future of my country. I felt that this party was on the right road and that I would learn a great deal about politics in its ranks. I wanted to know what was going on; I wanted to be able to answer questions and have the strength and confidence which all the other SA men seemed to have.

As soon as my wrist was better I went to sea again. Whenever we put into a German port I found my way to the nearest Sturmlokal and spent what free time I had there. Wherever I went I found the same comradeship and sense of purpose. I was more and more proud and happy that I was part of this movement.

Back in Stettin I was very disappointed to learn that I had not been accepted by the SA. In my absence, in April 1932, the SA had been prohibited and they were having to be very careful about new members. And they didn’t know anything about my past and thought I might have been a spy for the communists or for the police. I was very sorry, of course, but it did mean that the party was very alive to the dangers. Every member had to show his worth and reliability before being accepted. This really made me admire them more than ever.

I couldn’t get a ship after this and was again out of work. Times were bad and I was very depressed. When I realised that there were six million workless in the same position as myself the responsibility of getting a job seemed completely hopeless. Depression and panic were in the air; some of the biggest banks had closed and no one could see any end to it. Of course Moscow started making mischief in this atmosphere of unrest and discontent, and almost six million people went over to the communists. The Reds were busy with strikes and the picketing of offices and factories and intimidating the workers. They were at the back of all the street brawls and shootings. The government was always changing and couldn’t do anything, and the police didn’t seem to care. They were all making it easy for the communists to terrorise the whole German population.

In July 1932, three of the local SA men were murdered by the Reds. This strengthened my resolve to try again to join the SA and avenge them. I was careful to get references from home, and Erwin vouched for me. This time it worked.

It was wonderful to know at last that I was taking an active part in the welfare of my fatherland. We SA men were the soldiers of the movement. It was our job to maintain order at all Party meetings. The speakers and leaders were protected by the SS, which was a special corps of picked SA men limited to ten per cent of our strength. Members of the SA and SS were strictly forbidden to make speeches or take part in public discussions. All that was entrusted to the political leaders and those members of the Party who had received special political training. We were not trained to talk and argue, but it was up to us to make the best possible impression through our discipline and military bearing.

Life was still tough. Ninety per cent of our Sturm [roughly equivalent to a company of soldiers] were unemployed, but now we had something to fight and live for and this made it so much easier for us all to bear the hardships. We were all in the same boat together. I got 8.40 marks a week unemployment benefit. Five marks went on rent and the remaining 3.40 had to pay for all my living expenses. Thirty pfennigs were spent on tobacco, ten pfennigs I paid towards the Party insurance fund in case I was disabled whilst fighting for the Party. When I drew my benefit I just spent one mark on eleven small sausages from a stand outside the labour exchange. They cost ten pfennigs, but you could get eleven for the price of ten. The free sausage I ate immediately. The rest I kept for my breakfasts and suppers for the rest of the week. Another 1.20 marks I kept for buying bread and other things. For my main meal of the day I was able to go to the SA home where for only ten pfennigs we got a really good midday meal. The well-to-do party members made regular contributions to the SA home. We often had real butter, and also venison and wild pork from their shooting estates, and in the season we often got jobs as beaters and loaders. Whenever a big pot came to the Sturmlokal we got a free meal and free beer all round. Being members of the Party they weren’t a bit stuck-up and stand-offish, but talked to us man to man and made us see that we all had the same ideas and the same hopes for Germany. My membership fee was paid by what we used to call a ‘Godfather,’ who owned a shoe shop. Once I was really on the rocks and he lent me some money. When I wanted to pay it back in weekly instalments he wouldn’t have it, and let me off the whole amount. Many of us had party godfathers – people we could always go to when we were in trouble, and who would invite us to Christmas and other festivals.

