Part 5 - "Denazification Certificate trade"
and self-deception
His idea of the fusion of nationalism and Socialism was doubtless a new and very good one. In
this
way he succeeded in balancing the major conflicts among the people as a whole and hence in
bringing
about an internal peace such as remains unparalleled in any nation on earth either both before
and
since. This unique condition lasted from approximately 1933 to the 1936 Olympics. From that
point
on, a change began to creep in which became clearly apparent only much later, towards the end
of
the
war.
The first trigger was the removal of the SA from power, a process which began on June 30,
1934.
It
was a crucial blow against
the National-Socialist Revolution. I got the first taste of this on the evening of June 30, 1934. My
wife
Alexandra and I were visiting the Goebbels' when Hitler, just arrived at Berlin, told us in detail
how
this fateful day had passed for him. He knew that I was a Troop Commander with the SA and
one
of
three aides to the Senior Troop Commander of the SA
Unit Berlin-Brandenburg, albeit only pro forma - excused from SA service to discharge my
duties
as
ministerial aide.
In the course of conversation that distressing day, Hitler suddenly asked me: "Where were you
today, anyway - your superior, Senior Troop Commander Ernst, was caught while
attempting to escape - and has been executed!" I replied that I had been doing my work at the
Ministry, as usual. "You were lucky. If you had been taken along with Ernst, I doubt I could have
saved you." This statement was like a bucket
of ice-water in my face. My wife was outraged as well; she never forgave him for this
answer.
There can be no doubt that he was correct in taking severe measures against Röhm and
the
corrupt members of
the higher-up SA leadership, and especially in taking these measures personally and at great risk
to
himself. But he should never have suffered
his SA - the backbone of the Revolution, which he had trained to function with
fantastic self-discipline - to be politically wiped out. In permitting this to happen, he put the
Revolution at the mercy of very different
powers - and that was the beginning of the end.
Among those executed - and unjustly so - were two of my closest friends: Troop Commander
Schneidhuber and Brigadier General Baron von Wechmar.
Of course we, more than anyone else, asked ourselves for years why Hitler had acted as he had.
Three
factors had pushed him to it: the Party (later under the influence of Bormann), the
Reichsführer
SS Heinrich Himmler, who was in the process of establishing his own power base, and the
former
Chief of Staff of the SA, Hermann Göring, who believed that he would now be able to
build
up a National-Socialist air force as the focal point of domestic power.
Around 5 pm on June 30, 1934, when Adolf Hitler arrived from Munich at Tempelhof, a
company
of the Luftwaffe air force was assembled to salute the Führer for the first time. This was
meant
to surprise and please Hitler. But Hitler's face darkened, he all but ignored the Luftwaffe, and
Goebbels was furious.
In the morning that same day, I had sat in my office on Wilhelm Square, waiting for my
Minister,
when Göring had suddenly come in. He greeted me, went directly to the large window,
drummed against the glass with his fingers, and said, without looking at me: "Do you know
what's
going on?" I answered that I knew next to nothing. Then
he said - and it made almost no sense to me at the time: "Chief of Staff Röhm is being
executed
today." Röhm, also a Reich Minister, shot himself, and rightly so, for as Chief of Staff of
the
SA he was utterly impossible, as well as a depraved character and hence a traitor. The
Wehrmacht
seems to me to have served in a double game.
The elimination of the SA automatically resulted in the neglect of the "old guard" of the
NSDAP,
since most of the members of the "old guard" had also been members of the SA for many years.
Thus,
June 30, 1934 slowly but surely led to
the shut-down of the Revolution, which from that point on took place largely in private, so to
speak.
And thus the path was cleared for all those who wished to join the Party as soon as they possibly
could in order to profit somehow from the external success of this state and this people.
The real National-Socialists scornfully called these people "the Nazis". With them and through
them,
the Party grew more and more bureaucratic. The "old fighters" no longer felt comfortable with it
and
retreated into the SA or the "old guard".
