Hitler's Asian Adventure E-Book

Horst H. Geerken

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Seitenzahl: 1121

Beschreibung

From 1963 to 1981 Horst H. Geerken lived in the new-born Republic of Indonesia, at a time of upheaval after the end of almost 350 years of colonial rule and exploitation by the Netherlands. In both his professional and private activities he constantly came across German, Japanese and Indonesian eyewitnesses who had lived through the Japanese occupation and the presence of the German navy in Indonesia. The relations between the German Reich and what was then the Dutch East Indies were obviously closer and more varied than had been previously assumed. Hardly anyone was aware that Hitler was extremely interested in this distant archipelago and that thousands of German officers and seamen were in action in East and South-East Asia. Who knows that German U-boats and auxiliary cruisers penetrated deep into the Pacific and that the German Navy used the Kerguelen Islands in the South Polar Sea as a secret base? Or that Hitler gave massive support to the independence movements in Indonesia and India? Many of the German naval personnel chose to make Indonesia their home after the war and joined the Indonesian freedom fighters. The Second World War heralded the end of the colonial era in Asia, especially in South-East Asia. The role played in this process by the Third Reich should not be underestimated. The collaboration between the Axis powers, especially that between German and Japan, with all its problems, is also investigated. There was a lively exchange of new weapons technology. There was even the re-creation of a German Radar system in Japan under the management of a German engineer. Documents from the Third Reich's Foreign Ministry, published here for the first time, show how brutally and inhumanely the German men, women and children in the Dutch internment camps in the East Indies were treated by their captors. These documents are supported by evidence from contemporary witnesses. The author has encapsulated his many years of research in the two volumes of Hitler's Asian Adventure. It is a fascinating documentation of the German Navy's involvement in a theatre of war that has until now been neglected by historians.

Leseprobe

In memory of my many Indonesian friends who risked their lives as freedom fighters for the independence of their motherland Indonesia and for Annette

Contents

Thanks

Foreword

Hitler Seizes Power. The Beginning of the Second World War and How my Interest in the Dutch East Indies was Awakened

Dream Destination Dutch East Indies

Walther Hewel and Adolf Hitler with Emil Helfferich, Freiherr von Trott and Ernst A. Bohle

Hitler’s Pianists

Hitler’s Anti-Smoking Campaign

Trade Relations Between the Third Reich and the Dutch East Indies

German-British Relations

The Beginning of the Second World War, the Dutch Reaction and Japan’s Entry into the War

The Beginning of the U-Boat War in the Atlantic

Merchant Ships and Captured Ships as Blockade Breakers

The Occupation of South East Asia by Japan

Radio XGRS (German Radio Station), “Shanghai Calling”

The Nanking Massacre

The Sinking of the

Van Imhoff

The Burma and Trans-Sumatra Railways

Second-World-War Maritime Disasters in South East Asia

Jewish Life in the Dutch East Indies and the Exodus of Jews from the Third Reich

Walther Hewel’s Diary

Reasons for Building German Bases in South East Asia

The Last Blockade Breakers and the Shortage of Rubber

The

Yanagi

Mission

German Naval Bases in South East Asia and the Arrival of the First Submarines

Operation Monsoon

Sabang Base on the Island of Weh and the Italian Submarines

The Telefunken Würzburg Radar Stations in the Far East

Subhas Chandra Bose and other Supporters of Hitler

The Bengali Holocaust

The German Embassy in Tokyo and the Sorge Espionage Affair

Communication

Provisions for the German U-Boats

Rest and Recreation for German Sailors

German Naval Pilots in the “Southern Region”

Operations Off the Coasts of Australia and New Zealand

Early Freedom Fighters and the Founding of PETA, Pembela Tanah Air

War Crimes at Sea

Sarangan: A German School on Java

Operation “Transom” and the Last German U-Boats in the “Southern Region” Until the End of the War

The German Capitulation

The Japanese Capitulation

German Support for Indonesian Freedom Fighters

Indonesia’s Struggle for Independence

Sarangan After the War

The Dutch After the War

Portuguese Timor’s Involvement in the Second World War and its Far-Reaching Consequences

Hitler’s Death

A German Military Cemetery on Java

Notable Germans Involved in the Development of the Free Indonesian Republic

Remarks about President Soekarno

Relics of the Second World War

Epilogue

Index of Personal Names

Subject Index

Literature and Sources

Thanks

During my long stay in Indonesia and as I was researching for my book “A Gecko for Luck” I kept coming across connections that had existed in the Third Reich between Germany and Indonesia – in those days the Japanese occupied the Dutch East Indies. My interest aroused, I researched in German and Indonesian archives and national libraries and found new documents, previously undiscovered and unpublished, from the period 1942-1945, the period of Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies.

I owe especial gratitude to the National Library (Perpustakaan Nasional Republik Indonesia) and the National Archive (Arsip National Republik Indonesia) of the Republic of Indonesia in Jakarta and the Soekarno Archive (UPT Perpustakaan Proklamator Bung Karno) in Blitar (East Java).

My thanks for friendly and effective support must go to the Archive of the Foreign Ministry in Berlin. A great deal of the information that I acquired from the Institut für Zeitgeschichte in Munich is also included in this book.

I would also like to express my thanks to the journalist Iwan Ong Santosa and the historian Didi Kwartananda in Jakarta. My conversations with them led me along new paths.

Thanks to my friend Jürgen Graaff for his research into the transmitters that were sent from Germany to the Dutch East Indies and Shanghai. With the help of his private archive and his “historical transmitter list” it was possible to reconstruct the technical date and the routes by which the transmitters reached the Far East and Australia.

My thanks as well to Hardy Zöllner, who attended the former German School in Sarangan, for friendly conversations and information.

Friedrich Flakowski, an eyewitness who was interned with his mother and sister in the Dutch East Indies and was then moved to Japan, provided me with important information, pictures and original documents which have been included in this book, for which I am very grateful. Sadly, he has since died.

The diary of my friend Günther Fust, another eyewitness who died some time ago, was kindly placed at my disposal by Dr Walter Jäcker, for which much thanks. I have included some interesting historical material from Günther Fust’s time in China in the book.

My especial thanks to my friend Horst Jordt, President of the Walter Spies Society in Germany and Baronin Victoria von Plessen for providing documents and photographs from the private archive concerning Victor1 Baron von Plessen in Wahlstorf and for information about the “Queen of the Amstel”.

