1For an example of Beger’s measurements, see the data compiled for Kaiser Bahadur, the expedition’s interpreter. “II, 2 Kaiser, Bahadur, Nepali, Gangtok (Dolmetscher),” NARA, RG242, T81/131/165016.
2Hans F.K. Günther, The Racial Elements of European History, trans. G.C. Wheeler (Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1970), Map VIII, p. 105.
3Ibid., p. 10.
4Franz Boas, “Changes in Bodily Form of Descendants of Immigrants,” 1910, as quoted in Clarence C. Gravlee, H. Russell Bernard, and William R. Leonard, “Heredity, Environment and Cranial Form: A Reanalysis of Boas’s Immigrant Data,” American Anthropologist 105, no. 1 (March 2003): 127. It is interesting to note that two American anthropologists have recently questioned the statistical significance of Boas’s findings—the first major challenge to the study in ninety-two years. See Corey S. Sparks and Richard L. Jantz, “A Reassessment of Human Cranial Plasticity: Boas Revisited,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 99, no. 23 (November 12, 2002): 14636–14639. Gravlee and his colleagues conclude, however, that “Boas got it right.”
5Clarence C. Gravlee, H. Russell Bernard, and William R. Leonard, “Heredity, Environment and Cranial Form,” pp. 125–138. As this paper points out, “Franz Boas’s classic study, ‘Changes in Bodily Form of Descendants of Immigrants,’ is a landmark in the history of anthropology. More than any single study, it undermined racial typology in physical anthropology and helped turn the tide against early-20th-century scientist racism.”
6Bruno Beger, “10.Bild.,” NARA, RG242, T81/132/165403–165418. Although this document lacks both a title and a named author, these notes are clearly intended as a guide for a slide show presented by Beger. In this document, Beger briefly recalled the events of that day and the thoughts that went through his mind. “Suddenly a Tibetan with remarkably fine clothing arrives. My next thought is that I should measure him.”
7Bruno Beger, “10.Bild.,” NARA, RG242, T81/132/165403–165418.
8Ernst Schäfer, Geheimnis Tibet: Ers ter Bericht der Deutschen Tibet-Expedition Ernst Schäfer 1938/39 (Munich: Bruckmann, 1943), p. 86.
9Ernst Schäfer, Geheimnis Tibet, pp. 86–90.
10The Tibetan Council of Ministers to Schäfer, Third Day of the Tenth Month of the Fire-Tiger Year, as quoted in Christopher Hale, Himmler’s Crusade (Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2003), p. 200.
11SS-Reichskanzlei to Schäfer, 05.12.1938, NARA, RG242, A3343, SSO Schäfer, Ernst (14.03.1910).
12Bruno Beger, “14. Bild.,” NARA, RG242, T81/132/165407.
13Bruno Beger, “25. Bild.,” NARA, RG242, T81/132/165409.
14It is evident from the list of equipment that Beger took to Tibet that he used three substances—Negocoll, Hominit, and Celerit—to make casts and replica human heads. These three ingredients were all part of the Poller method of castmaking, favored by many physicians. “Aufstellung über die anthropologische Ausrüstung für SS-Untersturmführer Beger, NARA, RG242, T580/143/167; Alphons Poller, ed., Das Pollersche Verfahren zum Abformen (Berlin, Wien: Urban & Schwarzenberg, 1931).
15Alphons Poller, “Vorwort,” Das Pollersche Verfahren zum Abformen, p. vi.
16“Aus dem ‘Gesammt-Verlags-Katalog’ des deutschen Buchhandels: Gebr. Schlagintweit, ‘Sammlung ethnographischer Köpfe,’” BA, R135/58/151779. What is particularly interesting is that this price list came from a file containing many of Beger’s personal papers on racial studies, including the racial measurements of his own wife, Hildegard.
17After the Anschluss, such exhibitions began opening all over Austria. See Klaus Taschwer, “Anthropologie ins Volk-Zur Austellungspolitik einer anwend-baren Wissenschaft bis 1945,” in Politik der Präsentation, ed. Herbert Posch and Gottfried Fliedl (Vienna: Turia and Kent, 1996) pp. 30–31; Gert Kerschbaumer, “Das ‘Deutsche Haus der Natur’ zu Salzburg,” in Politik der Präsentation, p. 198.
18Beger, “Rassenkundliche Abformungen auf der Tibetexpedition Ernst Schäfer,” 09.11.1942, NARA, RG242, T81/129/151690.
19Ibid.
20Ernst Schäfer, Geheimnis Tibet, p. 178.
21Bruno Beger, “36.Bild,” NARA, RG242, T81/132/165410–165411.
22“Unterhaltung mit Labrang Kugnoe, dem geistlichen Oberhaupt von Gyantse,” NARA, RG242, T81/128/151360.
23Schäfer, “Sachbericht,” 23.01.1939, BA (ehem.BDC) Ahnenerbe: Schäfer, Ernst (14.03.1910). Intriguingly, this report reads as if it were intended for publication in Das Schwarze Korps, an important SS publication. Although it is unsigned, it was almost certainly written by Schäfer and is very similar in style to the “Unbekantes Tibet” articles that the zoologist wrote for Das Schwarze Korps in 1936.
24Ibid.
25Ibid.
26Bruno Beger, Mit der deutschen Tibetexpedition Ernst Schäfer 1938/39 nach Lhasa (Wiesbaden: Schwarz, 1998), p. 160.
27Ibid., p. 161.
28“SS-Männer-Pioniere-Wissenschaftler: Das Schwarze Korps sprach mit Dr. Ernst Schäfer,” Mitte Januar, NARA, RG242, T81/132/165472–165477.
29Ibid.
30Ibid.
31“Desiderata der Tibetforschung,” n.d., NARA RG242, T81 /128/151362–151363.
32Handwritten English translation of a field-journal account, “Visit to Gyaldzong Place,” NARA, RG242, T81/131/164706–07. This account is not signed, but it was found among a group of four other similar translated field-journal entries that all contained observations on anthropological matters. There seems to be no question that the original author was Bruno Beger. The original German version of this can be found in Beger’s “Ethnologische Aufzeichnungen” folder at NARA, RG242, T81/128/151356–151357.
33Ernst Schäfer, Geheimnis Tibet, p. 178.
34Ibid., p. 180.
35Ibid., p. 182.
36Schäfer to Brandt, 25.06.1940, NARA, RG242, T84/257/6617401–6617415.
37“Empfang durch Himmler in München,” Berliner Börsenzeitung, 05.08.1939, NARA, RG242, T580/143/167.
38Bruno Beger, “Rassen in Tibet,” 19.02.1943, NARA, RG242, T81/128/151657–151669.
39Ibid.
40Schäfer to Brandt, 25.06.1940, NARA, RG242, T84/257/6617401–6617415.
41“The Activities of Dr. Ernst Schaefer, Tibet Explorer and Scientist with SS-sponsored Scientific Institutes,” Headquarters United States Forces European Theater, Military Intelligence Service Center, 12.02.1946. NARA, RG238, M1270/27.
1David Clay Large, Berlin (New York: Basic Books, 2000), p. 316.
2Ibid., p. 317.
3Sievers to Ullmann, 11.08.1939, BA (ehem. BDC) 0.996.
4Edmund Kiss, Das Sonnentor von Tihuanaku und Hörbigers Welteislehre (Leipzig: Koehler & Amelang, 1937), p. 146; Donald Johanson and Blake Edgar, From Lucy to Language (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), p. 38.
5Kiss, “Personalangaben,” 04.04.1944, NARA, RG242, A3343, SSO: Kiss, Edmund (10.12.1886); Abschrift (Ärztlicher Untersuchungsbogen), n.d., Kiss, Edmund. BA (ehem.BDC) Ahnenerbe: Kiss, Edmund (10.12.1886).
6Photograph of Edmund Kiss, “Dienstlaufbahn,” n.d., NARA, RG242, A3343, SSO Kiss, Edmund (10.12.1886).
7Riepe, “Leumundszeugnis,” 05.07.1948, HHA, Abt.520 KS-HL Nr.88, Spruchkammer Kassel; Rudolf Bury, “Eidesstattliche Erklärung,” 06.07.1948, HHA, Abt.520 KS-HL Nr.88, Spruchkammer Kassel.
8Kiss, “SS-Stammrollenauszug,” 31.01.1939, NARA, RG242, A3343, SSO: Kiss, Edmund (10.12.1886).
9Robert Bowen, preface to Universal Ice, (London: Bellhaven Press, 1993), p. viii.
10Indeed, Kiss and four other prominent believers in the World Ice Theory signed an official declaration, known as the Pyrmonter Protokoll, in 1936, stating that “Hans Hörbiger’s World Ice Theory in its fundamental form is the intellectual gift of a genius that is important to all humanity in both practical and worldview terms. To Germans, it is a true Aryan gift of special importance.” “Abschrift Pyrmonter Protokoll,” 19.07.1936, NARA, RG242, T580/194/465. For further details on the popularity of the World Ice Theory in Nazi Germany, see Robert Bowen, Universal Ice, pp. 146–150.
11Robert Bowen, Universal Ice, pp. 59–60.
12Ibid., p. 76.
13Adolf Hitler, Hitler’s Table Talk 1941–1944, ed. H.R.Trevor-Roper (London: Phoenix Press, 2000), no.125, p. 249.
14Indeed, Posnansky concluded that some twenty-seven degrees separated the current position of the sun from that when the temple was built. Adela Breton, “Proceedings of Americanists’ Congress,” Man 84 (1910). Subsequent archaeological excavation and radiocarbon dating—an absolute method of dating that came into use after the Second World War—has shown that Tiwanaku is no more than seventeen hundred years old. Alexei Vranich, “Tiwanaku Q&A,” Archaeology’s Interactive Dig, http://www.archaeology.org.
15Edmund Kiss, Das Sonnentor von Tihuanaku, pp. 130–132.
16Edmund Kiss, “Die Kordillerenkolonien der Atlantiden,” Schlüssel zum Weltgeschehen 8/9 (1931): 259.
17Ibid., 261.
18Edmund Kiss, “Nordische Baukunst in Bolivien?” Germanien 5 (May 1933): 144.
19Edmund Kiss, Das Sonnentor von Tihuanaku, pp. 144–145.
20Edmund Kiss, Das Sonnentor von Tihuanaku, pp. 106–107.
21Rudolf von Elmayer-Vestenbrugg, “Versunkene Reiche,” Die H.J., 24.04.1937, BA, NS 21/714.
22Sievers to Koehler & Amelang, 09.12.1937, BA, NS 21/ 166.
23Wüst to Himmler, 07.03.1938, BA, NS 21/ 166.
24Himmler had taken a flight over Libya and, while soaring over mountains there, noticed what he believed to be the telltale white layers of fossil shorelines. He insisted that Kiss put aside his South American plans, take a leave of absence from his government post, and prepare immediately to depart for Libya. Kiss strongly suspected that the trip to Libya, an Italian possession at the time, would be futile. The North African coast was strewn with fossil records of rising and falling sea levels, but Kiss knew that these geological formations had nothing to do with the purported cataclysms of the World Ice Theory. Still, he agreed to take a look: he did not want to antagonize his powerful patron. He also agreed to include Sardinia on his itinerary, when someone in the Ahnenerbe pointed out an apparent similarity between stone towers there and the architecture at Tiwanaku.