We perceived this to be all the more tragic because now the years came where the actual process
of
reconstruction and development could begin; for Hitler had created order, the people were as
happy
and as united as never before, industry was booming, export trade flourished, and at the center of
it
all was the German worker, both "of muscle" and "of
intellect" - respected, and with a cheerful heart.
What do people strive for who live a free and happy life and
take well-deserved pride in their and their nation's progress? A family, a home, and children!
This
is
how it has been everywhere and at all times. A look at the statistics of the 1930s proves more
clearly
than any election results that the German people were very content at that time, and counted on a
long
time of peace. Anyone who claims that there was any considerable popular resistance against
Adolf
Hitler and his government before 1944 either lacks even the most basic understanding
of those days - or is a contemptible liar!
In 1945-46 millions of Germans believed that only lies could save them. Day in, day out, the
enemy
served them clever and cunning falsehoods, either directly or in a roundabout way. This was also
the
origin of the atrocious "Persil note" racket, the denazification certificate scam by means of
which
millions "saved" themselves at the expense of the truth and the honour of the entire nation.
I doubt that there is any other place on earth where lies as numerous and as imaginative have
been
dreamed up as
in post-war Germany - especially in West Germany. Since more or less all the Germans had
supported
the National-Socialist Reich in one way or another, especially during
wartime, post-1945 reconstruction was quite inconceivable without these more than 90% of the
people.
No doubt all those who provided the professional as well as the
political know-how required for the reconstruction of the new state had previously acquired and
applied their abilities under Hitler's regime. It is thus in no way an exaggeration to say that the
courage, the determination, the team spirit and most of all the faith in
Germany - all those qualities without which Germany could never have been resurrected
from its rubble - had their origins in exactly that Germany that was henceforth to be so
dreadfully
calumniated.
We owe the reconstruction of Germany to a German people who had lived through the Thirties
and
who thus provided the consequent attitude towards nation and state, to life in general and to
the mind-set resulting from it. If today's new generation were faced with the same task as the
Hitler
generation had faced between 1945 and 1952, the reconstruction efforts would be a sorry sight
indeed.
It is impossible to achieve something truly essential for one's nation and state in the absence of
great
and eternal ideals!
The first Federal Chancellor of post-war days, Dr. Konrad Adenauer - a close personal
acquaintance
of mine from my student
days - was himself part of this. Under Hitler's regime he had made extraordinary efforts to regain
the
position of Mayor of a major German city (Cologne). Hitler did not doubt Adenauer's abilities,
but
he felt that because of his attitude in the days of Rhenish separatism he could not assign him
such
a
privileged position now. He did, however, decree that Dr. Adenauer should receive an annual
pension
of 40,000 Reichsmark. Reich Minister Dr. Lammers told me this after the war. He had seen
Hitler
personally about this matter and was thus the best possible witness.
No doubt Federal Chancellor Dr. Adenauer as well as his successor Dr. Kurt Georg
Kiesinger - who had served as liaison between Reich Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop and Reich
Minister of Propaganda Dr.
Goebbels - both knew enough of how things had really been, to be able to publicly counter the
slander
aimed at the German
people - but they were careful not to do any such thing!
The "Persil notes", those denazification certificates, were the prerequisite for the army of
slanderers.
Through them, a situation was created where the events of the past were not clarified on a basis
of
conviction or of loyalty to people and state and for the sake of peace with the former enemy
powers;
rather, an atmosphere
of million-fold fears regarding dependence on the enemy powers and the apparent hopelessness
with
respect to a peace agreement gave rise to a generalized, demoralizing complex of lies that
strained
any
real attempts at German foreign relations to the utmost and thus rendered internal peace
impossible
for both ethical and moral reasons.
And the more the real contemporaneous witnesses die off, the less chance there is for this nation
to
find its way back to the whole truth about itself.