I would like to give posthumous thanks to the Asia expert Professor Hans Bräker and the staff surgeon of the Indian Legion Dr R. Madan for a great deal of information about Subhas Chandra Bose, the Indian freedom fighter. Many thanks for information and photographs about the activities of the Borgward motor company in Indonesia go to Frau Monica Borgward and Peter Kurze, the author of several books about the Borgward company.

I must thank Frau Ayumi Schürmann for her help in translating Kiyokazu Tsuda’s Japanese book about the project to reconstruct the Würzburg Radar Station. Telefunken engineer Heinrich Foders, a personal acquaintance of mine, was sent to Japan via Singapore by U-boat to bring it about.

My very special thanks and deep respect go to the many Indonesian freedom fighters who at the beginning of the 1960s provided me with information about the time of the Japanese occupation, the beginnings of Soekarno’s volunteer army, the Defenders of the Fatherland, PETA (Pembela Tanah Air) and the subsequent almost five-year-long struggle for independence. I have discussed the subject many times with my dear Indonesian friends Wibowo, General Otty Soekotjo, Lt. Col. Daan Jahja, Umar Kayam and General M. Ng. Soenarjo. Much of this information is included in this book. Daan Jahja and Wibowo – with whom I worked in harmony for eighteen years – were particularly active in the creation of PETA, the country’s first army, from 1942-43 and in the struggle for Indonesian independence to the end of 1949.

Posthumous thanks too to Admiral Martadinata, the Commander in Chief of the Indonesian Navy (ALRI) for interesting conversations about the German naval base in Surabaya and the German school in Sarangan. He was one of Indonesia’s first officers and from 1945 received instruction as a young cadet in the branch of the first Indonesian military academy (SORA) at the German School in Sarangan in German and sport. He was also taught by German naval officers in the provisional military academy in Yogyakarta.

It is unfortunately impossible to list all the many Indonesian and German eyewitnesses from whom I received information in the 1960s and subsequently. But I owe them my special thanks for our many open and honest conversations.

Finally, I would like to thank my beloved Annette. She always supported me with good advice and suggestions. Annette was the perfect travelling companion who coped with everything - even the most difficult situations - without complaint. As I was writing my books - including this one - she was always beside me with her help and professional knowledge. Sadly, my beloved Annette died a few months ago. She was a most extraordinary and brave woman. I owe her my deepest affection. I will never forget her.

Horst H. Geerken

September 2015

Ill. 1 Map of the “Southern Region” (Dutch East Indies and Malaya) The Netherlands to the same scale

1In the literature, von Plessen’s first name Victor is often spelt Viktor. In the frequent references to him in this book I have always used the correct version with ‘c’, as did von Plessen in letters and documents.

1. Foreword

When my book A MAGIC GECKO, CIA’s Role Behind the Fall of Soekarno was published in Indonesia in the Summer of 2011, I visited the big GRAMEDIA bookshop in Kuta on Bali with Annette. We were shocked to see that a display of about fifty copies of my book in both English and Bahasa Indonesia had been placed right next to a pile of copies of Hitler’s Mein Kampf which had recently been translated into Bahasa Indonesia and was a current bestseller in Indonesia.

Quite close to my display there was another bestseller entitled Hitler mati di Indonesia (Hitler died in Indonesia). How has it come about that Hitler – in spite of the war crimes and atrocities he was responsible for – still holds such great fascination for the Indonesians, that sometimes even goes as far as veneration?

I had often noticed this when I was working in Indonesia in the years 1963 to 1981, but my professional duties did not allow me the leisure to follow this up in detail.

Now, however, I decided to investigate the phenomenon of veneration for Hitler and I began my researches. New evidence and information that I uncovered in both Germany and Indonesia led me to commit the results of my research to a book. To my great surprise, the relationship between Hitler and the Third Reich and Indonesia – at that period the Dutch East Indies – was considerably more extensive and intensive than I had at first assumed. I was equally surprised to discover that the key to this relationship was one of Hitler’s closest confidants, the importance of whom had previously been unrecognised by those working on the history of the Third Reich.

Even I have been surprised by some of the newly discovered information collated in this book. For example, how many of us are aware today that German naval personnel were stationed in the Dutch East Indies, Malaya and Singapore? Or that Indian troops fought on Hitler’s side in Europe? Or that German U-boats and auxiliary cruisers penetrated into the Pacific, as far even as Australia and New Zealand?

The focus of this book is not on Hitler’s well-known crimes and their moral significance, but rather on the political, technical and logistical aspects of the German theatre of war in the Far East.

This should in no way give rise to the impression that Hitler is being shown in a positive light. His crimes against humanity are a matter of historical record and in no way to be condoned. Much has been written about them, and they are not the theme of this book, which deals solely with the Far Eastern theatre of war, the hardship suffered by German personnel on their U-boat journeys (which lasted several months) and the technical challenges which had to be overcome. Respect for historical truth also demands that we do not ignore historically documented war-crimes committed by the Germans’ opponents – the Allies.

For historical reasons one cannot, of course, avoid frequent mentions of Hitler, as head of state and supreme commander, and the members of his intimate circle in a book about the Third Reich. Some of the illustrations in this book also show the swastika, the Nazi salute and other Nazi symbols. This is not intended as any kind of glorification of the Nazi era. These historical images are often of very poor quality, but have been included because of their importance as documents.

The war in the Atlantic has already been described in hundreds of books. In the naval archives there are documents about almost every ship that took part in the Battle of the Atlantic, detailing their missions and their personnel, whereas the presence of the German Navy in South East Asia, Australia, off the coast of New Zealand and particularly in the Dutch East Indies during the Second World War is hardly ever mentioned; and yet the involvement of the Third Reich together with its Axis partner Japan had a major impact. The colonial powers were driven out and many countries achieved independence. The balance of power in this area underwent fundamental change.

During the Second World War the area comprising the Dutch East Indies and Malaya was described as the “Southern Region”. Very little information about this theatre of war in far-off Asia can be found in the naval archives. The documentation concerning the activities of German U-boats in this area is also extremely fragmentary. All actions in this theatre were classified top secret by the German Navy, several of them being so secret that no documents were created. Even the Head of the German U-boat fleet, Admiral Karl Dönitz, seems to have forgotten the naval war in South-East Asia. In the more than 500 pages of his memoirs of the period from 1935 to 1945, 10 Years and 20 Days, Dönitz only mentions German U-boat actions in South-East Asian in passing in a paltry 40 lines.