Kiss set off by train for Rome on February 15 or 16, 1939. He had a cameraman and an assistant in tow. A short stint in a library there convinced him that a trip to Sardinia would be unnecessary. A few days later, he arrived in the Libyan capital of Tripoli. The Libyan governor, an ardent aviator and a friend of Charles Lindbergh, placed a plane, a pilot, and a truck at his disposal, and over the next two weeks, Kiss and his associates explored the Libyan countryside. The weather was not terribly conducive to aerial scouting—thick gray clouds heavy with rain hung over the coastal mountains, refusing to budge most days—but Kiss kept busy. He drew neat draftsmanlike maps of the mountains, carefully noting the coastal terraces and the notches of deep canyons and occasionally jotting down the word Zeugen, where he thought he found “pieces of evidence.” He walked plains and canyons dotted with occasional palm trees, sketching profiles of the low mountains, and mulled over the origins of the Nalut Canyon not far from the Algerian border. The more he looked at it and at a number of similar gorges in the Libyan mountains, the more intrigued he became. “Strong water currents on the scale imagined by the World Ice Theory most likely formed them through erosion,” he later wrote. “There is no other explanation.”
For further information on this research trip, see Kiss, “Programm der Forschungsreise des SS-Hauptsturmführers Kiss,” 30.01.1939, BA, NS 21/415; Sievers, “Abrechnung für die Tripolis-Reise von: SS-Hauptsturmführer Kiss, SS-Obersturmführer Bousset, SS-Anwärter Mohri” 16.02.1939, BA (ehem.BDC) Ahnenerbe, Kiss: Edmund (10.12.1886); Kiss to Sievers, 20.02.1939, BA NS, 21/415; “Niederschrift betreffend Vortrag des SS-Hauptsturmführers Kiss beim Reichsführer SS,” 08.05.1939, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Kiss, Edmund (10.12.1886); Kiss, “Ergebnisbericht der Forschungsreise des SS-Hauptsturmführers Kiss nach Tripolis,” 15.05.1939, BA, NS 21/415; “Protokoll der öffentlichen Sitzung am 05.August 1948,” HHA.Abt. 520 KS-HL Nr. 88. Spruchkammer Kassel.
25Sievers to Himmler, 18.08.1939, BA, NS 21/123.
26Kiss, “Vorläufiges Programm,” 15.04.1939, BA, NS 21/171.
27Sievers to Himmler, 18.08.1939, BA, NS 21/123.
28Wüst to Menzel, 20.09.1938, BAK, R73/ 15896.
29Ibid. See also George G. Cameron, “Darius Carved History on Ageless Rock,” National Geographic (December 1950): 825–844.
30Walther Wüst, “Ein indogermanisches Dokument,” SS-Leitheft (July 1943), p. 5. NARA, RG242, A3345B, 124/ 646.
31Ibid.
32The portrait of Darius in the relief would have been of immense interest to racial researchers such as Günther, who relied on such images to illustrate popular picture books on race. Indeed, Günther had already included a rather crude sketch of Darius I, based on a sculpted relief, in his book The Racial Elements of European History, trans. G.C. Wheeler (Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1970), pp. 145–147.
33R. Campbell Thompson, “The Rock of Behistun,” in Wonders of the Past, ed. Sir J.A. Hammerton. Vol. II (New York: Wise and Co., 1937), p. 765. See also George G. Cameron, “Darius Carved History on Ageless Rock,” p. 840.
34Wüst to Menzel, 20.09.1938, BAK, R73/ 15896.
35Sievers, “Aktenvermerk,” 27.10.1938, BA (ehem.BDC) Ahnenerbe: Wüst, Walther (07.05.1901).
36P.L.O. Guy, “Balloon Photography and Archaeological Excavation,” Antiquity 6 (June 1932):148–155. Others who followed this lead included the Polish excavators of Biskupin. See Jozef Kostrzewski, “Osada bagienna w Biskupinie, w pow. zininskim,” Przeglad Archeologiczny 5 (1938): 121–140.
37R. Höhne, “Die Ausgrabungen der Schutzstaffeln,” Germanien (1938): 224–230.
38Wüst to Menzel, 20.09.1938, BAK, R73/ 15896. Wüst does not mention the name of the Iranian student he had in mind, but it seems clear from other surviving pieces of correspondence that he planned to take Davoud Monchi-Zadeh. Monchi-Zadeh was working closely with him during this period. See Wüst: Aktenvermerk: Betr: Herrscher-Abkunft-Sagen, 05.11.1938, BA (ehem.BDC) Ahnenerbe: Wüst, Walther (07.05.1901).
39Wüst to Menzel, 20.09.1938, BAK, R73/ 15896.
40Wüst to Menzel, 20.09.1938, BAK, R73/ 15896.
41Huth, “Fragebogen für Mitglieder: Reichsverband Deutscher Schriftsteller,” 05.12.1933, BA (ehem BDC) RKK: Huth, Otto Herbert (09.05.1906); Huth, “R.u.S.-Fragebogen.” 30.01.1939. BA (ehem.BDC) RS: Huth, Otto Herbert (09.05.1906).
42Huth, “R.u.S.-Fragebogen,” 30.01.1939, BA (ehem.BDC) RS: Huth, Otto Herbert (09.05.1906).
43Herman Wirth, Der Aufgang der Menschheit (Jena: Diederichs, 1934), pp. 105–109.
44Conrado Rodriguez-Martin, “The Guanche Mummies,” in Mummies, Disease and Ancient Cultures, ed. Aiden Cockburn, Eve Cockburn, and Theodore A. Reyman, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 283.
45Otto Huth, “Die Gesittung der Kanarier als Schlüssel zum Ur-Indogermanentum,” Germanien 2 (February 1937): 50.
46Earnest Hooton, The Ancient Inhabitants of the Canary Islands (Cambridge, MA: Peabody Museum of Harvard University, 1925), p. 44. In addition, as one modern mummy expert, Dr. Guido Lombardi, has pointed out to me, a form of malnutrition, known as kwashiorkor and caused by inadequate protein intake, can also lighten or redden the hair color of the living.
47Otto Huth, “Die Gesittung der Kanarier als Schlüssel zum Ur-Indogermanentum,” p. 54.
48This is one of the expeditions shown on the Ahnenerbe map in the Klingspor volume.
49Huth to Wüst, 14.02.1939, BA (ehem.BDC) Ahnenerbe: Huth, Otto. (09.05.1906).
50Ibid.
51Ibid.
52Thomas Nußbaumer, Alfred Quellmalz und seine Südtiroler Feldforschungen (Innsbruck: Libreria Musicale Italiana, 2001), p. 163.
53It is akin to saying that the Pilgrim fathers of New England—who also spoke a Germanic language—were German forefathers and that the early remote New England colonies preserved a pure form of Germanic tradition.
54Paul Burkert to Notgemeinschaft (Arbeitsplan), 17.04.1935, BAK, R73/16788. In 1936, Burkert guided an SS study commission of scholars and very high-ranking SS officers—including Prinz Waldeck Pyrmont and Hermann Behrends, the first head of the SS Security Service—on a trip to Iceland and its ancient historic sites. The commission made a pilgrimage to Iceland’s national shrine, Thingvellir, and to the home of Snorri Sturluson, the author of the Prose Edda. Without a doubt, the trip was intended to inspire the top echelon of the SS with a sense of their Nordic heritage and to prepare them for the terrible work that Himmler envisioned ahead of them. For more details, see Grundherr, “Abschrift zu Pol II 424,” 19.06.1936, PAAA, Ges. Kopenhagen C 3 (1934/37) Band 1. For an account of the trip written by one of the scholars, see Otto Rahn, Luzifers Hofgesind (Leipzig: Schwarzhäupter, 1937). For a brief scholarly account of the trip, see Thór Whitehead, Íslandsaevintyri Himmlers 1935–1937, (Reykjavík: Vaka-Helgafell, 1998).
55Sievers to Himmler. 13.01.1938, BA, NS 21/599. Also, Schweizer, “Zu Zollerlassgesuch Schweizer vom 15.11.1938,” n.d., BA (ehem BDC) Ahnenerbe: Schweizer, Bruno: (03.05.1897).
56Schweizer, “Zu Zollerlassgesuch Schweizer vom 15.11.1938,” n.d., BA (ehem BDC) Ahnenerbe: Schweizer, Bruno: (03.05.1897).
57Schweizer, “Beiträge zum SS-Kalender,” n.d., NARA, RG242, T580/199/570.
58Sievers to Gerlach, 18.04.1939, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Schweizer, Bruno (03.05.1897).
59Sievers to Wüst, 21.04.1939, BA, NS 21/40.
60Indeed, so convinced was Himmler that Iceland was a repository of ancient Germanic lore that he sent a “study commission” of high-ranking SS officers to Iceland in 1936 to commune with the ancient past. See note 54.
61Hermann Kaienburg, Die Wirtschaft der SS (Berlin: Metropol, 2003), p. 262.
62As it turned out, the Scandinavian reporters had learned of plans for a smaller SS research trip to Iceland led by Dr. Kurt Tackenberg and Dr. Walter Gehl. Tackenberg and Gehl intended on excavating ancient Icelandic temples.
63“Übersetzung aus der dänischen Zeitung: ‘Extrabladet,’” 11.03.1939, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Schweizer, Bruno (03.05.1897).
64Himmler to Sievers, 22.03.1939, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Schweizer, Bruno. (03.05.1897).
65SD-Hauptamt to Ahnenerbe, 20.05.1939, BA, NS 21/40.
66Sievers, “Besprechung Sievers-Schweizer-Gerlach,” 21.04.1939, BA, NS 21/40.
67Sievers, “Betr. Islandreise,” 26.05.1939, BA, NS 21/ 123.
68Sievers to president of Reichsgesundheitsamt, 25.01.1939. BA, NS 21/40.
69Hans F.K. Günther, The Racial Elements of European History, p. 74. Even the vile anti-Semitic film Der Ewige Jude, produced in 1940 at Josef Goebbels’s request, publicly acknowledged the difficulty that many Nazis had in identifying Jews who did not wear forelocks or skullcaps. “Hair, beard, skullcap and caftan,” noted the film’s narrator, “make the Eastern Jew recognizable to all. If he appears without his trademarks, only the sharp-eyed can recognize his racial origins.”
70For further details on the quest for racial diagnosis in Germany, see Ernst Klee, Deutsche Medizin im Dritten Reich (Frankfurt: S. Fischer, 2001), pp. 158–165.
71Isabel Heinemann, “Rasse, Siedlung, deutsches Blut” (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2003), p. 552. See also Himmler to Bormann, 22.05.1943, in Reichsführer! …, ed. Helmut Heiber (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1968), p. 213.
72Greite, “Lebenslauf,” 28.11.37, NARA, RG242, SSO: Greite, Walther: (13.06.1907).
73Enzyklopädie des Holocaust, 2nd ed., ed. Israel Gutman (Munich: Piper, 1998), s.v. “Reichszentrale für Jüdische Auswanderung.”
74Evelyne Polt-Heinz, review of Die Rothschilds. Porträt einer Dynastie, by Frederic Mortons, Wiener Zeitung, 03.12.2004.
75Greite, “Abschrift,” 11.07.1939, NARA, RG242, A3345 DS G119. Greite, Walter (13.06.1907).
76“Gedächtnisprotokoll. Unterredung Frau Hella Sievers und Michael H. Kater,” 26.04.1963, IfZ, ZS/A-25 vol. 2.
77Sievers, “Aktenvermerk für den Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler,” 25.05.1939, BA (ehem.BDC) 0.996.
1Felix Kersten, The Memoirs of Doctor Felix Kersten, ed. Herma Briffault (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1947), p. 44.
2Ian Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945: Nemesis (London: Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 2000), p. 223
3Ian Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, p. 226.
4Ian Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, pp. 240–241.
5Richard Rhodes, Masters of Death (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002) pp. 3–4.
6Richard C. Lukas, The Forgotten Holocaust (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1986), p. 3. As quoted in Richard Rhodes, Masters of Death, p. 6.
7Ian Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, p. 241.
8Isabel Heinemann, “Rasse, Siedlung, deutsches Blut” (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2003), p. 188.
9Peter Padfield, Himmler: Reichsführer-SS (London: Macmillan, 2001), p. 291.