But for as long as a nation is burdened down like that - rightly or wrongly -, it cannot possibly be
a
free agent in
its decision-making process, its politics, or ultimately in its life as a whole. For as long as the
burden
remains, it will be blackmailed by other
nations - and the internal blackmail amongst the people themselves will also continue.
And what did the post-war governments of West Germany do about this? The wrongest thing
they
could possibly have done! They tried to beg and buy the honor of their people. But bowing and
scraping, and payments rendered in hopes of appeasement, only ever exacerbate such
a situation - they never remedy it, for every half-way sensible person in other countries cannot
help
but reason that anyone who bows and scrapes and pays up like that, has got to have a
tremendously
guilty conscience!
And when we say today: "What we are charged with isn't true at all - the greatest part of it, at
least,
is a total lie!", then the response we get is: "If that's the
case - as we suspected it to be from the start, by the
way - then you Germans of today are such a bad lot that we can't respect you at all anymore,
because
you're too cowardly to tell the truth and restore
your honor - merely to safeguard your export trade!"
Mankind did itself a poor service indeed when it tried to crush a people, a state and most of all a
Revolution which, with the proper support, could have done everyone a world of good. Today
even
more than in the 1920s, the nations of the highly civilized Western world suffer from standing in
the
service of unbridled materialism and hence of Capitalism, and they suffer from having lost the
ability
to think naturally, and from having thus lost themselves in ever more devastating excesses and
lack
of moderation. For decades these nations have been deceiving themselves while in fact offering
themselves up for their total destruction. The governments have long been acting in accordance
with
the teachings of Emile Coue, in the true style
of self-persuasion, effusively lauding our happy and fortunate lifestyle over and over again in
spite
of what reality tells them and in the face of the most glaring evidence to the contrary, and
praising
that
progress which in the end will be our undoing.
During the worst of the bombing of Berlin I was able to leave all the furnishings which I had
been
able to salvage from my gutted house, standing in the street, completely unguarded, for eight
days
and
nights without a single item being stolen. These furnishings included many valuable antique
pieces
of furniture, carpets and paintings. And this was by no means an exceptional case, but rather the
rule
in that nation and time now sneered at as "Hitler's Germany"!
Even in wartime, Reich Minister Dr. Goebbels and I were able to go for walks in Central Berlin,
on
Wilhelm Street and Unter den Linden, without ever meeting even one person who gave us
anything
but a friendly greeting.
In February 1945, in the staff headquarters of the "Feldherrnhalle", I saw four young soldiers
crying
with helpless rage because they had been caught trying without permission to sneak to the Front,
to
finally get their chance to fight for Germany. -
For me, one of the most devastating and at the same time one of the greatest experiences was
Christmas Eve 1945, when we, some 6,000
captured National-Socialists, surrounded by watchtowers manned by guards
with machine-guns, suddenly and without prior arrangement began to sing the song "I Pray to the
Power of Love". All the American officers and many thousands of Germans gathered to see and
hear
us and to
join in - and the American camp commander, a front-line officer, had tears in his eyes.
At the Nuremberg Palace of Justice, an Army General threw himself from the third floor down
to the stone-paved corridor of the ground floor. There, in the central square of the great prison,
he
lay
dead on the ground before our very eyes. It was not long before some of the men in their cells
began
to sing, and more and ever more joined in, until all
of us - the imprisoned National-Socialists and the non-National-Socialists and even
some foreigners - sang along, and the enormous vaults resounded with that song that had used to
pass
our lips so easily, and now came from the heart and soul one last time: "To you, Adolf Hitler,
we pledged ---!" Among the singers were soldiers, officers, Generals, professors, clergymen,
lawyers,
judges, physicians etc., of whom dozens already knew that they would be
hanged - because none of them were what the Ignorant Ones of then and now claim they
were.
US infantry, armed to the teeth, arrived in droves, Allied tanks surrounded the prison, while
night
descended on that "prison of honor".
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Was Hitler Really a Dictator?
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