Perhaps the South-East Asian theatre was too far from Germany to be reported. Among the approximately six-hundred German war reporters I found only one who had travelled to the ‘Southern Region’. This was Heinz Tischer, who travelled on the auxiliary cruiser Thor’s second voyage to Japan. The ship was destroyed in a fire in the port of Yokohama. His pictures and reports were all destroyed in the blaze. There may have been a second war reporter, Lieutenant Hermann Kiefer, who travelled to South East Asia on board of the U 861 in April 1944. The submarine did not reach Penang until the end of September 1944. The fact that this was only a few months before the German capitulation probably explains why I could not find any reports by him. Kiefer initially remained in Penang and became a British prisoner of war in Singapore after the capitulation of Japan.

Another reason why the distant ‘Southern Region’ was not as widely covered as the other fronts is surely the state of communications, which were not as good at that period as they are today.

Unfortunately the majority of contemporary witnesses who could have provided credible and reliable information are now dead. The German naval war in South-East Asia has become a forgotten war. Luckily I had already begun to investigate – if only marginally – this material at the beginning of the 1960s, when I was able to collect a lot of evidence from contemporary Indonesian and German witnesses.

The German military presence in the Dutch East Indies has a long history. As early as the 17th century many thousands of adventurous young Germanspeaking men set off for the East Indies to enter Dutch service as sailors or soldiers – or as artisans, merchants or civil servants. Often more than half of those in the service of the VOC (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie – the Dutch East India Company) were foreigners: Germans, Austrians, Poles, Swiss. The German soldiers were always in the majority.

At the end of the 18th century, Duke Carl Eugen of Württemberg sent a mercenary army of 2,000 of his officers and men to support the VOC in its colony for a sum of 300,000 gulden. They were mostly adventurers who were seeking their fortune in this unknown tropical country, but many were driven into the clutches of the recruiting officers by utter destitution. The soldiers were exploited and humiliated. Their rations, equipment and medical facilities were catastrophic, malaria, cholera, the vitamin-deficiency disease beriberi and other tropical illnesses decimated their ranks. There were no recreational facilities, though cheap arak, a spirit made from palm sugar juice and rice mash, flowed plentifully. Alcohol and gambling addiction were rife.

The mortality rate was extremely high as a result of the hot, damp tropical climate, unknown tropical diseases and poor hygiene. 10 to 20% of the passengers died on the sail voyage out, which took several months. More soldiers died of disease than in any military action. The Duke of Württemberg even sold his own sons to the Dutch, though they were at least officers. The family name of these sons – von Franquemont –, derived from a small county in eastern France which then belonged to Württemberg, could be found in Indonesia until the Second World War. Most of the von Franquemonts – like the other ranks – settled down in the tropics with a pretty Javanese woman and remained in the tropics for good.

The navy of the North German League, the Royal Prussian Navy and later the Imperial Navy were also present in South East Asia and the Pacific to foster German interests in the area. Up to that time the British, the French, the Dutch and the United States had made successful territorial claims in the region.

From 1859 the sailing frigate SMS Thesis, the schooner SMS Frauenlob and the transport vessel SMS Elbe operated in East Asia under the command of the flagship SMS Arcona. The German Empire constantly increased the power and the number of warships which led, via the ‘East Asian Cruiser Division’ to the ‘German East Asian Squadron’. From 1896 ironclads and large cruisers like the SMS Kaiser, the SMS Deutschland, the SMS Kaiserin Augusta, the SMS Fürst Bismarck, the SMS Scharnhorst and the SMS Gneisenau served in these waters. There were up to 20 warships in the ‘German East Asian Squadron’. They were compelled to use foreign ports for maintenance and repairs. This changed when Germany occupied Tsingtao in China in 1897 and built a naval base there.

After 1885 Germany acquired territory in New Guinea and in the Pacific, creating the following protectorates which from 1899 were administered directly as colonies by the German Empire and also contained German naval bases:

Kaiser Wilhelm’s Land (the north eastern section of New Guinea, the second largest island in the world)

the Bismarck Archipelago of hundreds of islands, of which the best known were Neu-Pommern (now: New Britain), Neu-Mecklenburg (now: New Ireland) and Neu-Hannover (now: New Hanover).

Kaiser Wilhelm’s Land and the Bismarck Archipelago together formed the colony of German New Guinea. Further German protectorates were:

the Bougainville Islands, which are all now part of Papua New Guinea

the Solomon Islands (now independent)

the Northern Mariana Islands (now a commonwealth of the USA)

the Marshall Islands, the Palau Islands, the Caroline Islands and Nauru (all now independent)

German Samoa, now independent West Samoa (not to be confused with the eastern Samoa Islands, which are now American Samoa, a major US military base).

Ill. 2 German colonial territories in China, South East Asia and the Pacific before the First World War.

Before and during the First World War many German warships cruised the waters of the Dutch East Indies. In 1910 SMS Scharnhorst, SMS Leipzig and SMS Luchs visited Sumatra and Borneo (now: Kalimantan). In 1911 SMS Scharnhorst visited Batavia (now: Jakarta). In 1913 SMS Scharnhorst returned to Batavia together with SMS Gneisenau. Both ships then also visited the Lesser Sunda Islands. In 1914 the battleship SMS Scharnhorst was back in Sumatra and Borneo. During this period Germany still had its colonies in South East Asia and the Pacific: there was a strong German naval presence of up to 24 warships and 17,000 crew in the area.

After the First World War the new cruiser SMS Emden III visited Batavia in 1927 and 1931. In 1926, 1927 and 1931 the light cruiser SMS Hamburg visited several ports in the Dutch East Indies, as did SMS Köln in 1933 and SMS Karlsruhe in. In 1937 SMS Emden III was in Surabaya and in Belawan, East Sumatra. The frequent visits to the Dutch East Indies by German warships after the First World War fostered the community spirit of the Germans living and working there.