10Sievers to Himmler, 04.09.1939, BA (ehem BDC) Ahnenerbe: Paulsen, Peter (08.10.1902).
11Ibid.
12Ibid.
13Rotraut Wolf, “Peter Paulsen Nachruf,” Fundberichte aus Baden Württemberg 10, (1985): 727–728.
14Scheel, “Gutachten,” 27.03.1938, BA (ehem. BDC) PK: Paulsen, Peter (08.10.1902).
15Paulsen, “R.u.S.–Fragebogen, Lebenslauf,” 28.11.1936, BA (ehem BDC) RS: Paulsen, Peter (08.10.1902).
16Paulsen. “Lebenslauf,” 28.11.1936, BA (ehem. BDC) PK: Paulsen, Peter (08.10.1902).
17Jörn Jacobs, “Peter Paulsen: Ein Wanderer zwischen zwei Welten,” in Prähistorie und Nationalsozialismus, ed. Achim Leube and Morten Hegewisch (Heidelberg: Synchron, 2002), pp. 451–459.
18Paulsen, “R.u.S.-Fragebogen, Lebenslauf,” 28.11.1936, BA (ehem BDC) RS: Paulsen, Peter (08.10.1902).
19Sievers to Himmler, 04.09.1939, BA (ehem BDC) Ahnenerbe: Paulsen, Peter (08.10.1902).
20Paulsen to Sievers, “Schutz-Maßnahmen für kulturgeschichtliche Denkmäler in Polen,” 15.09.1939, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Paulsen, Peter (08.10.1902). This letter is also quoted in “Document 2, Poland,” in Hellmut Lehmann-Haupt, Cultural Looting of the Ahnenerbe: Report prepared by Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Section, OMGUS, March 1, 1948, NARA, RG 260, M1926/R151. Paulsen’s memo actually refers to the “protection of monuments in Poland.” But as Lehmann-Haupt points out, the Ahnenerbe correspondence during the war is replete with ambiguity and the distortion of facts. Indeed, Lehmann-Haupt himself counted twenty-one different euphemisms for “looting” in the documents, from sicherstellen (“to secure”), to aufnehmen (“to register”). “Protection” should be added to this list.
21Petersen to Sievers, 18.09.1939, as reproduced in Andrzej Mezynski, Kommando Paulsen (Cologne: Dittrich-Verlag, 2000) pp. 26–33.
22Ullmann to Sievers, 21.09.1939, as reproduced in Andrzej Mezynski, Kommando Paulsen, p. 24.
23Franz Six, “Führerstammkarte,” BA (ehem. BDC) SSO: Six, Franz Alfred (12.08.1909).
24Paulsen, “Dienstreisebericht von Peter Paulsen,” 04.01.1940, as reproduced in Andrzej Mezynski, Kommando Paulsen, pp. 55–67.
25Arthur Burkhard, The Cracow Altar of Veit Stoss (Munich: Bruckmann, 1972), p. 26, footnote 21.
26Ibid., p. 23.
27Paulsen to Kaiser, 05.10.1939, as quoted in “Document 183, Poland,” in Hellmut Lehmann-Haupt, Cultural Looting of the Ahnenerbe: Report prepared by Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Section, OMGUS, March 1, 1948, NARA, RG260, M1926/R151.
28Ibid.
29Paulsen, “Aktenvermerk,” 18.04.1941, as reproduced in Andrzej Mezynski, Kommando Paulsen, pp. 39–42.
30Sievers, Aktenvermerk, 14.10.1939, BA (ehem. BDC) SS HO–1324.
31The title of prince-bishop is a very old one, dating back to the Roman era. During that time, prince-bishops wielded great secular power in a city, in addition to their clerical authority.
32Paulsen, “Dienstreisebericht von Peter Paulsen,” 04.01.1940, as reproduced in Andrzej Mezynski, Kommando Paulsen, pp. 55–67. The Black Madonna was painted sometime after the sixth century A.D. and was presented to the monks of Jasna Gora, near Czestochowa, in the fourteenth century. Miracles have reportedly befallen pilgrims traveling to see it, and in 1717 it was crowned “Queen of Poland” by the faithful.
33Liebel to Lammers, 16.11.1939, as noted in Jonathan Petropoulos, Art as Politics in the Third Reich (Chapel Hill & London: University of North Carolina Press, 1996), p. 108.
34Ibid., p. 109.
35Adolf Hitler, Hitler’s Table Talk 1941–1944, ed. H.R.Trevor-Roper (London: Phoenix Press, 2000), no.77, pp. 146–149.
36In 1942, members of the Polish resistance in Switzerland discovered that the altar had been hidden either in or near Nuremberg. They relayed the information to American authorities, who began searching for the altar after they entered Nuremberg in 1945. The American army retrieved it and sent it back to Kraków in 1946. After eleven years of restoration, it was reinstalled in St. Mary’s Church. For further details, see Ferdinand and Delia Kuhn, “Poland Opens Her Doors,” National Geographic (September 1958): 357–398.
37Sievers, Aktenvermerk, 14.10.1939, BA (ehem. BDC) SS HO–1324.
38Sievers, Aktenvermerk, 14.10.1939, BA (ehem. BDC) SS HO–1324.
39Paulsen. “Dienstreisebericht von Peter Paulsen,” 04.01.1940, as reproduced in Andrzej Mezynski, Kommando Paulsen, pp. 55–67.
40Sievers, “Aktenvermerk,” 14.10.1939, BA (ehem. BDC) SS HO-1324.
41Gustav Scheel to Martin Bormann, 12.11.1942, as translated and quoted in Jonathan Petropoulos, Art as Politics in the Third Reich, p. 105.
42Paulsen, “Dienstreisebericht von Peter Paulsen,” 04.01.1940, as reproduced in Andrzej Mezynski, Kommando Paulsen, pp. 55–67.
43Schleif to Sievers, 06.01.1940, BA (ehem.BDC) Ahnenerbe: Schleif, Hans (23.02.1902).
44Paulsen, “Dienstreisebericht von Peter Paulsen,” 04.01.1940, as reproduced in Andrzej Mezynski, Kommando Paulsen, pp. 55–67.
45Schleif to Sievers, 06.01.1940, BA (ehem.BDC) Ahnenerbe: Schleif, Hans (23.02.1902).
46Petersen to Sievers, 01.11.1940, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Petersen, Ernst (28.04.1905).
47Peter Bogucki, “Konrad Jazdzewski (1908–1985) European Prehistorian,” The Polish Review 31, no. 1 (1986): 73–77. See also Konrad Jazdzewski, Poland (London: Thames and Hudson, 1965).
48Petersen to Sievers, 01.11.1940, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Petersen, Ernst (28.04.1905). Petersen even reported in this letter a complaint of Jazdzewski that there was “no civility in these ‘men of the SS.’”
49Petersen to Sievers, 01.11.1940, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Petersen, Ernst (28.04.1905).
50Jazdzewski, however, returned after Paulsen’s detachment had plundered the collection, and remained there throughout the war, trying to rebuild the museum. For further details, see Petersen to Sievers, 01.11.1940, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Petersen, Ernst (28.04.1905). As Jazdzewski himself noted in a book he published on Polish archaeology after the war, “The Nazi invasion of Poland was a catastrophe without precedent for all branches of the nation’s cultural life and archaeology was no exception. One quarter of Polish archaeologists perished on the battlefield or in concentration camps. Others, threatened with arrest and almost certain death, had to live in hiding (as did the doyen of Polish archaeologists, Professor Józef Kostrzewski in Poznán); the few remaining ones were forbidden to engage in scientific work.” See Konrad Jazdzewski, Poland, pp. 18–19.
51Paulsen, “Dienstreisebericht von Peter Paulsen,” 04.01.1940, as reproduced in Andrzej Mezynski, Kommando Paulsen, pp. 55–67.
52Eduard Tratz, “Abschrift: Verzeichnis der in Polen beschlagnahmten naturwissenschaftlichen Gegenstände,” n.d., BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Tratz, Eduard (25.09.1888). This list was originally included in a letter from Sievers to Six dated 18.12.1939. “Document 203, Poland,” in Hellmut Lehmann-Haupt, Cultural Looting of the Ahnenerbe: Report prepared by Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Section, OMGUS, March 1, 1948, NARA, RG 260, M1926/R151.
53Eduard Tratz, “Über die Aufgaben der naturwissenschaftlichen Museen im allgemeinen und über Arbeiten im ‘Haus der Natur’ in Salzburg im besonderen,” Der Biologe 8 (1939), as cited in Gottfried Fliedl, Das Haus der Natur in Salzburg als In stitut des SS-Ahnenerbes, http://homepage.univie.ac.at/gottfried.fliedl/mouseion/hausdernatur.html.
54Tratz, “Abschrift: Verzeichnis der in Polen beschlagnahmten naturwissenschaftlichen Gegenstände,” n.d., BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Tratz, Eduard (25.09.1888).
55Gert Kerschbaumer, “Der Deutsche Haus der Natur zu Salzburg,” in Politik der Präsentation, ed. Herbert Posch and Gottfried Fliedl (Vienna: Turia and Kant, 1996), pp. 180–212.
56Tratz, “Abschrift: Verzeichnis der in Polen beschlagnahmten naturwissenschaftlichen Gegenstände,” n.d., BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Tratz, Eduard (25.09.1888).
57Ibid.
58Werner Schroeder, “Die Bibliotheken des RSHA: Aufbau und Verbleib” (lecture, Weimar, November 9, 2003). Online transcript: http://www.initiativefortbildung.de/pdf/provenienz_schroeder.pdf.
59Andrej Angrick, Besatzungspolitik und Massenmord (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2003), pp. 326–331. Worren Green, “The Fate of the Crimean Jewish Communities,” Jewish Social Science 46, no. 2 (Spring 1984): 169–176.
60Paulsen, “Dienstreisebericht von Peter Paulsen,” 04.01.1940, as reproduced in Andrzej Mezynski, Kommando Paulsen, pp. 55–67.
61Sievers to Apfelstädt, 03.04.1942, “Document 214, Poland,” in Hellmut Lehmann-Haupt, Cultural Looting of the Ahnenerbe: Report prepared by Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Section, OMGUS, March 1, 1948, NARA, RG260, M1926/R151.
62Paulsen, “Dienstreisebericht von Peter Paulsen,” 04.01.1940, as reproduced in Andrzej Mezynski, Kommando Paulsen, pp. 55–67.
63Felix Kersten, The Kersten Memoirs, 1940–1945 (New York: Macmillan, 1957), p. 23.
64Indeed, Frank eventually adopted such a regal lifestyle in Warsaw that Hitler himself sardonically referred to the former lawyer as King Stanislaus V For further details, see Jonathan Petropoulos, Art as Politics in the Third Reich, p. 226.
65Sievers, “Aktenvermerk,” 24.07.1939, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Schleif, Hans (23.02.1902).
66Schleif to Sievers, 24.01.1940, in “Document 205, Poland,” in Hellmut Lehmann-Haupt, Cultural Looting of the Ahnenerbe: Report prepared by Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Section, OMGUS, March 1, 1948, NARA, RG260, M1926/R151.
67Paulsen, “Dienstreisebericht von Peter Paulsen,” 04.01.1940, as reproduced in Andrzej Mezynski, Kommando Paulsen, pp. 55–67.
68Sievers, “Aktenvermerk,” 20.05.1940, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Paulsen, Peter (08.10.1902).
69Sievers found Paulsen a teaching job in the Germanische Leitstelle and later in the Junker school in Bad Tölz. For more details, see Mezynski, Kommando Paulsen, p. 78.
70As quoted in Stanislaw Strzetelski, Where the Storm Broke (New York: Roy Slavonic Publications, 1942), p. 110.
