Herwig Malte - Post-War Lies : Germany and Hitlers long shadow

Scribe Publications
POST-WAR LIES

Malte Herwig is a reporter, broadcaster, and historian. He is known for his in-depth interviews and investigative features, and his articles have appeared widely in US, British, and German publications, including The New York Times , The Guardian , The Observer , and Vanity Fair . Herwig was the only journalist to interview former SS captain and convicted war criminal Erich Priebke.

For my father,
19271972

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Originally published in Germany as Die Flakhelfer by Anstalt in 2013
First published in English by Scribe in 2014

Copyright Malte Herwig 2013
Translation copyright Jamie Lee Searle & Shaun Whiteside 2014

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publishers of this book.

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication data

Herwig, Malte.

Post-War Lies: Germany and Hitlers long shadow

9781925106145 (AUS edition)
9781922247650 (UK edition)
9781925113280 (e-book)

1. NazisHistory. 2. National socialismGermany. 3. GermanyHistory. 4. GermanyPolitics and government.

Other Authors/Contributors: Searle, Jamie Lee, translator; Whiteside, Shaun, translator.

324.2430238

scribepublications.com.au
scribepublications.co.uk

Contents

Introduction:

History is the lie commonly agreed upon.

Voltaire

List of Abbreviations

BDC:Berlin Document Center

BDM:Bund Deutscher Mdel (League of German Girls)

BfV:Bundesamt fr Verfassungsschutz (Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution)

CDU:Christlich Demokratische Union (Christian Democratic Union)

CIC:Counter Intelligence Corps

FDP:Freie Demokratische Partei (Free Democratic Party)

FP:Freiheitliche Partei sterreichs (Freedom Party of Austria)

FRG:Federal Republic of Germany, West Germany

GDR:German Democratic Republic, East Germany

GRH:Gesellschaft zur Rechtlichen und Humanitren Untersttzung (Society for Legal and Humanitarian Support)

HVA:Hauptverwaltung Aufklrung (Main Reconnaissance Administration)

MCC:Ministerial Collection Center

MfS:Ministerium fr Staatssicherheit (Ministry for State Security)

NKVD: Narodnyi Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del (Peoples Commissariat for Internal Affairs)

NSDAP: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers Party)

NSDStB: Nationalsozialistischer Deutsche Studentenbund (National Socialist German Students League)

NSFK:Nationalsozialistisches Fliegerkorps (National Socialist Flyers Corps)

NSKK:Nationalsozialistische Kraftfahrkorps (National Socialist Motor Corps)

NVA:Nationale Volksarmee (National Peoples Army)

PDS:Partei des Demokratischen Sozialismus (Party of Democratic Socialism)

RIAS:Rundfunk im Amerikanischen Sektor (Radio in the American Sector)

RSHA:Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Main Security Office)

SA:Sturmabteilung (Assault Division, Nazi Brownshirts)

SD:Sicherheitsdienst (Nazi Security Service)

SED:Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (Socialist Unity Party of Germany)

SPD:Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (Social Democratic Party of Germany)

SS:Schutzstaffel (Nazi Protection Squadron)

ZAIG:Zentrale Auswertungs- und Informationsgruppe (Central Evaluation and Information Group)

Prologue

This isnt a family memoir, but it could be the collective family memoir of every single person who grew up in the old Federal Republic of Germany. There is still time left in which to ask questions. The last members of the Flakhelfer generation, the schoolboys conscripted as Luftwaffe (air force) assistants towards the end of World War II, are still alive. They are our fathers and grandfathers, and it is they who shaped the Federal Republic as artists, academics, politicians, journalists, and lawyers.

So lets begin with a family memoir, after all. The Flakhelfer and I are not too far removed. My father, Gnter Herwig, born in 1927, was one of them. Hes 86 now, the same age as grandees of the old Federal Republic such as Gnter Grass, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, and Martin Walser. My grandfather, Walter Herwig, was born in Kassel in 1880, almost a hundred years before me. As they both came late to fatherhood, the Herwigs skipped a generation, and I was born within earshot of the 19th century.

My father came into the world in the Weimar Republic, but his childhood home was rooted in the German Empire. And not just politically, for their grand five-bedroom apartment was located directly on Kaiserplatz in the Hohenzollern quarter of Kassel, the former imperial residence. My grandfather, however, could no longer refer to his shipping company as an Imperial Carrier because, much to his regret, the German Kaiser who had been fond of holding court in nearby Wilhelmshhe Castle and the Kassel Staatstheater was by then long gone. But the family business flourished nonetheless, not least thanks to its overseas links, which in 1929 earned Walter Herwig the title of honorary consul of Peru. Before swastika flags came into fashion, the consul used to adorn his Maybach limousine on the Peruvian national holiday with the standards of both Peru and the Weimar Republic.

It was a peaceful time. As a child, my father would listen from the third-floor window to the sound of the former military band playing merry, light-hearted compositions in the concert pavilion in front of their building. They played on until 1934. Then the new ruling powers changed the tune. The National Socialists tore down the pavilion in order to make room for grandstands; from then on, parades were held there on Reich War Veterans Day. It was only fitting that, in 1938, the future warlords would rename Kaiserplatz after a battle; it became Skagerrakplatz, after the Battle of Jutland.

And so my father had one foot in the Kaiser era, yet had to march into the Third Reich with the other. A photograph from the 1930s shows little Gnter Herwig on the street, smiling dutifully into the camera and raising his right arm in a Hitler salute. Beneath it in the photo album is a note written by my grandmother: His first Heil Hitler. Did he know what the gesture meant?

On 1 December 1937, ten-year-old Gnter became a member of the German Youth, the subdivision of the Hitler Youth for ten- to 14-year-olds. There, little boys were to be moulded into the future heroes of Hitlers regime. But my father wasnt hero material. He was too lazy and self-sufficient to take any interest in the Third Reich and its preoccupation with marching and indoctrination. In 1938, the school sent a blue warning letter to my grandmother, informing her that her son was idle and complacent, and that his sense of participatory spirit was profoundly lacking: He spends most of the time sitting there on the bench, pink-cheeked and sated, and appears to be utterly content with the world around him. Admonitions have no impact whatsoever. Signed: Heil Hitler! The class teacher.

Not that the young Gnter felt any kind of inner conflict with the ruling ideology. He simply didnt bother himself with it. He didnt take any interest in marching, either, and was hauled up before a Hitler Youth court in 1943 for having gone AWOL after the roll call at the beginning of a march. He liked theatre, but not the theatre of the Brownshirts. According to the penalty ruling of the Kurhessen Hitler Youth, he had broken ranks with the march formation because he had sprained his ankle during an amateur dramatics performance. His unauthorised decampment was punished leniently: a warning for the duration of the war.