The SMS Emden III with its 665 man crew docked in the port of Belawan on the 11th of December 1937 during a round the world voyage. This visit was the cause of great celebration, the high-point of which for some German families was the christening of their children on German territory on board of the ship, which remained there for five days. All visits to the Dutch East Indies by German ships were greeted with great enthusiasm by the German population there.

Why was Hitler’s interest in the Dutch East Indies – so far from Germany – so much greater than his interest in the former German colonies in the region? And who provided Hitler with such good information about the Dutch colony?

This question was what initially spurred me to write this book – and the answer soon revealed itself to be Walther Hewel. Even though no one else except Eva Braun shared Hitler’s private life as intimately as this man, little research into the history of the Third Reich has considered him. We will meet Walther Hewel frequently in this book. It is astonishing that no historian has yet investigated the documents about Hewel, which are to be found in several separate archives. Hewel played a key role in Berlin in all actions that concerned the Dutch East Indies.

Unfortunately, in spite of several attempts, it has not been possible for me to make contact with Hewel’s descendants and relations. They probably do not want light cast on the role played by him in the Third Reich, which is otherwise almost unknown. And yet, as we will see, Walther Hewel did in some respects play a quite positive mediatory role during this time.

Much of the information in this book is based on interviews with contemporary Indonesian witnesses who had themselves served in the German bases on Java and Sumatra and in the army founded by Soekarno during the Japanese occupation, the PETA (Pembela Tanah Air/Defenders of the Fatherland). In more recent times I have had further interviews with Indonesian experts, collectors and historians who are prepared to speak more openly with a foreigner like me who is, in their eyes, neutral, than they ever would to a former Dutch colonial master. I have therefore faithfully reproduced the attitudes and feelings of my Indonesian informants when speaking about the Dutch when reporting the events of those times.

The deeper I delved into Indonesian and German archives, the more interesting were the findings that emerged. Unfortunately many documents concerning the German military presence in South East Asia were lost in the confusion of the Second World War.

In contrast to the large number of books that have been written about the naval war in the Atlantic in the Second World War, I have found hardly any literature dealing with German naval operations in South East Asia. My many recent conversations with officers of the Indonesian navy (ALRI) who had only entered the service long after the end of the war remained fruitless. They had all experienced the Second World War either as children or not at all, and had had to devote all their energy to the rebuilding of their nation and its new armed forces after international pressure had forced the withdrawal of the Dutch colonial power in December 1949.

There is also the fact that under the presidency of Soeharto, the second Indonesian president, an attempt was made to wipe previous political events from the memory of the Indonesian people. Soeharto was always in the shadow of the first president, Soekarno, who had fought for the country’s independence. Soeharto attempted to change this by suppressing all information about Soekarno: even Indonesian schoolbooks were altered to this effect. However, he did not succeed in minimising his predecessor’s role: To the people of Indonesia, Soekarno was and still is the real hero who led their country to independence.

Several conversations at the beginning of the 60s with Admiral Martadinata, the Commander in Chief of the Indonesian navy, who was also a fellow-fighter and supporter of Soekarno, provided a lot of information about the German naval base in Surabaya and the German school in Sarangan. Unfortunately he lost his life in unexplained circumstances shortly after Soeharto seized power in a coup d’état supported by the CIA.

In the 1960s and 70s I visited all the former German naval bases: Surabaya, Batavia (now: Jakarta), Sabang, Singapore and Penang. I was not able to find any traces worth mentioning of the brief German naval presence in any of these places.

The Dutch colonial period, which lasted almost 350 years, together with the subsequent five-year independence struggle against the returning Dutch, is a time of pain and shame for all Indonesians, which they would much rather forget. In order to exclude this dark era, Indonesian historical consciousness only really begins in 1950. In the 1960s I therefore had to resort to acquiring information from contemporary eyewitnesses who had served in Soekarno’s volunteer PETA army. Happily, I was able to make many friends among them. In the course of the years many of them had risen to responsible positions in the Indonesian administration and army. They were able to tell me a great deal about the South East Asian theatre of war.

I have failed to find any German eyewitnesses still alive today who served on a U-boat or a German blockade-breaker in Indonesian waters or on one of the German bases in the “Southern Region”. When I arrived in Indonesia in 1963 it was still possible to interview a few former German submariners. However, at the time I did not have the leisure to deal with this topic more deeply because of my job as the representative of a German company. Moreover, themes harking back to the Second World War were at that time practically taboo.

I knew two people who worked at the German Embassy. One of them had remained on Java after serving in the crew of a U-boat, the other had served in the base at Sabang. A leading employee of Siemens-Indonesia had been a submariner and another U-boat commander worked for a German chemical company in Bandung in the 60s. All but one of them remained in their new home, Indonesia, until the end of their lives. A large number of them had fought beside the Indonesian freedom fighters, first against the British and then against the returning Dutch forces, until Indonesia finally achieved independence.

I knew two U-boat commanders who visited Indonesia frequently in the 1960s and 70s. Their boats had both been stationed at the base in Surabaya. During their time there they had made friends with Indonesian families, whom they were now visiting. I was able to talk to one of these commanders on several occasions.

On the Internet and also in historical works I have found much confusion and many errors concerning the numbers of the German U-boats and the names of their commanders. After a great deal of detailed research I have presented here the names, and data that are, in my opinion, correct, though 100% accuracy cannot be guaranteed. There is often a difference in the times and dates quoted, which may well derive from the time difference between Germany and Indonesia, depending on the place where the data was recorded.

The name ‘Indonesia’ for the former Dutch colony of the Dutch East Indies was first used officially after the declaration of independence on August 17th 1945. It was the German ship’s doctor and scientist Adolf Bastian who first coined the term at the end of the 19th century: it then gained international currency. The term, which encompassed the whole archipelago, was taken up by the Indonesian independence movement. It was politically loaded and could not be used publicly during the Dutch colonial period: the Dutch regarded it as an attack on their claims to hegemony. Every attempt to unite the inhabitants of the archipelago with no concern for tribal affiliation, race, religion or language was blocked by the colonial government with all their might. “Divide and Rule” was the principle by which they hoped to maintain their power. But the name “Indonesia” reinforced the national consciousness and the unity of the nation.

I use the term officially in use for the Indonesian archipelago during the period of the Third Reich – Dutch East Indies –, and for the area comprising the Dutch East Indies and Malaya, where the German bases were situated, the term used by the German navy: ‘Southern Region’.