71Schleif to Sievers, 24.01.1940, “Document 205, Poland,” in Hellmut Lehmann-Haupt, Cultural Looting of the Ahnenerbe: Report prepared by Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Section, OMGUS, March 1, 1948, NARA, RG260, M1926/R151.
72Michael H. Kater, Das “Ahnenerbe” der SS 1935–1945 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1974), pp. 150–153.
73Dettenberg to Kommans, 14.09.1940, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Schleif, Hans (23.02.1902).
74Ibid.
75Dettenberg, “Report on activities of Generaltreuhänder in the occupied Eastern Territories,” 28.03.1941, “Document 33, Poland,” in Hellmut Lehmann-Haupt, Cultural Looting of the Ahnenerbe: Report prepared by Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Section, OMGUS, March 1, 1948, NARA, RG260, M1926/R151.
76Ibid.
77Michael H. Kater, Das “Ahnenerbe” der SS 1935–1945, p. 153.
1As quoted in Steven Lehrer, Hitler Sites (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2002), p. 182.
2Ian Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945 (London: Allen Lane: The Penguin Press, 2000), p. 389.
3Ibid., p. 393 and p. 579.
4Ibid., p. 397.
5H.R. Trevor-Roper, “The Mind of Adolf Hitler,” introductory essay in Adolf Hitler, Hitler’s Table Talk, 1941–1944 ed. H.R.Trevor-Roper (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. xvii; Ian Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, p. 397.
6Adolf Hitler, Hitler’s Table Talk, 1941–1944 ed. H.R.Trevor-Roper (London: Phoenix Press, 2000), pp. 13, 25, 48, 290.
7Ibid., no. 245, p. 548.
8Ibid., no. 248, pp. 621–622.
9Ibid., no. 11, p. 16.
10Ibid., no. 20, p. 35.
11Chris Bishop and Chris McNab, Campaigns of World War II Day by Day (Hauppauge, NY: Barron’s, 2003), p. 68.
12Alan Clark, Barbarossa (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1965), p. 55.
13“Tätigkeitsbericht der Ortskommandantur I/853 von Simferopol vom 14.11.1941,” as reproduced in Verbrechen der Wehrmacht, ed. Hamburger Institut für Sozialforschung (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2002), p. 176.
14“Nachkriegsaussagen-Simferopol: Jean B., ehemaliger Angehöriger der Geheimen Feldpolizei 647. 14.03.1969,” in Verbrechen der Wehrmacht, p. 177.
15Ibid.
16Ibid.
17Ibid.
18“Simferopol,” Verbrechen der Wehrmacht, p. 175.
19Enzyklopädie des Holocaust, 2nd ed., ed. Israel Gutman (Piper: Munich, 1998), s.v. “Krim.”
20“Affidavit of Otto Ohlendorf, 5.11.1945,” Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals, Vol. 4, Case 9: The Einszatzgruppen Case (Washington, D.C: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949–1950) pp. 205–207. The volumes from the Trials of War Criminals before the Nuremberg Military Tribunal are in the process of being placed online at http://www.mazal.org.
21Enzyklopädie des Holocaust, s.v. “Krim.”
22Ian Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, p. 455.
23Himmler, “SS-Befehl,” 24.02.1943, BA, NS 19/ 281.
24Herwig Wolfram, History of the Goths (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990) pp. 36–39.
25It should be noted that the term “Germanic” here refers simply to the name of a broad subgroup of languages that includes English, Frisian, German, Yiddish, Icelandic, Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish. Just because someone speaks a Germanic language, it does not follow that they are of German ancestry.
26Herwig Wolfram, History of the Goths, p. 44.
27Personal communication, Dr. Alexander Gertsen.
28As one of the world’s experts on the Goths points out, “it is often necessary, however, to remind Central Europeans of the plain fact that a history of the Goths is not part of a history of the German people and certainly not part of ‘the history of the Germans in foreign countries.’” For more details, see Herwig Wolfram, History of the Goths, pp. 1–2.
29For a good example of this, see Wilhelm Wolfslast, Die Germanische Völkerwanderung (Stuttgart: Robert Lutz Nachfolger, 1941), pp. 24–25.
30Alexander Alexandrovich Vasiliev, The Goths in the Crimea (Cambridge, MA: The Mediaeval Academy of America, 1936), p. 51.
31Personal communication, Dr. Alexander Gertsen, University of Simferopol.
32Personal communications, Dr. Thomas S. Burns and Dr. David Braund.
33“Goten in der Krim und Wikinger in Nowgorod,” SS-Leitheft, Kriegsausgabe 4a (1941), NARA, RG242, A3345, 124/ 69; “Das Germanenreich am Schwarzen Meer/Ein Gespräch unter dem Himmel der Krim,” SS-Leitheft, Kriegsausgabe 6b (1941), NARA, RG242, A3345, 124/ 161–164; “Von der Ostsee bis zum Schwarzen Meer,” Germanische Leithefte 3/4 (1942), NARA, RG242, A3345, 124/1198–1199.
34“Das Germanenreich am Schwarzen Meer/Ein Gespräch unter dem Himmel der Krim,” SS-Leitheft, Kriegsausgabe 6b (1941), NARA, RG242, A3345, 124/ 161–164.
35Chris Bishop and Chris McNab, Campaigns of World War II, pp. 66–67.
36Mechtild Rössler and Sabine Schleiermacher, “Der ‘Generalplan Ost’ und die ‘Modernität’ der Großraumordnung,” Der ‘Generalplan Ost,’ ed. Mechtild Rössler and Sabine Schleiermacher (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1993), p. 8; Czelsaw Madajczyk, “Vom ‘Generalplan Ost’ zum ‘Generalsiedlungsplan,’” in Der ‘Generalplan Ost,’ pp. 13–14.
37Czelsaw Madajczyk, “Vom ‘Generalplan Ost’ zum ‘Generalsiedlungsplan,’ in Der ‘Generalplan Ost,’” pp. 13–14.
38Ibid p. 14.
39Isabel Heinemann, “Rasse, Siedlung, deutsches Blut,” (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2003), p. 368–372.
40Czelsaw Madajczyk, “Vom ‘Generalplan Ost’ zum ‘Generalsiedlungsplan,’” in Der ‘Generalplan Ost,’ p. 16
41Felix Kersten, The Kersten Memoirs 1940–1945 (New York: Macmillan, 1957), p. 133.
42Ibid., p. 134.
43Ibid., p. 133. Also Himmler, “Allgemeine Anordnung Nr.20/VI/42 über die Gestaltung der Landschaft in den eingegliederten Ostgebieten vom 21.12.1942,” as reproduced in Der ‘Generalplan Ost’ pp. 142–144.
44Himmler, “Allgemeine Anordnung Nr.20/VI/42 über die Gestaltung der Landschaft in den eingegliederten Ostgebieten vom 21.12.1942,” in Der ‘Generalplan Ost,’ pp. 136–147.
45Felix Kersten, The Kersten Memoirs 1940–1945, p. 137.
46Ibid.
47Uwe Hoßfeld, “Im Spannungsfeld von ‘Deutscher Biologie,’ Lyssenkoismus und evolutions-ideologischer Axolotl-Forschung,” Lomonossow: Sonderheft “Der Agrarbiologe Lyssenko—ein Exempel für die Ideologisierung der Wissenschaft 3 (1999), http://www.lomonossow.de/1999_03/.
48Sabine Schleiermacher, “Begleitende Forschung zum ‘Generalplan Ost,’” in Der ‘Generalplan Ost,’ pp. 339–340; “The Activities of Dr. Ernst Schaefer, Tibet Explorer and Scientist with SS-sponsored Scientific Institutes,” Headquarters United States Forces European Theater, Military Intelligence Service Center, 12.02.1946, NARA, RG238, M1270/27.
49Letter from Ludolf von Alvensleben to Dr. Rudolf Brandt, 17.07.1942, as quoted in Andrej Angrick, Besatzungspolitik und Massenmord (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2003) pp. 530–531.
50Sievers, “Bescheinigung,” 21.07.1942, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert (08.08.1905).
51Walther Gehl, “Bild 145. Gotische Kinderkrone von Kertsch,” Geschichte. (Breslau: Ferdinand Hirt, 1940), p. 36 of plate insert; “Von der Ostsee bis zum Schwarzen Meer,” Germanische Leithefte 3/4 (1942), NARA, RG242, A3345, 124/1198–1199; Alfred Frauenfeld, Die Krim (Aufbaustab für den Generalbezirk Krim, n.d.) p. 41.
52Jankuhn to Sievers, 27.05.1941, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert (08.08.1905). Jankuhn was an immensely intelligent and perceptive man, and he had somehow learned of the impending mobilization against the Soviet Union almost a month before Operation Barbarossa began. As soon as he caught word of the forth-coming invasion, he pointed out the importance to Sievers of studying the “The Gothic empire in Russia.” See also Jankuhn, “Aktenvermerk,” 04.06.1941, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert (08.08.1905).
53Heiko Steuer, “Herbert Jankuhn und seine Darstellungen zur Germanen-und Wikingerzeit,” in Eine hervorragende nationale Wissenschaft (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter 2001), p. 417.
54Nachruf. Dr. phil. Herbert Jankuhn, Georg-August Universität Göttingen, Oktober 1990.
55Henning Hassman and Detlef Jantzen, “‘Die Deutsche Vorgeschichte—eine nationale Wissenschaft,’ Das Kieler Museum vorgeschichtlicher Altertümer im Dritten Reich,” Offa 51 (1994): 9–23.
56Höhne to Jankuhn, 26.11.1937, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert (08.08.1905).
57Wüst to Jankuhn, 30.04.1938, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert (08.08.1905).
58Henning Hassmann, “Archaeology in the Third Reich,” Archaeology, Ideology and Society, ed. Heinrich Härke (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2000), p. 85.
59Jankuhn to Ahnenerbe, Oslo, 20.06.1940, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert: (08.08.1905).
60Jankuhn to Sievers, 16.10.1940, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert: (08.08.1905). See also Jankuhn, “Bericht über meinen Aufenthalt in der Bretagne,” 24.01.1941, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert (08.08.1905).
61Jankuhn to Sievers, 04.09.1940, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert (08.08.1905).
62Peter Padfield, Himmler (London: Macmillan, 2001), p. 382.
63Jankuhn to Seefeld, 25.06.1942, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Seefeld, Wolf von (19.06.1912).
64Jankuhn, “Bericht über die Tätigkeit des Sonderkommandos Jankuhn bei der SS-Division Wiking, für die Zeit vom 20. Juli bis 1. Dezember 1942,” BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert (08.08.1905).
65Ibid.
66Andrej Angrick, Besatzungspolitik und Massenmord, pp. 581–582.
67Jankuhn to Sievers, 06.09.1942, BA (ehem.BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert (08.08.1905).
68Jankuhn to Ahnenerbe, 16.08.1942, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn (08.08.1905).
69Andrej Angrick, Besatzungspolitik und Massenmord, pp. 581–582.
70Ibid.
71Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, Hitler’s Willing Executioners (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996), pp. 200–201.
72Beumelburg, “Die Goten auf der Krim,” 14.07.1942, BA, NS 19/ 2212. Beumelburg was a major in the Luftwaffe and it seems almost certain that it was von Alvensleben, who forwarded this report to Himmler. See Sievers to Jankuhn, 07.09.1942, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn (08.08.05).
73Beumelburg, “Die Goten auf der Krim,” 14.07.1942, BA, NS 19/ 2212.
74The exact dates of the Maikop massacres are currently unknown because few documents regarding the massacres have survived. Most scholars agree that they occurred in late summer and fall of 1942. However, it is clear that the Einsatzgruppe squads were present in Maikop when Jankuhn was there, because some assisted him in packing up the museum collection. For further details, see Jankuhn to Amt Ahnenerbe, 29.08.1942, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert (08.08.1905).