I was very badly off for clothes, because you never needed much on board ship and I had never bothered about them. Now, of course, I had no money and I couldn’t even afford a uniform. I felt rather ashamed of this. Most of the men in our Sturm wore at least part of a uniform, and all I could do was to wear a swastika armlet. In November my only pair of boots gave out and a heel came off in the snow. When I limped to the Sturmlokal my Sturmbannführer took me straight to the SA offices and saw to it himself that I was given a complete uniform free of charge. I was very happy to get the uniform in time for the big November [1932] elections, because now I was able to undertake more important public duties, such as standing in front of the polling booth with a sandwich-board. The results were very disappointing because we got even fewer votes than last time. But the leaders weren’t at all downcast. They explained to us that this was really a victory for us. What it meant was that the lukewarm elements had now shown themselves in their true colours and left the Party. Now we knew where we stood. And those of us who were left would be true to their oath and their Führer.

The elections were the excuse for renewed outbreaks of violence on the part of our opponents. We had fights every day and several hospital cases each week. I got my nose broken with a knuckle-duster during a scrap with the Kampf Ring Junger Deutsch Nationaler, the military youth organisation of the German National Party.

Each party had its own fighting force; the communists had the Rot Front Kämpfer Bund, the social democrats had the Reichsbanner, and so on. And they all did everything they possibly could to provoke us. There was not one large-scale meeting that was not disturbed in some way or other, and not a single propaganda march that took place without a disturbance. But now and again we got our own back.

1 remember a large communist rally where 150 of our people entered in ordinary clothes and took up the end seats on each side of the centre gangway right down the hall. When all the speeches were well underway one of our men slipped a stick of cordite into the stove. There was a fine explosion, the windows were shattered and the whole hall was filled with thick sooty smoke. At the moment of the explosion we all stood up, put on our armlets and SA caps and stood to attention giving the Hitler salute. The Reds were taken completely by surprise. They started shouting and dashing round the hall like a lot of scalded cats. Then, as the smoke cleared away and they saw the solid wedge of disciplined SA men standing shoulder to shoulder down the whole length of the hall, they squealed with terror and made a rush to the doors. Then we all seized chairs, smashed them as we had been taught, and, armed with the legs, waded into them. We always had to work fast and scientifically as the police were against us and were always liable to turn up. They were always pro-Red and beat us up whenever they could catch us. I remember once we broke up a Deutsch National meeting at the Stettin Kaiser Garten. The police got word of it and surrounded us. We had to come out through a long narrow corridor; the police had lined up all along the passage, and as we tried to get through they thrashed us with rubber truncheons, and some of them weren’t above using their feet. I was ill for a week after that meeting.

What made it worse was that we had strict orders not to resist the police, and we weren’t allowed to carry guns. Anyone caught with a gun was expelled from the SA. All we were allowed to do was to defend ourselves against insults with our fists. There was a lot of grumbling about the unfairness of this, but our leaders explained to us that we mustn’t give the government the chance to get us banned. They were really terrified of us and would take the first opportunity. We just had to put up with it as best we could while our enemies tried their very best to incite us. Many of our comrades were murdered by the Reds, and we couldn’t lift a hand to avenge them. But we were able to stick it out because we knew our time would come.

We were not allowed to wear our uniform or badges when we went to the labour exchange, where we had to get our cards stamped each day. Waiting in the queue, arguments would break out and they often led to fighting. By the end of 1932 things had got to such a pitch that a man couldn’t go to the labour exchange without being beaten up if it was known that he was in the SA or a Party member. To avoid trouble and protect ourselves the whole Sturm used to go together in a group. That usually kept the troublemakers quiet.

Everything we did now had to be organised in groups. Regularly, after midnight, parties armed with ladders, paint brushes and pails went out until dawn sticking up posters and slogans on walls and houses. Then, after we’d finished, we used to march through the town chanting in chorus: ‘All power to Adolf Hitler.’ Smaller groups of four to six men were busy all day pushing leaflets and party newspapers through letterboxes. We were always told to begin at the top of the house as fights usually started if the people on the lower floors had time to give the alarm. Then members of the Haus Schutz-Staffel [Military self-protection squads organised for the protection of houses and blocks of flats against rival political parties] would sometimes lie in wait for us at the entrance and grab our leaflets and attack us with clubs and knuckle-dusters. Another group was specially detailed to escort SA members home who lived in streets mainly inhabited by our opponents. Pommersdorf, for example, was a hotbed of communists, and if we hadn’t escorted home the only two SA men who lived there they would certainly have been attacked, and probably murdered.