In the interests of historical correctness I only use the word Indonesia for the period after the declaration of independence, even though the term was often used during the Second World War by Germans, Japanese and the people of Indonesia.

War and politics destroyed so many young lives on both sides, lives that were surely intended for something finer and better. Everyone, victors and defeated alike, suffered after that war. There were ruined souls and ruined landscapes on both sides – even in the far off theatre of war in South East Asia. The still, blue Java Sea became a watery grave for many a sailor.

2. Hitler Seizes Power.

The Beginning of the Second World War and How my Interest in the Dutch East Indies was Awakened

I was born exactly 195 days after Hitler’s seizure of power put an end to the Weimar Republic. After a period of serious unemployment, inflation and general poverty the majority of the German population celebrated Hitler as the “Saviour of the Fatherland”. Defeat in the First World War, the humiliation that followed and the Weimar Republic’s problems smoothed the way for Hitler’s initially overwhelming success.

All over Germany autobahns were built, within only three years millions of unemployed found work again and you could order a Volkswagen for only 1,000 reichsmarks. Hitler created the most modern army in Europe. Everything was on the way up! As early as the mid-1930s Germany recorded the highest standard of living in its history. Everything seemed to be going right for Hitler. After the disgrace of the Versailles Treaty the Germans had regained their pride and praised him to the skies.

As a child I only heard positive and admiring things said about our “Führer Adolf Hitler”: no unemployment, a change of world, a change of era. The chaos of the Weimar Republic was at an end and something new was coming. No wonder National Socialism attracted so many at first glance. They hoped for better times, and believed that only Hitler could bring about the miracle. He’d already made a beginning.

Hitler coined the slogan “Neue Ordnung” (New Order), which was then taken over by the other Axis powers. In Italy Mussolini spoke of the Ordine Nuovo and the Japanese Prime Minister Prince Konoe Fumimaro of Shintesai. Even the second Indonesian president Soeharto named his programme for restructuring the nation Orde Baru, New Order!

Hitler intended the 1936 Olympic Games to confirm his international acceptance, in spite of threats of a boycott by the USA, the United Kingdom, France, Sweden, Czechoslovakia and the Netherlands because of increasing alarm at the nature of his regime. Visitors reported on the exciting development of the capital, Berlin, the hordes of people from many different nations, the large number of cars, the impressively swirling sea of flags and the great successes of the German athletes. The new Olympic Stadium with its 100,000 seats, built in just two years, was particularly impressive – it was a masterly achievement by the architects, planners and builders.

Though the stadium was itself gigantic, Hitler and his architect Walter Speer had plans to create even larger buildings. In the vicinity of Nuremberg a stadium that was by far the biggest in the world was being built even after the war had begun. It was to be 90 metres high and have a capacity of 405,000. Lifts holding 100 people were to take the spectators to the upper rows. It was only towards the end of the war that work on this gigantic project ceased.

The plans and models for Berlin that Hitler revealed in 1936 were even more gigantic. Berlin was to be rebuilt as the “World Capital Germania”. Monumental buildings were planned. The “Great Hall” was to become the biggest hall in the world with a surface area of 315 metres square, a dome 320 metres high and a capacity of 180,000. It was to be an architectonic masterpiece. A triumphal arch four times bigger than the one in Paris was also planned. Hitler’s megalomania was beginning to show itself.

The ostentatious “New Reich Chancery” with a frontage of 420 metres was completed to Hitler’s own plans in a record time of just about a year at the beginning of 1939. The interior fittings were all of marble and other valuable materials. This “World Capital Germania” was a demonstration of power. Nazi ideology was to be carved in stone.

The New Reich Chancery was only slightly damaged by Allied bombing and the battle for Berlin just before the end of the war, but on the orders of the Soviet Union it was gradually demolished and razed to the ground between 1949 and 1953. The Olympic stadium on the other hand survived the war almost undamaged. After refurbishment, modernisation and the addition of a partial roof the Berlin Olympic Stadium now holds 75,000 spectators. It is the only building from the planned “World Capital” that has remained standing till today and is still in use.

When I went on errands for my mother, I used to love going to the grocer’s shop (Kolonialwarenladen) on our street. The very name “Kolonialwarenladen” conjured up associations with distant, exotic lands, and the name persisted even though the German colonies had ceased to exist after the First World War.

This was the eldorado of my young fantasy world. A world of brightlycoloured enamel signs showing tropical landscapes, of exotic aromas and strange foreign foods. The sago packet had “Bismarck Archipelago” as the country of origin and showed a picture of two dark-skinned natives hollowing out a tree trunk. As a child I was fascinated – you could even eat the tree trunks there.

Other enamel signs advertised “Hollandia Cacao”, or soup cubes or coffee from the former German colony of Togo. Products from overseas like coffee, rice, brown sugar, coconut flakes, semolina and exotic beans stood around in open sacks on the floor. There was paraffin and sweet port wine from the barrel. Sometimes there were even bananas. All kinds of spices, tobacco and many other things were kept loose in big drawers behind the counter. Next to wooden coffee mills with a crank handle there were gaudy tin canisters on the shelves. This made my child’s eyes shine, and the aroma of the strange spices awoke dreams and longing for the big, wide world in me even then. I was fascinated by the dusky-skinned people and the exotic tropical landscapes with blue seas and simple huts under palm trees.

We were – and still are – a cosmopolitan family spread over several continents. It was not unusual for my mother – even from a comparatively young age – to spend longer periods abroad in Europe. We also had relatives in Holland. My mother visited them frequently in Amsterdam and had even learned Dutch: my parents had very close contacts with Holland. This was probably how my mother awakened my interest in the Dutch East Indies very early on, an interest which has continually grown to this very day. Though far off, that fascinating country was closest to me from my young childhood onwards.

My parents encouraged my love of music and of literature. Their wellfilled library was like a magnet to me. There were lots of illustrated books about the former German colonies in Africa and the Pacific and, probably because of my mother’s family connections with Holland, numerous books in Dutch about the East Indies. I was constantly surrounded by books whose illustrations enchanted me. Even before I could read, I was fascinated by the photographs and drawings of rice terraces on Java or the tropical jungle of Sumatra: in this way I first came into contact with what is now Indonesia when I was three or four years old. This stimulus bore fruit, since I learned to read very early. Even as a little boy the pictures of the Netherlands Indies enabled me to visualise the tropics. Unfortunately very few of these books survived the war.