75Andrej Angrick, Besatzungspolitik und Massenmord, pp. 581–585.
76In reality, the helmet was made in Rome between the third and first century B.C. See Christian Hufen, “Gotenforschung und Denkmalpflege: Herbert Jankuhn und die Kommandounternehmen des ‘Ahnenerbe’ der SS,” in ‘Betr.: Sicherstellung’ NS-Kunstraub in der Sowjetunion, ed. Wolfgang Eichwede and Ulrike Hartung (Bremen: Temmen, 1998) p. 84, footnote p. 35.
77Jankuhn to Amt Ahnenerbe, Anlage 2 & 3 zum Bericht vom, 29.08.1942, “Liste der beim EK 11 in Maikop sichgergestellten Funde aus dem Museum in Maikop,” BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert (08.08.1905).
78“Affidavit of Karl Rudolf Werner Braune, 8 July 1947,” Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals, Vol. 4, Case 9: The Einsatzgruppen Case (Washington, D.C: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949–1950) pp. 214–226.
79Andrej Angrick, Besatzungspolitik und Massenmord, pp. 445–446.
80Jankuhn to Amt Ahnenerbe, 29.08.1942, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert: (08.08.1905).
81Jankuhn, “Bericht über die Tätigkeit des Sonderkommandos Jankuhn bei der SS-Division Wiking, für die Zeit vom 20. Juli bis 1. Dezember 1942,” BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert (08.08.1905).
82Andrej Angrick, Besatzungspolitik und Massenmord, pp. 445–446.
83I. I. Vdovichenko, Antique Painted Vases from the Collections of the Crimean Museums (Simferopol: SONAT, 2003), p. 55; Jankuhn, “Bericht über die Täatigkeit des Sonderkommandos Jankuhn bei der SS-Division Wiking, für die Zeit vom 20. Juli bis 1. Dezember 1942,” BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert (08.08.1905).
84Jankuhn, “Bericht über die Tätigkeit des Sonderkommandos Jankuhn bei der SS-Division Wiking, für die Zeit vom 20. Juli bis 1. Dezember 1942,” BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert (08.08.1905).
85Jankuhn, “Liste der in Armawir durch das Sonderkommando Jankuhn sichergestellten Funde aus der Krim,” 02.09.1942, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert (08.08.1905).
86Jankuhn, “Bericht über die Tätigkeit des Sonderkommandos Jankuhn bei der SS-Division Wiking, für die Zeit vom 20. Juli bis 1. Dezember 1942,” BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert (08.08.1905). The current whereabouts of these objects is unclear; Christian Hufen, “Gotenforschung und Denkmalpflege,” pp. 92–95.
1Peter Witte et al., eds. Der Dienstkalender Heinrich Himmlers 1941/42. (Hamburg: Christians Verlag, 1999), pp. 527–528. For a brief description of Himmler’s Hegewald compound, see Wendy Lower, “A New Ordering of Space and Race: Nazi Colonial Dreams in Zhytomyr, Ukraine, 1941–1944,” German Studies Review 25, no.2 (May 2002): 227–254.
2Peter Padfield, Himmler (London: Cassell & Co. 2001), p. 204.
3Stephan and Norbert Lebert, My Father’s Keeper (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 2001) p. 113.
4Ibid.
5Peter Padfield, Himmler, p. 366.
6Ibid., p. 279.
7“The Activities of Dr. Ernst Schaefer, Tibet Explorer and Scientist with SS-sponsored Scientific Institutes,” Headquarters United States Forces European Theater, Military Intelligence Service Center, 12.02.1946, NARA, RG238, M1270/27.
8Wendy Lower, “A New Ordering of Space and Race: Nazi Colonial Dreams in Zhytomyr, Ukraine, 1941–1944,” German Studies Review 25, no.2 (May 2002): 227.
9Adolf Hitler, Hitler’s Table Talk 1941–1944, ed. H.R. Trevor-Roper (London: Phoenix Press, 2000), no. 245, p. 548.
10Michael Kater, Das ‘Ahnenerbe’ der SS 1935–1945 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1974), p. 164.
11Alfred Frauenfeld, Die Krim (Aufbaustab für den Generalbezirk Krim, n.d.), p. 39. Frauenfeld was also the author of the proposal concerning the colonization of the Crimea. His views on the Crimea were of great interest to Hitler. Adolf Hitler, Hitler’s Table Talk 1941–1944, ed. H.R.Trevor-Roper (London: Phoenix Press, 2000), no. 245, p. 548.
12Thomas Nußbaumer, Alfred Quellmalz und seine Südtiroler Feldforschungen 1940–1942 (Innsbruck: Studien Verlag, 2001), p. 93.
13Adolf Hitler, Hitler’s Table Talk 1941–1944, no. 245, p. 548.
14It is unclear precisely when Himmler first disclosed these plans to Hitler. However, the SS leader told his personal physician on July 16 that Hitler had just given him verbal approval for the Wehrbauern settlements. Felix Kersten, The Kersten Memoirs, 1940–1945 (New York: Macmillan, 1957), pp. 132–134.
It is possible that Himmler began to press for a decision on the Master Plan East during a dinner he had with Hitler on July 8, soon after the fall of Sevastopol. As two prominent German historians have noted, the purpose of the dinner meeting was very likely to discuss the “Germanization” of the Crimea. Moreover, three days earlier, Wolf-Karl Wolff, Himmler’s liaison officer at Hitler’s headquarters, had informed him that an important meeting would take place on July 6 and advised him that the SS should attend. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss “the position of the collection camps, the resettlement, the racial recordings, the necessary security needed for resettlement, the defense of the camps, the liquidation by the Einsatzkommandos and all the problems associated with these questions.” For further details, see Jochen von Lang, Der Adjutant (Munich: Herbig Verlag, 1985), p. 177. See also Peter Witte et al., eds., Der Dienstkalender Heinrich Himmlers 1941/42, pp. 480–481.
15Felix Kersten, The Kersten Memoirs, p. 132.
16Ibid., pp. 132–133.
17Ibid., p. 228.
18Ibid., pp. 239–240.
19Ibid., p. 239.
20Ibid., p. 240.
21Felix Kersten, The Memoirs of Doctor Felix Kersten, ed. Herma Briffault (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1947), pp. 49–50.
22Alfred Frauenfeld, Die Krim, pp. 78–79.
23Kersten, “Betrifft: Geplante Fahrt des Reichsführers-SS zur Besichtigung der gotischen Bergfestungen und Höhlenstädte auf der Krim,” 04.10.1942, BA (ehem.BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert (08.08.1905).
24Kersten, “Lebenslauf,” Berlin, 15.10.1944, BA (ehem. BDC) REM: Kersten. Karl. (08.08.1909).
25Jankuhn, “Gutachten über Dr.Karl Kersten,” n.d., BA (ehem. BDC) REM: Kersten, Karl (08.08.1909); Jes Martens, “Die Nordische Archäologie und das ‘Dritte Reich,’” in Prähistorie und Nationalsozialismus, ed. Achim Leube and Morten Hegewisch (Heidelberg: Synchron, 2002), p. 609.
26Kersten, “Betrifft: Geplante Fahrt des Reichsführers-SS zur Besichtigung der gotischen Bergfestungen und Höhlenstädte auf der Krim,” 04.10.1942, BA (ehem.BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert (08.08.1905).
27Kersten, “Betrifft: Bergfestung Tschufut-Kale bei Bachtschissaraj,” 02.10.1942, BA (ehem.BDC): Jankuhn, Herbert (08.08.1905).
28Ibid.
29Kersten, “Betrifft: Bergstadt Tepe-Kermen bei Schury auf der Krim,” 04.10.1942, BA (ehem.BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert (08.08.1905).
30Alexander Alexandrovich Vasiliev, The Goths in the Crimea (Cambridge, MA: The Mediaeval Academy of America, 1936) p. 51.
31Kersten, “Betrifft: Gotische Bergfestung Eski-Kermen bei Tscherkess-Kermen,” 04.10.1942, BA (ehem.BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert (08.08.1905).
32Natalia Dobrynina, “Report Summarizing Russian Scholarly and Scientific Literature on the History of four Crimean Cave Cities,” p. 7.
33Kersten, “Betrifft: Gotische Bergfestung Eski-Kermen bei Tscherkess-Kermen,” 04.10.1942, BA (ehem.BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert (08.08.1905).
34Kersten, “Betrifft: Geplante Fahrt des Reichsführers-SS zur Besichtigung der gotischen Bergfestungen und Höhlenstädte auf der Krim,” 04.10.1942, BA (ehem.BDC) Ahnenerbe: Jankuhn, Herbert (08.08.1905).
35Peter Witte et al., eds. Der Dienstkalender Heinrich Himmlers 1941/42, pp. 600.
36Adolf Hitler, Hitler’s Table Talk, 1941–1944, no. 285, pp. 621–622.
37Andrej Angrick, Besatzungspolitik und Massenmord (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2003), pp. 540–544.
38Peter Witte et al., eds., Der Dienstkalender Heinrich Himmlers 1941/42, p. 601. See also Kersten, “Betrifft: Museum in Bachtchissaraj,” 04.10.1942, BA (ehem.BDC): Jankuhn, Herbert: (08.08.1905).
39Peter Witte et al., eds., Der Dienstkalender Heinrich Himmlers 1941/42, p. 601.
40Andrej Angrick, Besatzungspolitik und Massenmord, pp. 540–544.
1Encyclopaedia Britannica (Chicago: Britannica Inc, 1968), s.v. “Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics.”
2Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer, “Rassenbiologie der Juden,” Forschungen zur Judenfrage 3 (Hamburg: Hanseatische Verlaganstalt, 1938): 137–151.
3Ibid., pp. 140–141.
4German racial scientists went to enormous lengths in their attempt to develop reliable methods of accurately detecting an individual’s race. They searched for measurable differences in everything from skull seams, calf muscles, heart rates, and earwax to body odor, fingerprints, and blood groups. They were unable to find any quick, accurate way of identifying even supposedly “pure” groups, such as the Nordic or Mediterranean races. So Jews, who were purportedly mixtures of many different races, presented an immensely difficult “diagnostic” problem. For further details on the quest for racial diagnosis in Germany, see Ernst Klee, Deutsche Medizin im Dritten Reich (Frankfurt: S. Fischer, 2001) pp. 158–165.
5Andrej Angrick, Besatzungspolitik und Massenmord (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2003), p. 326.
6The Jewish Encyclopedia (New York and London: Funk and Wagnalls, 1902), s.v. “Krimchaks.”
7Neal Ascherson, Black Sea (London: Jonathan Cape, 1995), p. 23; Andrej Angrick, Besatzungspolitik und Massenmord, p. 330.
8As cited in Ian Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945 (London: Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 2000), p. 470.
9Andrej Angrick, Besatzungspolitik und Massenmord, pp. 326–331.
10Andrej Angrick, Besatzungspolitik und Massenmord, p. 330; Warren Green, “The Fate of the Crimean Jewish Communities: Ashkenazim, Krimchaks, and Karaites,” Jewish Social Science 46, no. 2 (Spring 1984): 169–176.
11The Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v. “Caucasus.”
12Ibid.
13Michael Kater, Das “Ahnenerbe” der SS 1935–1945 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1974) pp. 231–232.
14Sievers to Himmler, 10.02.1942, NARA, RG242, A3345 DS G119: Greite, Walter (13.06.1907).
15Mollison to Stuck, 18.08.194(?), NARA, RG242, A3345 DS G119: Greite, Walter (13.06.1907).