The struggle continued and our ideas spread, and by the end of 1932 we had the satisfaction of knowing that we were by far the strongest party. We all felt that final victory was just round the corner and the decision could no longer be delayed. General von Schleicher’s government was all the time on the edge of a crisis, and it was obvious that nothing could save it. Then in January of the new year we heard that our Führer had been asked to join this government, obviously in a last desperate effort to keep it on its feet. This was a terrible moment for us. We were scared that he might get compromised and go with the reactionaries. But we needn’t have worried, for this was followed by the news that the Führer was prepared to take all or nothing. He would not prop up anybody else’s government but was perfectly willing to form his own. We hung on from day to day with our excitement rising to fever pitch, and then, on 30 January, standing round the wireless in the Sturmlokal, we heard the news we were waiting for. Reich president Feldmarschall von Hindenburg had charged the Führer with the formation of a government.

We had been waiting for it. We had always known it had to happen and yet, when it came, it hit us like an explosion. We were beyond happiness. We sang the Horst Wessel song, we shouted ‘Heil!’ until we were hoarse – and then we drank to the Führer till our throats were clear again, and then we dashed into the streets, where groups of other brownshirts and Party members had already begun to gather. Swastika flags had appeared as if by magic. The day went by in a fever of activity, and a great torchlight procession was organised for the evening.

That night, as we marched singing through the streets, we had it all our own way. Now the police were on our side and guarded our procession. Our enemies were lying low and there were no fights until we came to Pommersdorf. There, in spite of our strict order not to leave formation, a few of our more enthusiastic members could not resist the chance of getting their own back on the Reds. Some of them were afterwards expelled from the SA for lack of discipline.

During the months that followed there was a sudden stream of newly converted Party members. The German National Party had already come over to us, and after the March elections the so-called March casualties started pouring in. We had a pretty poor opinion of them and I heard of cases in Berlin where the Sturms, particularly in the north, were now made up almost entirely of former communists. My own Sturm in Stettin was certainly not what it had been; 40 per cent of it had recently been Reds, 10 per cent Social Democrats and a lot were ex-Stahlhelm, Free Corps and old Landsknechte. These people had turned their coats just in time to reap the rewards of the victory for which we had fought. But we realised that it was high time that all these parties should be liquidated and that the Führer was right, as always, when he passed the law forbidding them, as there was no further need for them and they were only a hindrance to progress. By the time of the Reichstag fire, our enemies were too late to rally against us. We were now too strong for them. This act of terrorism might have split the country and plunged it into war, but it was no more than the final wriggle of a beaten foe. And whether the Communist Party had really employed the halfwit Dutchman Van der Lubbe to do the job, or whether they had nothing to do with it at all, was no concern of ours. The Führer knew what he was doing, and this was his chance to get rid of such communists as had been so silly as to stick to their guns, including all the Red members of the Reichstag. The Red terror had to be broken. And what had to be done was more important than the way it was done.

In the spring of 1933 I was still unemployed and I decided to go on an SA auxiliary police course. This meant that I would receive free meals as well as my benefit. Then, when this course came to an end, during September, I got a job in a Sauerkraut factory through the help of my Ortsgruppenleiter. When the cabbage season came to an end I was out of work again and started working as an honorary clerk at the SA headquarters. The SA paid me a monthly assistance of 20 marks, which, added to my 8.40 marks a week unemployment benefit, meant that I was not too badly off. I was able to eat at the SA house where our meals were now paid for by the Nationalsozialistische Frauenschaft [women’s organisation of the Nazi Party] and that was a great help.