1939 was particularly eventful. I was now six years old and can remember many details quite clearly. Throughout that whole year the whole country was tense: we sensed that something was about to happen.

Signs proclaiming “No Entry for Jews” were displayed on many public buildings, and on our grocer’s shop there was also a sign saying “Jews not wanted here”.

And on the 1st September 1939 the day arrived. From first thing in the morning till late at night Hitler’s announcement droned from the radio: Since 5.45 A.M. we have been returning fire, and from now on bombs will be met by bombs. For months beforehand we had been told that the Poles had been mistreating the Germans who lived in Silesia for no reason at all: they were expelling them and killing them, and had mobilised their troops there since March with the intent of making war on Germany. Now the Germans said that Hitler had warned the Poles often enough to stop their attacks on the Germans in Silesia. The Führer’s patience was at an end, and if the Poles would not hear, they would end up by being made to feel. Hitler said: I have, therefore, resolved to speak to Poland in the same language that Poland for months past has used toward us.

The beginning of the Second World War also brought decisive change to the lives of the Germans in South East Asia. In the British territories of Malaya, Singapore and Burma all German citizens were interned. Some managed to escape to the Dutch East Indies, which were at the time still neutral. These men, women and children escaped internment by the British, but when the Germans invaded the Netherlands they ended up moving from the frying pan into the fire in the Dutch East Indies. Their fate in the Dutch internment camps was far worse.

Today of course it is clear to me that Hitler’s policy of expansion to the east had been planned for a long time. The German people had been prepared for war by targeted propaganda. Hitler wanted to create a corridor to East Prussia, which was separated from the main part of the country. Only 17 days after the German army invaded from the west, the Red Army marched into Poland from the east: Hitler and Stalin had just signed their non-aggression pact.

As in every war both sides lied: successes were magnified and defeats concealed. But at the time I, as a child – and obviously many adults too – was unaware of this. It is only modern communications media that make it possible to acquire wider and more varied information.

I was six and a half when I started school in Stuttgart in the spring of 1940. The school day began with a loud, clear “Heil Hitler!” In the Third Reich this greeting was compulsory. School was a place where you did what you were told and its main aim was the promulgation of National Socialist ideology. All over the world young people are the easiest to influence, and the Nazi regime knew how to win over children: hiking, sport, romantic adventure, camp-fires, singing, comradeship.

Almost every day in school we were presented with a list of the territory lost after the First World War because of the Versailles treaty: the Sudetenland, Pomerania, Lorraine, the former German colonies. They were to be reconquered for the German Reich. The teachers talked of the “colonial lies” of the victorious Allies. We children didn’t understand any of this, but we felt the tension. When Hitler reoccupied the Rhineland in 1936, Great Britain and France accepted this breach of the Versailles treaty without much protest. Hitler felt secure in his expansionist policies and hoped that these two powers would back down once again.

The Blitzkrieg against France was essentially a continuation of the First World War. It lasted from the 10th May to the 25th June 1940. The victory parade of the German troops in Paris actually took place on the 14th June. On the 22nd, the armistice with France was signed in the historic railway carriage in Compiègne in which Germany had signed its surrender in 1918. This time Hitler dictated the conditions. He screamed into the microphone: I have thrown down the Treaty of Versailles at the feet of the French! After defeat in the First World War and their humiliation by the Treaty of Versailles the German were proud again – and feared again. The German people rejoiced.

The armistice was the equivalent of a surrender by France, and divided France into the free Vichy regime in the south under Marshal Pétain and a German occupied zone in the north. Pétain shook hands with Hitler and offered to cooperate with the Nazis. He regarded the Jews and the Communists as responsible for the defeat of France. Without much resistance from the general populace the transport of French Jews to Germany began, and French citizens started to work for the German war industry. After the end of the war, Pétain was sentenced to life imprisonment for his collaboration with Germany.

Ill. 3 German poster Feind hört mit 1941

Ill. 4 British posters also warned against espionage

We had to be economical with our resources in Germany: they were needed to supply the military. The radio broadcast slogans like: Save gas to bring victory! Don’t heat with electricity! Combat extravagance! Posters everywhere in towns and villages also encouraged energy saving. Posters like The enemy is listening warned against espionage, just as they did in the counties that were our opponents.

The Second World War was now at our door. At first it was only enemy reconnaissance planes, but then came the bombers with their fighter escorts. Then it was the roar of the bomber squadrons as they flew over in large formations. Churchill’s announcement that the air war would now come to the cities of Germany was being fulfilled. He hoped to encourage resistance to Hitler by means of the air-raids, but they achieved the direct opposite. The raids made the links between the German people and the regime much stronger. Even people who had until now been sceptical about the Third Reich wished to hold out in the face of these attacks. The USA did not enter the war until the end of 1941, but it had supplied Great Britain with vital war materials even before that.

3. Dream Destination Dutch East Indies

As I have already said, I became familiar with the Dutch East Indies as a child because of my parents’ books. In school, adventure novels set in Sumatra and Celebes went the rounds. But my very special interest in the islands on the Equator was encouraged by my geography teacher’s stories about the gigantic archipelago. Many Germans were enchanted by the East Indies, especially by Bali. From the beginning of the last century Bali worked like a magnet on painters, musicians, film-makers, writers, actors and the upper ten thousand.

But the charm of the many islands of the archipelago derives not only from the volcanoes, the mountains, the long beaches, the beautiful tropical landscape, the exotic rituals or the unique Hindu culture that can be found only on Bali. The main reason is the gentle, friendly, attractive people. Bali, for example, is a land of born artists, even though every Balinese mainly works as a rice farmer or an artisan. Their whole life is imbued with magic and religion. Every job becomes a work of art for a Balinese, whether it is building rice terraces or a temple. Bali is a picturesque island which has managed to preserve its unique culture for centuries, even during the 350 years of Dutch colonial rule.

In 1931 there was a Colonial Exhibition in Paris, the Exposition Coloniale Internationale, which was open for six months. It was visited by 35 million people from all over the world – the colonial nations proudly showed off their colonies and their products at the Exposition. They wanted to show the rest of the world how “well” the native populations were doing under their rule. There was of course no mention of profit, exploitation or humiliation of the natives.