16Sievers, “Tagebuch: 10.12.1941,” BA, NS 21/127. The entry reads: “SS O’stuf Dr. Beger: discussion of a proposal to get Jewish skulls for anthropological examination. Cooperation with Hirt. Strassburg. Cooperation with RuSHA [Race and Settlement office]. Report on the meeting Beger-Schäfer at Munich. Permission to employ a (female) assistant.”
17Isabel Heinemann, “Rasse, Siedlung, deutsches Blut” (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2003), pp. 75–76, 544–559; Beger, ‘Führerstammkarte,’ NARA, RG242, A3345, SSO Beger, Bruno (27.04.1911).
18Isabel Heinemann, “Rasse, Siedlung, deutsches Blut,” p. 610
19Sievers, “Tagebuch: 10.12.1941,” BA, NS 21/127. In the statement that Beger gave during his trial after the war, he stated that “part of my assignment was to find as many varieties of Jewishness as possible.” “IV. Die Einlassung der Angeschuldigten und die Beweiswürdigung 1.) Der Angeschuldigte Dr.Beger,” p. 80. Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971. IfZ, Gf 03.32.
20Josef Wastl, as quoted in Klaus Taschwer, “‘Anthropologie ins Volk,’—Zur Ausstellungspolitik einer anwend-baren Wissenschaft bis 1945,” in Politik der Präsentation, ed. Herbert Posch and Gottfried Fliedl (Vienna: Turia und Kant, 1996), p. 248.
21Bernhard Purin, “Die museale Darstellung jüdischer Geschichte und Kultur in Österreich zwischen Aufklärung und Rassismus,” in Politik der Präsentation, pp. 33–34. Wastl did eventually obtain permission in 1942 to dig up bodies from one of Vienna’s largest Jewish cemeteries, the Währinger Friedhof. Indeed, he and his colleagues exhumed some 220 skeletons from the cemetery for their studies.
22Götz Aly, “The Posen Diaries of the Anatomist Herman Voss,” in Cleansing the Fatherland, ed. Götz Aly, Peter Chroust, and Christian Pross (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994) p. 141. Posen is the German name for the city of Poznan in western Poland.
23Ibid., p. 144.
24Amos Elon, “Death for Sale: Masks, an Attempt about Shoah,” New York Review of Books, November 20, 1997.
25Personal communication, Dr. Guido Lombardi. See also Tony Waldron, Counting the Dead (Chichester, New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1994) pp. 24–25.
26Straßburg, or as it is often spelled in English, Strassburg, is the German name for Strasbourg.
27“I. Die Angeschuldigten: Lebensläufe und politische Werdegang. 1) Dr. Bruno Beger,” pp. 953–957, Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971, StA Mchn, Stanw 34.878/91. See also Beger “Führerstammkarte,” NARA, RG242, A3343, SSO Beger, Bruno (27.04.1911); Hirt “Führerstammkarte,” NARA, RG242, A3343, SSO Hirt, August (29.04.1898). In a letter that Hirt wrote to Beger in the fall of 1942, the anatomist addressed the younger man as “comrade Beger” and “du.” This suggests that the two men knew each other quite well. Hirt to Beger, 05.09.1942, BA, R135/49.
28Hirt, “Lebenslauf,” BA (ehem. BDC) PK, Hirt, August (29.04.1898); Hans-Joachim Lang, Die Namen der Nummern (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 2004), p. 210.
29Frederick H. Kasten, “Unethical Nazi Medicine in Annexed Alsace-Lorraine: The Strange Case of Nazi Anatomist Professor Dr. August Hirt,” Historians and Archivists: Essays in Modern German History and Archival Policy. ed. George O. Kent (Fairfax, Virginia: George Mason University Press, 1991) p. 178.
30Ibid.
31Hirt, “Gesundheitsbogen,” BA (ehem. BDC) PK Hirt. August (29.04.1898). “Gedächtnisprotokoll Unterredung Prof. Dr. Walther Wüst und Michael H. Kater.” 22.04.1963. IfZ, ZS/A-25, vol.3.
32As Frederick H. Kasten has observed, it is very difficult to determine when Hirt became a strident anti-Semite. It is possible, however, that he became infected with this bigotry in his youth and merely concealed it while working with his Jewish colleague, Dr. Phillipp Ellinger. Ellinger was an important medical researcher at the time, and Hirt may have swallowed his prejudice in order to advance his career. See Frederick H. Kasten, “Unethical Nazi Medicine in Annexed Alsace-Lorraine,” p. 178.
33For further details on the plans for the university, see Frederick H. Kasten, “Unethical Nazi Medicine in Annexed Alsace-Lorraine,” pp. 180–182.
34Ernest Lachman, “Anatomist of Infamy: August Hirt,” Bull.Hist.Med 51 (1977): 594–602.
35Frederick H. Kasten, “Unethical Nazi Medicine in Annexed Alsace-Lorraine,” p. 190. Mustard gas goes by a variety of names, including yperite, sulphur mustard, and LOST. The latter name is the one most frequently found in the archival documents concerning Hirt’s experiments.
36Roy C. Ellis and Donald I. Perry, “The ABC of Safe Practices for the Biological Sciences Laboratory: An Easy to Use Reference Manual for Laboratory Personnel,” 2001, http://www.hoslink.com/Ellis/INDEX.html.
37Frederick H. Kasten, “Unethical Nazi Medicine in Annexed Alsace-Lorraine,” p. 191.
38Sievers to Hirth (sic), 03.01.1942, BA (ehem.BDC) Ahnenerbe: Hirt, August (29.04.1898).
39Ian Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936 (London: Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 1999), p.97.
40Brandt to Sievers, 29.12.1941, BA (ehem.BDC) WI Hirt August (29.04.1898).
41It is impossible to determine with certainty who among these three men first came up the idea of obtaining the heads from executed commissars. There are no surviving documents to shed light on this question. All three men, moreover, were in a position to have heard something about the commissar policy. Sievers was an extremely well-informed SS officer. Hirt was a former military physician with excellent army contacts. And Beger had done a month-long stint at the eastern front in 1941. Indeed, he had traveled as a propagandist with the Viking Division as it pushed east from Ternopol toward Dnepropetrovsk in the Ukraine. Beger, “SS Kriegsberichterkompanie Bogen,” 07.11.1941, NARA, A3356, RG242, German Army Officer Personnel File T201–1.1. Beger, Bruno (27.04.1911).
42Richard Breitmann, The Architect of Genocide (New York: Alfred A. Knopf 1991), p. 149
43Ibid. Immediately after the invasion of the Soviet Union, for example, the SS education office published photos of Russian officials whom it described as Jewish political commissars. “Sonnenwende-Schicksalswende,” Germanische Leitheft 1, no. 2 (1941): 11. BA, NSD, 41/78.
44“Subject: Securing Skulls of Jewish-Bolshevik Commissars for the purpose of scientific research at the Strassburg Reich University,” February 1942, NARA, Records of the U.S. Nuremberg War Crimes Trials: United States of America v. Karl Brandt et.al. (Case 1), Nov. 21, 1946–Aug. 20, 1947, RG238, M887/16/Jewish Skeleton Collection. Historians have debated over the authorship of this memo. For the best summation of these arguments, see Michael H. Kater, Das Ahnenerbe, pp. 245–248. I find it particularly interesting that Sievers’s personal secretary, Dr. Gisela Schmitz, explained to investigators after the war that Beger was the author of all but the last section of the memo, which Hirt wrote. Nevertheless, Beger’s handwriting does not match that in the document. See “Anklage der Generalstaatsanwalt Frankurt gegen Beger, Fleischhacker, Wolff” Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971, pp. 984–985. StA Mchn, Stanw 34.878/91; Schmitz, “Eidesstattliche Erklärung Dr. Schmitz,” 27.03.1947. Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971. StA Mchn, Stanw 34.878/11.
45Richard Breitmann, The Architect of Genocide, p. 229. As Breitmann and many other historians have pointed out, the Final Solution began well before the Wannsee Conference. Himmler’s Einsatzgruppen had already embarked upon a massive slaughter of Jews during the invasion of the Soviet Union. Moreover, the first death camp, complete with gas chambers, went into operation at Chelmno in Poland on December 8, 1941, and the SS staff had already designed other such facilities.
46Himmler to Bormann, 22.05.1943, in Reichsführer! …, ed. Helmut Heiber (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1968), p. 213.
47Willi Frischauer, Himmler: The Evil Genius of the Third Reich (London: Odhams Press, 1953), p. 127.
48Ibid.
49Brandt to Sievers, 27.02.1942, NARA, RG242, T175/103/2625109.
50Peter Witte et al., eds. Der Dienstkalender Heinrich Himmlers 1941/42 (Hamburg: Christians Verlag, 1999), pp. 390–391.
51Michael Kater, Das “Ahnenerbe,” pp. 231–233.
52Robert E. Conot, Justice at Nuremberg (New York: Harper & Row, 1983), p. 292.
53Ibid., p. 286.
54Peter Witte et al., eds., Der Dienstkalender Heinrich Himmlers 1941/42, pp. 390–391.
55Kater to Vogt, 05.01.1970, StA Mchn, Stanw. 34.878/5; Wüst, “Prof. Dr.Hirt,” 06.02.1944, StA Mchn, Stanw. 34.878/75; Wüst to Sievers, 16.03.1944, StA Mchn, Stanw. 34.878/75. See also Michael H. Kater, Das “Ahnenerbe,” p.256.
56Sievers to Hirt, end of August or beginning of September, 1942, as quoted in “Urteil. V Die Beteiligung des Angeklagten Dr. Beger,” p. 23. Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971. IfZ, Gf 03.32.
57Beger to Brandt, 13.04.1943, as translated and quoted in Benno Müller-Hill, Murderous Science (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 52.
58Historians often refer to this camp today as Natzweiler-Struthof. However, the vast majority of surviving German documents concerning the Jewish Skeleton Collection refer to it as Konzentrationlager Natzweiler, or concentration camp Natzweiler. I have thus chosen to refer to it simply as Natzweiler throughout the text.
59Josef Kramer, Statement 26.07.1945, NARA, Records of the U.S. Nuremberg War Crimes Trials: United States of America v. Karl Brandt et.al. (Case 1), Nov. 21, 1946–Aug. 20, 1947, RG238, M887/16/Jewish Skeleton Collection.
60Wolff to Hirt, 22.04.1943, BA, NS 21/906.
61Wolff to Firma Franz Bergmann u. Paul Altmann K.G., 04.11.1942, BA, NS 21/905.
62Doreen Moser et al., Marine Mammal Skeletal Preparation and Articulation, Poster Presentation at the Biennial Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals, November 28–December 3, 2002, Vancouver, B.C.
63Wolff to Firma Franz Bergmann u. Paul Altmann K.G., 04.11.1942, BA, NS 21/905.
64Dr. Miklós Nyiszli, Auschwitz: A Doctor’s Eyewitness Account (Geneva: Ferni Pub. House, 1979), p. 204. During his imprisonment at Auschwitz, Nyiszli was forced to work for Dr. Josef Mengele, a physician and racial biologist. At one point, Mengele ordered Nyiszli to perform anatomical measures on two Jewish prisoners, a father and a son. The two prisoners were then taken away and murdered. Mengele then instructed Nyiszli to render their bodies down to skeletons for the anthropological museum in Berlin. In his book, Nyiszli described the chemicals commonly used at the time for chemical maceration, and I have borrowed upon his description for this passage.
65Doreen Moser et al., Marine Mammal Skeletal Preparation and Articulation, Poster Presentation at the Biennial Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals, November 28–December 3, 2002, Vancouver, B.C.
66Wolff to Firma Franz Bergmann u. Paul Altmann K.G., 04.11.1942, BA, NS 21/905.
67Wolff to Hirt, 08.10.1942, BA, NS 21/905.
68Beger to Sievers, 03.10.1942, BA, NS 21/905.
69Rudolf Vrba, I Cannot Forgive (Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 1997), p. 123.