During the winter one man from every SA brigade was selected to go on a medical orderly course which was held at the big Reichswehr training camp at Doeberitz. As I had some medical knowledge from having once worked as a chemist, I was picked. I found the training very interesting and got on pretty well. But I was not much use at the PT and drill that went with it, although I did my best. Here we were always in trouble about our marching. We never managed to get the smartness we had in the Sturm in Stettin. The trouble was that the Bavarians and Westphalians were accustomed to march at quite a different speed, and the result was a terrible muckup. Because of this we were all given such punishments as bellycrawling and physical jerks; but this made no difference and our marching continued as ragged as ever. Then one day when we were out on a route march, someone started the Horst Wessel song. This was forbidden, as the song was sacred and only allowed to be sung on the most important official occasions. Nevertheless, everybody joined in and we suddenly found we were marching properly. It swept us along in spite of ourselves.

The Horst Wessel song was our battle hymn and our national anthem. It completely replaced the old ‘Deutschland, Deutschland Ueber Alles’ which smelt too much of the past. After this we always sang on the march and it did make a big difference. I was always very fond of singing and was often told I had a good natural voice. We had many patriotic and marching songs written by our own members which said in song what the Party stood for. ‘In Soviet Russland’ wasn’t a very serious song but did show some our ideas about the Jews.

In Soviet Russland high up north,The long-nosed Jews go bravely forth:And plunder shops and rob the farms,And kill the Russki babes-in-arms.

But here the Jews are gentlefolk,And in the Bourse their noses poke,And talk of par and bulls and bearsAnd things a gentile never hears.

Hi-de-hi and ho-de-ho:Ikey Moses has the dough:You can’t keep a bad Jew down;Ikey Moses rules the town.

When Jews were in the desert land,They chewed their garlic in the sand. When they found there was a drought,Moses belched and the water came out.

Sara walking on the shore,Fell in the sea and bumped her jaw. ‘She drown, she drown,’ cried Finklebaum,But Sara swam back safe and sound.

Hi-de-hi and ho-de-ho:Ikey Moses has the dough:You can’t keep a bad Jew down;Ikey Moses rules the town.

‘Brother Everywhere’ was much more serious and moving:

Brothers in mines and brothers in ships and brothers behind the plough,Brothers from factories, offices, shops, follow our Leader now. Stock Exchange robbers and Stock Exchange Jews poison our Fatherland:Our wish to work like honest men they’ll never understand. Hitler is our leader true and spurns their proffered bribes:He’ll kick the faithless Juden swine back to their heathen tribes. And soon the glorious day will come, the day when we are free,And German men in German land stand strong in unity.

Load the empty rifles, polish the gleaming knives,Strike down the Jewish traitors who juggle with our lives. We are loyal to our leader, Adolf Hitler, stern and strong,He is our champion and our hope and will fight against the wrong. Brothers in mines and brothers in ships and brothers behind the plough,Brothers from factories, offices, shops, follow our Leader now.

My favourite was a sad song about one of our murdered comrades and how we would avenge him. It was called ‘Dawn was Breaking’:

Dawn was breaking, sad and brown,In the little country town;The tramping feet went up and down,Hitler’s regiment is marching.

The bugles rang out loud and clear,Like echoes of a dying year;Requiem for a comrade murdered here;Hitler’s regiment is marching.

Dawn is breaking in the world;Traitors from their lairs are hurled;The Nazi banners are unfurled;Hitler’s regiment is marching.

Some people said these were our hymns, but I think they were more real than that. We hadn’t time for hymns and that sort of thing. There was too much to be done. The Church had always been a danger in politics, and there was now no place for it. The Party freely admitted the existence of God but we were not allowed to talk about religion. Most of us were Lutherans; the rest were nothing. Most of these had been communists. It was quite easy not to talk about religion, because none of us thought about it very much.

We did not care much for the regular army people who were all too old-fashioned and snobbish. And, after all, it was we who had done all the fighting in the recent years, and it’s fighting that counts – not just swaggering about in military uniforms. The old army ideas were a thing of the past just like the monarchy – even though Prince August Wilhelm had joined the party. We had a good laugh about him and said: ‘I hope they checked his references.’