The Netherlands had a pavilion which presented the various styles of the colonial Dutch East Indies. There was a Javanese mosque, and also a Balinese Hindu temple. A dance group from Bali performed in a Balinese theatre. They were directed by Tjokorde Gede Raka Sukawati, the Prince of Ubud on Bali and a member of the Volksraat (People’s Council) of the Dutch colonial government. In Paris he married a European woman as his second or third wife, which gave rise to a certain degree of sensation back home in Ubud when he returned.

Contrary to what has appeared in the literature and the Internet, Walter Spies – the German painter and musician who lived on Bali – was not himself at the exhibition in Paris, although it is certain that the dances presented by the Balinese group were influenced by Spies, who was a close friend of Tjokorde Gede Raka Sukawati. They always worked closely together on artistic projects. I will return to Walter Spies later.

In connection with the exhibition, R. Goris, a Dutch official who loved Bali, produced the beautiful brochure The Island of Bali: Its Religion and Ceremonies (Batavia 1931), including photographs by Walter Spies. Its main purpose was to be an advertisement by the Dutch government to promote tourism on Bali.

From the 17th century onwards, the Indonesian archipelago had played an important part in literature written in German, and the Paris exhibition also inspired a boom in German literature about the East Indies which reached its high point during the Third Reich. This included adventure novels, children’s books, non-fiction, travel writing, art books, language guides, novels, penny dreadfuls, Christian missionary books and many more.

Between 1930 and the end of the war well over 300 publications about the Indonesian archipelago appeared. Even during the war years from 1939-45 there were almost 90 publications, although the numbers did fall off sharply during this period. It is striking that many authors used the word “Indonesia”, coined by the German doctor and scientist Adolf Bastian, for the archipelago, even though it was still under Dutch rule and the word was strictly forbidden in the colony.

Many authors also used the picturesque name invented by the German doctor, zoologist, biologist, philosopher and painter Ernst Haeckel: “Insulinde”. Unfortunately this did not catch on internationally.

The works of Baron Victor von Plessen (published 1936 and 1944) and Hans Hasso von Veltheim-Ostrau (published 1943) gave rise to considerable interest in Germany, even though the war was already in its final phase.

Veltheim-Ostrau stayed with Walter Spies on Bali in 1938. His Tagebücher aus Asien 1937-1939 (Asian Diaries 1937-1939) speaks enthusiastically about Bali as the “paradisiac, peaceful and unworldly island”. When the book was published in 1943, German U-boats were already operating in Balinese waters and German sailors and a German air squadron were stationed only a few hundred kilometres west of Bali, in Surabaya. In the waters around the Dutch East Indies thousands of sailors, prisoners of war, internees and forced labourers had already died. No trace of “peaceful” and “paradise”: the war had arrived in the East Indies.

The number of books for young people in which the region played a role was striking. We passed around from hand to hand books whose adventures were set on Java, in the jungles of Sumatra or on the island of Nias. Through reading these books we learned many words in Malay as children: Tuan, Mau apa? (Lord, what do you want?), Selamat pagi (Good morning) or Toko Obat (Pharmacy): they then became part of our youthful vocabulary as a “secret language”.

The many new publications during the Third Reich included countless comic book series with adventure stories, scientific themes and historical events. There was a vast selection. All of these series – some of which had over 300 titles – provided a great deal of information about the Dutch East Indies.

Wilhelm Reinhardt’s penny-dreadful series Jörn Farrow’s U-Boot-Abenteuer (Jörn Farrow’s U-boat Adventures) ran to over 350 numbers from 1932 to 1940. It narrates almost exclusively adventures in an U-boat around the islands of the Dutch East Indies. Although even those at the very top in Nazi Germany could not at the time have imagined that German U-boats would operate in these waters, these stories were about a U-boat which was continually being pursued by the Allies in the First World War. Since the Netherlands were neutral in that conflict, the submarine could always seek sanctuary in their East Indian Waters.

We boys knew all about the islands and cities of the region, because there were always maps of the relevant regions on the back of the comics. In terms of geography and other factual knowledge this series (and many others) were very educational. The inside of the cover always had factual knowledge about the language, the script or the culture of the country. Many magazines also reported on the Hindu culture of Bali. The Germans, young and old, were better informed about the Dutch East Indies during the Third Reich than they are today about the country called Indonesia. The tropical archipelago, whose islands wind round the Equator like a string of pearls, was very familiar to us in those days.

In Germany a real Bali myth was created by several films that reached German cinemas after 1931. First was the film Der Kris (The Kris) or Das flammende Schwert (The Flaming Sword, English title: Goona Goona) shot by André Roosevelt and Armand Denis on Bali in 1928/29. Walter Spies was an advisor on this film, which was premiered in the USA in 1930 and seen in German cinemas in 1931.

An even earlier film was mentioned by Robert Genin in his 1929 book Die Ferne Insel: Aufzeichnungen von meiner Fahrt nach Bali (The distant island: sketches of my trip to Bali). On his way to Bali he crossed Java as well. He says:

[...] The most glorious Buddhist monuments are nearby, and the Kraton, the seat of the Sultan, has recently become a great attraction for Europeans. A great film “At the Sultan’s court” has already been shot – and it is reported in all the newspapers! We are as interested in the Sultan of Dyokya (now: Yogya, abbreviation for Yogyakarta), as if he were actually our cousin. [...]2

Ill. 5 Magazin Die Woche, dated February 24th, 1937 with new pictures from Bali

Unfortunately I have been unable to find any details about this early – perhaps even the first – film about Bali.

Victor von Plessen knew a great deal about the Dutch East Indies. His first expedition to Bali took place in 1924/25, when he rediscovered the wonderful bird Bali Mina (Leucopsar). His second expedition took him to Celebes (now: Sulawesi) and the small islands of the Flores Sea. The premiere of von Plessen’s film Insel der Dämonen (The Isle of Demons) took place in 1933, only a few days before Hitler seized power. He had filmed it on Bali from 1930 to 1931 with his cameraman Dalsheim and in collaboration with Walter Spies.