70Danuta Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle 1939–1945 (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1990), pp. 202–247.
71Brandt to Reichssicherheitshauptamt, 10.08.1942, BA, NS19/ 3638.
72Members of the proposed team included Dr. Davoud Monchi-Zadeh, the Iranian student who was to accompany Wüst on his proposed Bisitun expedition; Dr. Viktor Christian, Dean of the Philosophy Faculty at the University of Vienna and an authority on Near Eastern studies; Dr. Alfred Rust, an archaeologist; Dr. Karl Vogt, a racial scientist interested in the Transcaucasus region; and Wolfram Sievers. See Sievers, Vermerk. Betr: Einsatz des ‘Ahnenerbes’ im vorderen Orient, Iran und indoiranischen Raum, 12.02.1942, LOC Manuscript Division. Captured German Documents. Section 19, ODN 511, Reel 46.
73Schäfer to Sievers, 17.08.1942, BA, NS 21/42; “Personalaufstellung für das geplante Unternehmen,” 18.08.1942, NARA, RG242, T81/131, 164290–164292; Sievers to Reichssicherheitshauptamt, 20.08.1942, NARA, RG242, T175/34.
74“Personalaufstellung für das geplante Unternehmen,” 18.08.1942, NARA, RG242, T81/131, 164290–164292.
75“The Activities of Dr. Ernst Schaefer, Tibet Explorer and Scientist with SS-sponsored Scientific Institutes,” Headquarters United States Forces European Theater, Military Intelligence Service Center, 12.02.1946, NARA, RG238, M1270/27.
76“Vernehmung Ernst Schäfer, 08.12.1970,” p. 4, Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971, StA Mchn, Stanw 34.878/18. Exactly when Schäfer proposed the Caucasus mission is unclear, but in August 1942, he wrote to Sievers, noting that “as I was already able to inform you months ago, the total research of the Caucasus area has great importance and weight for science and for worldview.” Schäfer to Sievers, 17.08.1942, BA, NS 21/ 42.
77Sievers to Reichssicherheitshauptamt, 20.08.1942, NARA, RG242, T175/34. See also Sonderkommando K documents found in file NARA, RG242, T81/131/164293–164311, which includes documents titled, “Fahrzeugaufstellung,” “Persönliche Ausrüstung,” and “Allgemeine Ausrüstung.”
78Brandt to Sievers, 24.08.1942, NARA, RG242, T175/34.
79SS-Führungshauptamt to Reichsführer-SS, 29.01.1943, NARA, RG242, T175/R124; “Betr.Eskorte” n.d. NARA, RG242, T81/131/164293–164294.
80“The Activities of Dr. Ernst Schaefer, Tibet Explorer and Scientist with SS-sponsored Scientific Institutes,” Headquarters United States Forces European Theater, Military Intelligence Service Center, 12.02.1946, NARA, RG238, M1270/27.
81Ibid; “Kurzgefasste Darstellung der im Rahmen des Sonderkommando ‘K’ geplanten Rassenkundlichen Untersuchungen,” n.d., BA, R135/44, 164287–164288. “Gedächtnisprotokoll Unterredung Dr. Ernst Schäfer und Michael H. Kater,” 28.04.1964, IfZ, ZS/A-25, vol. 2. Moreover, as Beger himself noted in a letter to the Security Service, about Special Command K, “For the realization of the above mentioned undertaking, which has political goals but is of a purely military character, it is necessary to conduct scientific work partially as a cover-up, but also partially to clarify specific ethnic questions.” Beger to Kern. 06.10.1942. BA, R135/50.
82“Kurzgefasste Darstellung der im Rahmen des Sonderkommando ‘K’ geplanten Rassenkundlichen Untersuchungen,” n.d., BA, R135/44, 164287–164288.
83“Vernehmung Ernst Schäfer, 08.12.1970,” p. 5, Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971, StA Mchn, Stanw 34.878/18. See also “Gedächtnisprotokoll Unterredung Ernst Schäfer und Michael H. Kater,” 28.4.1964, IfZ, ZS/A-25. vol.2.
84“Vernehmung Ernst Schäfer. 08.12.1970,” p. 5, Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971, StA Mchn, Stanw 34.878/18.
85The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia (New York: The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia Inc, 1939–43), s.v. “Mountain Jews.”
86Ibid.
87Ibid.
88“Personalaufstellung für das geplante Unternehmen,” 18.08.1942, NARA, RG242, T81/131, 164290–164292; “Kurzgefasste Darstellung der im Rahmen des Sonderkommando ‘K’ geplanten rassenkundlichen Untersuchungen,” n.d., BA, R135/44, 164287–164288.
89Beger, “Auffassung der Hilfsmannschaft,” NARA, RG242, T81/131/164289.
90Isabel Heinemann, “Rasse, Siedlung, deutsches Blut,” pp. 615–616.
91Ibid., p. 632.
92Ibid., pp. 615–616, 632.
93Ibid., pp. 234–238.
94Ibid., pp. 615–616, 632. A program for one of these courses, taught in Prague in 1942, has survived, and demonstrates the high opinion that RuSHA held of both Rübel and Fleischhacker as racial specialists. The two men teach many of the sessions, from Racial Diagnosis using Photographs, Part I, II, III, and IV to the Soul of European Races, Part I and II. “Programmfolge für den Eignungsprüferlehrgang in Prag v. 20.7.-8.8.42,” BA, NS 2/89.
95Trojan to Reichsdozentenführung, 26.01.1943, BA (ehem. BDC) PK: Trojan, Rudolf (26.02.1917). See also Ernst Klee, Deutsche Medizin im Dritten Reich. p. 165.
96Beger, “Auffassung der Hilfsmannschaft,” NARA, RG242, T81/131/164289.
97Ibid.
98“Kurzgefasste Darstellung der im Rahmen des Sonderkommando ‘K’ geplanten rassenkundlichen Untersuchungen,” n.d., BA, R135/44, 164287–164288.
99Fleischhacker to Beger, 31.10.1942, BA, R135/44.
100Himmler, moreover, favored this deception. In 1940, he asked the head of the Race and Settlement Department, Otto Hofmann, to develop a deceptive questionnaire to send to school doctors in Czechoslovakia. In addition to a number of standard medical questions, Himmler instructed Hofmann to include questions that would elicit racial biological characteristics of Czech schoolchildren, such as height, weight, and eye, skin, and hair color. This practice seems to have been endemic in RuSHA. On the advice of the department, for example, Reinhard Heydrich ordered such camouflaged investigations to be carried out on adults in Czechoslovakia in 1942. For further details, see Himmler to Otto Hofmann, 09.10.1940, and Hofmann to Himmler, 24.10.1940, in Die Deutschen in der Tschechoslowakei 1933–1947 ed. Václav Král (Prague: Nakladatelstvi Ceskioslovenske Akademie Ved, 1964), p. 424. See also Isabel Heinemann, “Rasse, Siedlung, deutsches Blut,” pp. 159–160; Richard Breitmann, The Architect of Genocide, p. 94.
101As Beger noted in his plan for a racial project in Norway, “It might be useful to disguise the racial investigations as medical research on physical fitness.” Beger to RFSS via RuSHA, 30.06.1941, NARA, R135/ 52/162779–162784.
102Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer, “Rassenbiologie der Juden,” p. 141.
103“Kurzgefasste Darstellung der im Rahmen des Sonderkommando ‘K’ geplanten rassenkundlichen Untersuchungen,” n.d., BA, R135/44, 164287–164288.
104Endres to Beger, 27.09.1942, BA, R135/48/164005–164006.
105“Kurzgefasste Darstellung der im Rahmen des Sonderkommando ‘K’ geplanten rassenkundlichen Untersuchungen,” n.d., BA, R135/44, 164287–164288.
106“Aufstellung der Ausrüstung für Sonderkommando K,” n.d., BA, R135/44.
107Scholtz to Chef des RuSHA, 18.07.1941, BA, NS 2/79. Bl 118–120, as quoted in Isabel Heinemann, “Rasse, Siedlung, deutsches Blut,” p. 532.
108Isabel Heinemann, “Rasse, Siedlung, deutsches Blut,” p. 531–32.
109Ian Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945 (London: Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 2000), p. 534.
110Ibid., p. 547.
111Ibid., p. 550.
112RFSS to Schäfer, 05.02.1943, BA NS 19/2681.
1Hans-Joachim Lang, Die Namen der Nummern (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 2004), p. 278. After painstaking research, German journalist Hans-Joachim Lang has recently identified the names and compiled brief biographies of all eighty-six victims of the Jewish Skeleton Collection conspiracy.
2The story of the Hospital of the Jewish Community is a particularly remarkable one. During the war, the hospital was under the authority of the Reich Main Security Office, which took over several of its buildings for a soldiers’ hospital and a prison camp for Jews. But the Nazi authorities permitted the Jewish hospital to continue providing medical services to Jews, and, astonishingly, the hospital survived until the end of the war, thanks largely to the tenacity of its director, Dr. Walter Lustig. Daniel B. Silver, Refuge in Hell: How Berlin’s Jewish Hospital Outlasted the Nazis (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2004).
3“Aussage Reineck und Toch.” Anklage der Generalstaatsanswaltschaft Frankfurt gegen Beger, Fleischhacker, Wolff, pp. 1006–1008, Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971, StA Mchn, Stanw 34.878/91. Other former Auschwitz prisoners remembered details of this event a little differently. The Polish doctor Wladyslaw Fejkiel, for example, recalled seeing groups of prisoners assembled near Block 24. I have based my description on the testimony of witnesses Reineck and Toch, which agrees on several key points.
4Robert Jay Lifton and Amy Hackett, “Nazi Doctors,” in Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp, ed. Yisrael Gutman and Michael Berenbaum (Published in Association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), p. 305.
5Hans-Joachim Lang, Die Namen der Nummern, p. 115.
6“Aussage Reineck und Toch.” Anklage der Generalstaatsanwaltschaft Frankfurt gegen Beger, Fleischhacker, Wolff, pp. 1006–1008, Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971, StA Mchn, Stanw 34.878/91.
7One Holocaust survivor, Gershon Evan, underwent similar racial measurements after being arrested by the Gestapo in 1939 in Vienna. Like the prisoners of Auschwitz, Evan was measured by an anthropologist. He later wrote a poignant account of his experience. Unlike the Auschwitz prisoners, Evan was alerted ahead of time by other prisoners as to what was going to happen. “Had I not known what to expect,” he explained in his account, “the instruments would have given me the creeps.” For further details, see Gershon Evan, Winds of Life (Riverside, California: Ariadne Press, 2000), pp. 153–154.
8“Aussage Toch.” Anklage der Generalstaatsanwaltschaft Frankfurt gegen Beger, Fleischhacker, Wolff, pp. 1007–1008, Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich-Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971, StA Mchn, Stanw 34.878/91.
9Although Beger claimed after the war to have arrived in Auschwitz on June 11, 1943, he seems to have arrived several days earler. A report written by Wolff states that Beger left for Auschwitz on June 6. The train trip from Berlin to Auschwitz took only one day. Moreover, Beger had already selected prisoners and begun some measurements by June 11. Wolff, “Vermerk,” 11.06.1943, BA NS21/ 907; Schäfer to Beger, 24.06.1943, BA, R135/45/151544.
10“Aussage Gabel,” Anklage der Generalstaatsanwaltschaft Frankfurt gegen Beger, Fleischhacker, Wolff, pp. 1003–1004. Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971, StA Mchn, Stanw 34.878/91.
11Fleischhacker, “R.u.S.-Fragebogen: Lichtbilder,” BA (ehem. BDC) RS: Fleischhacker, Hans (10.03.1912).
12“Diary of Johann Paul Kremer. April 30th, 1942,” in KL Auschwitz Seen by the SS, ed. Jadwig Bezwinska (New York: Howard Fertig, 1984), p. 213.