We used to talk about our leaders a lot. Hess was very popular. Everybody said he never put on airs, and acted just like an ordinary person even though he was the Führer’s right-hand man. Ley wasn’t very popular, though. There was even a rumour that his real name was Levy. Von Papen and Hugenberg were also unpopular; they smelt too much of the old aristocracy and big business. Hindenburg was just a doddering old man. There were many good jokes about the leaders and many of them had nicknames; Goering was known as ‘Lamette’, Hermann as ‘Tinsel’ and Goebbels as ‘club-foot’. Hitler was never spoken of as anything but the Führer. We never joked about him. Occasionally some of the very old fighters referred to him as Adolf, but the younger men would never have dared to refer to him in this way. His name was sacred. I remember during the training course a man called Waldfart said to me that Adolf Hitler has done less for the world than Moses. I was completely staggered, and my first thought was that such a man was not fit to be in the SA and that he should be reported. But I didn’t report him as I didn’t really understand what he meant. I don’t think he did either. I think he was just trying to show off. But I often wonder if I should have reported him.

In general, people were careful not to go too far when arguing. There was always a danger that someone wouldn’t understand and would make a report. If you really felt someone was on the wrong track, you might try to argue, but it was safer to shut up. Anyhow, we were all agreed on the main things, although we differed a bit on certain topics. For instance, I approved of all the Party ideas but I wasn’t so sure about some of the methods. Of course, you’ve got to exclude all Jewish influence from the life of the State, but some of the things seemed a bit cruel. Naturally, you can’t help not liking the Jews. After all, they had entered the Fatherland after the war and had sucked it dry with their foreign money and commercial skill. But I didn’t hate the Jews – not all the Jews, although I was quite pleased to see them disappear from Germany again, leaving behind them the wealth they had robbed. But there were also Jews who had fought bravely in the last war and who did not act and look like Jewish people. My brother was working for Jews and they treated him very well and didn’t look like Jews at all. Whenever I sang the songs like ‘Throw out all the Yiddish gang’ and ‘When on the knife the Jew blood spurts’ I never really meant all Jews. Of course they shouldn’t have been allowed to hang on to all the good jobs for themselves like doctors, university teachers, wealthy merchants, big business men, actors, writers and lawyers, but I realised that this was largely a question of intelligence and education. A great deal of trouble lay in the fact that Germany’s upper classes, who could have trained their sons to become doctors, merchants and lawyers, were proudest if their sons became officers. Of course Jews couldn’t be officers, so they spent their time getting into all the other good jobs. I didn’t really believe that the Jews were to blame for all our misfortunes past and present, as they were during the Middle Ages. Of course the pollution of the German race was rightly forbidden by law. And, equally, life had to be made unpleasant for the Jews so that they would get out. But the very crude attacks on them they always printed in Der Stuermer weren’t right. I did not agree with the methods of Gauleiter Streicher. I couldn’t understand that the Führer could tolerate a man like this in a prominent position in the Movement, and I really thought that sooner or later he would get rid of him and his like and order a general purge in the interest of all truly socialist elements.

There was only one man, Hans Stulpe, whom I made friends with during the course, whom I could talk to freely, and vice versa, about things of this kind without the fear that one of us would split. Hans and I did not have many opportunities for private conversations of this type and, when we did, we always suffered from a slight feeling of guilt, in spite of the knowledge that all that was said remained strictly between us two. We knew that the private opinions of the rank and file like us could be harmful to our movement as a whole. If everyone started airing his private opinion, the Party wouldn’t be standing firmly shoulder to shoulder, and this was our greatest strength over our enemies. Hans and I knew that we could talk and still stand firm by the Party, but everybody wasn’t to be trusted, and it was right that we weren’t allowed to argue and make criticisms.

The next spring the Ortsgruppe sent me as an honorary assistant to the labour exchange, which meant that I lost the twenty marks a month which I got for my work at the headquarters. This was a blow, but orders were orders and I think I was as willing as anyone to make sacrifices. But I had no desire to have anything to do with the labour exchange, as I knew from my personal experiences it was being run in an unsatisfactory way.