Ill. 6 Film poster 1933

In 1934 and 1935, during his fourth and last expedition, he filmed Die Kopfjäger von Borneo (The Headhunters of Borneo) which was premiered in German cinemas in 1936. Both his films were a success worldwide, and not just in Germany. In 1941 – in the middle of the war – there was a new cut of Insel der Dämonen with the title Bali - Kleinod der Südsee(Jewel of the South Seas) in German cinemas. It had been remastered with a new sound track and was shown until the end of the war. In the middle of a war, this film about a magical landscape with peaceful people in an idyllic world was a welcome contrast to horrific experiences at the front and in the ruined cities.

The Nazi party also attempted to use cultural films and radio programmes, like for example Bali, das Paradies (The Paradise of Bali, 1934) for their aims. Those responsible even went so far as to emphasise the ‘Indo-Aryan bloodline” of the Hindu population of Bali!3

In a letter of the 24th December 1940 Dr Hans Heinrich Hiller, “General Commissioner for Cinema and Theatre in the General Government of the Occupied Areas in Eastern Europe” wrote to “Privy Councillor and Envoy” Walther Hewel about an operetta with the title “Bali”:

When I last saw you we spoke about Bali and my planned operetta. I have now completed it. And what better thing could I do than to dedicate it to the man who knows Bali and its beauty from personal experience. And so I present this first copy to you as a Christmas gift, coupled with sincere wishes for a happy Christmas, Heil Hitler, signed Hiller.

All attempts to discover the fate of this operetta in both German and Hungary were unfortunately unsuccessful. However, a film entitled Mámoros Báli éj (Enchanted Bali) was shown in Hungarian cinemas in 1939. It was impossible to discover, even from Hungarian sources, if this film was identical to the operetta.4

The films, books and reports about the tropical Dutch East Indies were clearly a kind of surrogate travel during the isolation of the war years. In the German media’s presentation during the Third Reich Bali was an earthly paradise, a place to be longed for. The Germans sought a peaceful edenic alternative to the modern western way of living and the constant sense of threat and anxiety caused by the war that Hitler had brought upon them.

German films were received with great enthusiasm by the native population in the East Indies. During the Third Reich German films were shown with increasing frequency in cinemas there. The 1933 U-boat adventure film Morgenrot (Dawn, 1933) was particularly popular. Cinemas were full to the last seat when German films were shown. It was a form of propaganda intended to strengthen the population’s sympathy for Germany. To draw the attention of the Dutch, the posters for German film premieres in Batavia were often bigger than the cinema itself.5

Ill. 7 Walter Spies with monkey and cockatoo

The German painter and musician Walter Spies, whom we have mentioned several times above, came to Java in 1923 and then moved to Bali in 1927, where he was active until his death in 1942. Although he was an extraordinary artist, Walter Spies is known in Germany almost exclusively in connoisseur circles, whereas in the international art world, and particularly in Bali, he is very much admired. He was a bridge-builder between the two cultures.

The German architect Curt Grundler designed the ethnographic “Museum Bali” in Denpasar in 1910. As early as 1917 the museum was destroyed by the eruption of the volcano Gunung Batur and the subsequent earthquakes. It was through Spies’ initiative that the museum was rebuilt in its present form, and he was its first curator on its reopening in 1932. In 1936, together with Tjokorde Gede Agung Sukawati, the Balinese painter I Gusti Nyoman Lempad and the Dutch painter Rudolf Bonnet he founded an artists’ association, Pita Maha, which had nearly 150 Balinese artists in its membership.

Vicki Baum’s 1937 novel Life and Death in Bali was written while she was staying with Spies using him as an advisor. It was an immediate bestseller and has become a classic which is still a fascinating read today.

Not only during the Third Reich but also after the end of the war there was continued enthusiasm for the new Republic of Indonesia. There were a large number of children’s books and adventure novels from the war years about Java, Sumatra, Celebes, New Guinea and Bali were still on the market. New books and re-issues of old ones added to their number.

While a terrible colonial war was being waged against the freedom-loving Indonesians by the Dutch, we schoolboys would greet each other with the Malay phrase Tabeh Tuan. We were unaware of the atrocities committed by the Dutch in their attempt to reconquer their former colony – and so were the adults in Germany at the time. The Dutch were very skilled at concealing their crimes against the Indonesians for many decades.

Ill. 8 Walter Spies, The Village Street

But this flood of books and films cannot be the only explanation for Hitler’s especial interest in the Dutch East Indies. As well as the abundance of raw materials to be found in the archipelago there must have been something else that drew his attention to the area.

Walther Hewel, already mentioned above, became possibly Hitler’s closest advisor and intimate, in fact their friendship developed into a lifelong relationship. Hewel remained one of Hitler’s few personal friends until the latter’s death. This man captured my imagination, and I began to research his life.

Was Walther Hewel the key to Hitler’s interest in the archipelago with its rich natural resources? That seems to be the case! Hitler was never in the Dutch East Indies himself, but the land of the many thousand islands was – as we will see – introduced to him by Walther Hewel.

As well as my mother and my grammar school geography teacher, it was the large number of children’s books and adventure comics of the period that aroused my interest in the region. And that was why as a schoolboy in a little town in South Germany I was already dreaming of the exotic Greater and Lesser Sunda Islands. My dream came true: I was to spend 18 years working in that beautiful country with its friendly and cultivated people.

Although literature about the Dutch East Indies played so great a role in the Third Reich, the German people were given little or no information about the activities of the German military in South East Asia. All attention was on the naval war in the Atlantic and on the Western and Eastern Fronts. Even today the majority of the German people have little idea of the theatre of war in the Indian Ocean and the Java Sea. This book is intended to fill that gap.

2Genin, Die Ferne Insel, p. 125

3Gottowik, Die Ethnographen ..., pp. 202f

4www.szineszkonyvtr.hu

5Wilson, Orang dan Partai Nazi ..., p. 110

4. Walther Hewel and Adolf Hitler with Emil Helfferich, Freiherr von Trott and Ernst A. Bohle

Because of his family Walther Hewel had very close connections to the Dutch East Indies. His father, Anton Hewel, was partner in a cocoa factory in Java. After his death, Hewel’s mother Elsa, née Freiin von Lindenfels, continued to run the firm. His mother’s family had extensive family connections with England.

Walther6 Hewel himself said that he was born on the 25th of March 1904 in Cologne. In the index of the Federal German Archive the date is wrongly given as the 25th of April 1904, and on the Internet the date of the 2nd