The last time I asked for a job I had been told that my turn had not yet come, as my membership number was too large, and yet the officer who had told me this was himself such a new member of the Party that he hadn’t got a membership number at all. But he had already got himself a fat job. After that, I never bothered to ask for a job again.

When I took up my new duties I found out that the men who had had my job before had had to be replaced on an average of once a week. That meant it had taken them about a week to get themselves a good job which in fact it had been their duty to pass on to an unemployed man. I felt very strongly that this behaviour was quite unworthy of the followers of the Führer, and I was determined to do the job conscientiously for as long as I was needed.

In the giving out of jobs, it seemed to me far more important to find work immediately for non-Party members. In this way they would realise that the Führer’s promise to stop unemployment was being honoured. I felt that the Party members should only be considered after the disbelievers and waverers had been given jobs. But I seemed to be the only one who saw it this way, and they used to make jokes about me and laugh when I said it. I think I was the only Party member at the labour exchange who wasn’t thinking only about how to fix himself a good job. In spite of all this I found the work very interesting. It brought me into contact with human affairs and enabled me to do my bit in rebuilding the country, which I found very satisfactory. It kept me busy till late at night, and so the time at my disposal was very limited and I couldn’t spend much time at the SA.

Nowadays I had no time for any Sturm duties and I was only able to take part in the formal marches and parades. There was one big SA parade – it took place in June of that year – that I shall never forget. Ten thousand of us, that is three brigades, marched out to a field where we fell in in blocks of about 300 men. When each block had been lined up, inspected by his march-block Führer and then re-inspected to the satisfaction of the Sturmführers, we stood to attention waiting for the arrival of the Gruppenführer, Peter von Heiderbeck. At last he arrived, mounted on a white horse, and rode from block to block, looking at each man in turn and occasionally pausing to shout something to his storm troopers as he rode past. When he came to our block, he suddenly reined in his horse and said:

‘My horse tells me that the SA is a wild, revolutionary horde. Is this true?’

At the top of their voices our block shouted:

‘Yes, we are!’

To my astonishment and horror, I heard myself shout ‘No.’

As I was in the first row, the Group Leader also heard me. He ordered me to fall out and asked me my name. My particulars were written out and I was told to report to him at the staff building the next day. I was very upset by my behaviour and rather afraid of what the consequences might be after the parade. I was sent for by my block leader who asked me what the hell I thought I was doing making an exhibition of myself and letting the whole block down. He was very angry, and by the time he had finished with me I felt worse than ever. I couldn’t imagine what had come over me and made me shout ‘no’ when the others had all shouted ‘yes.’ I spent a miserable night and arrived very frightened at the staff building next day. After waiting all afternoon, I was told I was to go as the Group Leader could not see me, and so the matter was closed and I heard no more about it.

Later on I was able to think about it more calmly and I then saw that my answer to the Group Leader’s question had been the right one, for it expressed my honest opinion. I believed the SA to be revolutionary, but I had not thought it was a wild and undisciplined horde. On the contrary, it was the well disciplined fighting force of Adolf Hitler, and I decided that I would have to answer ‘no’ again if ever the question should be put to me. When I had reasoned all this out, I wished that I could have had a chance to speak to the Group Leader, whom we all admired very much, and tell him what I thought. But, of course, the opportunity never occurred.

About ten days after the parade, I had something more exciting than myself to think about. Stettin was to receive a visit from the Chief of Staff himself, Hauptmann Roehm. I had never seen him before but – like all the rest – I had a very great respect for this man who had so successfully formed and led the Führer’s Brown Army. We were all lined up on the large field where our parades were held, and it said in orders that when the Chief of Staff arrived he would be lifted on our shoulders and carried in triumph to his tent. I was with those who were detailed for cordoning-off·duties. Roehm did not arrive until after dark, and just before his arrival the arrangements for his reception were changed; he was no longer to be carried, we were forbidden to touch him, and the cordon was to precede him with their faces turned towards him and see to it that the men who came out of their tents kept their distance. This meant that I was able to get a good look at our chief.