13Ibid., pp. 213–220.
14Beger to Fleischhacker, 16.06.1943, NS 21/907.
15“Aussage Gabel.” Anklage der Generalstaatsanwaltschaft Frankfurt gegen Beger, Fleischhacker, Wolff,” pp. 1003–1004. Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971, StA Mchn, Stanw 34.878/91.
16“Diary of Johann Paul Kremer. Sept. 5th, 1942,” in KL Auschwitz Seen by the SS p. 216.
17Ibid.
18Personal communication, Dr. Bruno Beger.
19Yisrael Gutman, “Auschwitz—An Overview,” in Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp, p. 10 See also “Reminiscences of Pery Broad,” in KL Auschwitz Seen by the SS, p. 139.
20Rudolf Vrba, I Cannot Forgive (Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 1997), p. 77.
21Yisrael Gutman, “Auschwitz—An Overview,” in Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp, pp. 20–21.
22Miklós Nyiszli, Auschwitz: A Doctor’s Eyewitness Account (Geneva: Ferni Pub. House 1979), p. 36.
23Henrypierre, “Affidavit,” 17.11.1946, Office of U.S. Chief of Counsel. Translation of Document No. NO-880. StA Mchn. Stanw 34878/14.
24“Urteil. IV. Die Einlassung der Angeschuldigten und die Beweiswürdigung,” p. 80, Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971. IfZ, Gf 03.32.
25Beger to Schäfer, 24.06.1943, NARA T 81/ 128/151545.
26Ibid.
27“Discovery of human testicles in the Strasbourg Institute,” 25.05.1945, Document N0–521. NARA, Records of the U.S. Nuremberg War Crimes Trials: United States of America v. Karl Brant et al. (Case 1), Nov. 21, 1946–Aug. 20, 1947, RG238 Nuernberg, Organization Series 516–517. Box 11, Entry 174. NM-70.
28“Aussage Toch.” Anklage der Generalstaatsanwaltschaft Frankfurt gegen Beger, Fleischhacker, Wolff,” pp. 1007–1008, Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971, StA Mchn, Stanw 34.878/91.
29“Aussage Wörl.” Anklage der Generalstaatsanwaltschaft Frankfurt gegen Beger, Fleischhacker, Wolff,” pp. 1005, Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971, StA Mchn, Stanw 34.878/91. For details about the conditions inside Block 10, see Robert Jay Lifton and Amy Hackett, “Nazi Doctors,” in Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp, pp. 301–316.
30Robert Jay Lifton and Amy Hackett, “Nazi Doctors,” in Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp, p. 304.
31It is possible, as Hans-Joachim Lang suggests, that the selected men and women were drawn from prisoners confined in the barracks used for medical experiments. See Hans-Joachim Lang, Die Namen der Nummern, p. 114.
32Robert Jay Lifton and Amy Hackett, “Nazi Doctors,” in Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp, p. 305.
33“Aussage Gabel.” Anklage der Generalstaatsanwaltschaft Frankfurt gegen Beger, Fleischhacker, Wolff, pp. 1003–1004, Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971 Staatsarchiv München. Stanw 34.878/91. pp. 1003–1004; “Urteil. V. Die Einlassung der Angeschuldigten und die Beweiswürdigung,” p. 79, Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971 IfZ, Gf 03.32. p. 79.
34“Aussage Gabel.” Anklage der Generalstaatsanwaltschaft Frankfurt gegen Beger, Fleischhacker, Wolff,” pp. 1003–1004, Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971, StA Mchn, Stanw 34.878/91.
35Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer, “Rassenbiologie der Juden,” Forschungen zur Judenfrage 3 (Hamburg: Hanseatische Verlaganstalt, 1938): 137–151.
36See notes 16 and 17 in Chapter 13.
37“Aussage Gabel.” Anklage der Generalstaatsanwaltschaft Frankfurt gegen Beger, Fleischhacker, Wolff,” pp. 1003–1004, Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971, StA Mchn, Stanw 34.878/91.
38“Urteil. V. Die Einlassung der Angeschuldigten und die Beweiswürdigung,” p. 81, Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971. IfZ, Gf 03.32.
39Ibid.
40Beger to Fleischhacker, 16.06.1943, NS 21/907; Sievers to Eichmann, 21.06.1943, NARA T-175/103 2625099.
41Sievers to Eichmann, 21.06.1943, NARA, RG242, T175/103/2625099. In all likelihood, Beger lacked all the inoculations necessary for immunity to typhus. Physicians at Auschwitz gave the SS staff members three innoculations, spaced out over three weeks, to ensure that they possessed sufficient immunity. Beger was not at Auschwitz long enough, however, to receive all three. See “Diary of Johann Paul Kremer, Sept. 5th, 1942,” in KL Auschwitz Seen by the SS, pp. 214–219.
42Beger to Sievers, 09.07.1943, BA, NS 21/907.
43Danuta Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1990) p. 191.
44Hans Joachim Lang, Die Namen der Nummern, p. 161.
45Sievers to Eichmann, 21.06.1943, NARA, RG242, T175/103/2625099.
46Wolff to Hirt, 07.07.1943, BA, NS 21/907.
47Wolff to Beger, “Telegramm,” 30.07.1943, NARA, RG242, T580/R153/241.
48Prisoners were housed in Hotel Struthof before construction was finished on the camp facilities at Natzweiler. Thus the camp was sometimes called Struthof.
49Frederick H. Kasten, “Unethical Nazi Medicine in Annexed Alsace-Lorraine,” Historians and Archivists: Essays in Modern German History and Archival Policy, ed. George O. Kent (Fairfax, Virginia: George Mason University Press, 1991), p. 175.
50Ibid., p. 192.
51Sievers to Brandt, 27.04.1943, BA (ehem. BDC) WI, Hirt, August (29.04.1898).
52Ibid.
53Josef Kramer, “Statement,” 26.07.1945, NARA, Records of the U.S. Nuremberg War Crimes Trials: United States of America v. Karl Brant et.al. (Case 1), Nov. 21, 1946–Aug. 20, 1947, RG238, M887/16/Jewish Skeleton Collection.
54Wolff to Hirt, Approx. date 20.04.1943, BA, NS 21/906.
55Ibid. In this letter, Wolff explains that the machines should be ready in six weeks’ time.
56“Urteil. IV. Die Einlassung der Angeschuldigten und die Beweiswürdigung,” p. 19, Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971. IfZ, Gf 03.32.
57Beger, “Reisekostenabrechnung,” 06.10.1943, BA, NS 21/506.
58Hans-Joachim Lang, Die Namen der Nummern, p. 172.
59Isabel Heinemann, “Rasse, Siedlung, deutsches Blut,” (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2003) pp. 544–547; Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1950), Vol. 1, pp. 695–696.
60Robert Jay Lifton and Amy Hackett, “Nazi Doctors,” in Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp, pp. 306–308.
61“Discovery of human testicles in the Strasbourg Institute,” 25.05.1945, Document No-521 NARA, Records of the U.S. Nuremberg War Crimes Trials: United States of America v. Karl Brandt et al. (Case 1), Nov. 21, 1946–Aug. 20, 1947, RG238 Nuernberg, Organization Series 516–517. Box 11, Entry 174. NM-70. In 1958, a team of British biologists demonstrated that mouse spermatozoa treated with Trypaflavine were less motile. Indeed the treatment “lowered the fertilization rate.” Hirt had experimented with this dye for years, and may well have suspected that it would damage human fertility. For further details on the 1958 British work, see R. G. Edwards, “The Experimental Induction of Gynogenesis in the Mouse. III. Treatment of Sperm with Trypaflavine, Toluidine Blue, or Nitrogen Mustard,” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences 149, no. 934 (July 1, 1958): 117–129.
62“Discovery of human testicles in the Strasbourg Institute,” 25.05.1945, Document NO-521. NARA, Records of the U.S. Nuremberg War Crimes Trials: United States of America v. Karl Brandt et al. (Case 1), Nov. 21, 1946–Aug. 20, 1947, RG238 Nuernberg, Organization Series 516–517. Box 11, Entry 174. NM-70.
63Ibid.
64Ibid.
65Hans-Joachim Lang, Die Namen der Nummern, p. 173.
66Olga Lengyel, Five Chimneys: The Story of Auschwitz (London: Mayflower, Granada Publ., 1972) p. 143.
67There is some doubt whether the women were executed in one group or in two. I believe that the balance of evidence suggests that they were murdered in two groups, the first on April 11 and the second on April 13.
68Josef Kramer, Statement, 26.07.1945, NARA, Records of the U.S. Nuremberg War Crimes Trials: United States of America v. Karl Brandt et al. (Case 1), Nov. 21, 1946–Aug. 20, 1947, RG238, M887/16/Jewish Skeleton Collection.
69Ibid.
70Ibid.
71Ibid.
72Ibid. A British military court sentenced Kramer to death for his war crimes in November 1945. He was executed on December 13, 1945.
73Henrypierre, “Affidavit,” 17.11.1946, Office of U.S. Chief of Counsel. Translation of Document No. NO-880. StA Mchn. Stanw 34878/14. Hirt, however, was mistaken about the number. He ultimately received eighty-six corpses—twenty-nine females and fifty-seven males.
74Hans-Joachim Lang, Die Namen der Nummern, p. 176.
75Henrypierre, “Affidavit,” 17.11.46, Office of U.S. Chief of Counsel. Translation of Document No. NO-880. StA Mchn. Stanw 34878/14.
76Ibid.
77Ibid.
78Ibid.
79Waltraud Schwab, “Identifizierung nach 60 Jahren,” Die Tageszeitung, September 23, 2003, p. 7.
80Henrypierre, “Affidavit.” 17.11.1946, Office of U.S. Chief of Counsel. Translation of Document No. NO-880. StA Mchn. Stanw 34878/14.
1Ian Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945 (London: Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 2000), p. 596.
2Ian Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, p. 597; W.G. Sebald, “A Natural History of Destruction,” The New Yorker, November 4, 2002, p. 66–77.
3Anordnung Himmler, 29.07.1943, BAK, NS 21/265.
4Thomas Greif, Der SS-Standort Waischenfeld 1934–1945 (Erlangen: Palm & Enke, 2000) pp. 45–50.
5As historian Michael Kater has pointed out, Schäfer often insisted after the war that this institute was not part of the Ahnenerbe, but the documentary evidence demonstrates that this allegation is untrue. Michael H. Kater, Das “Ahnenerbe” der SS 1935–1945 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1974), p. 213.
6Thomas Greif, Der SS-Standort Waischenfeld 1934–1945, p. 19, pp. 54–58.
7Ibid., pp. 18–19.
8Wolff to Ludwig Müller. 02.11.1943. BA, NS 21/67.
9“Report of 10 October 1942, on cooling experiments on human beings,” Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals, Vol. 1 Case 1: The Medical Case (Washington, D.C: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949–1950), pp. 226–243.
10Rascher was greatly disturbed to find that one of the female prostitutes showed “unobjectionably Nordic racial characteristics: blond hair, blue eyes, corresponding head and body structure, 213/4 years of age.” As he noted in a memorandum, “I questioned the girl, why she had volunteered for the brothel. I received the answer: ‘To get out of the concentration camp, for we were promised that all those who would volunteer for the brothel for half a year would then be released from the concentration camp.’” Impressed by her “Nordic” appearance, Rascher refused to use her in the experiments. “Memorandum of Rascher on women used for rewarming in freezing experiments, 5 November 1942,” Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals, Vol. 1, Case 1: The Medical Case (Washington, D.C: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949–1950), p. 245.
11“Letter from Rascher to Himmler, 17 February 1943, and Summary of Experiments for Rewarming of Chilled Human Beings by Animal Warmth, 12 February 1943,” Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals, Vol. 1, Case 1: The Medical Case (Washington, D.C: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949–1950), pp. 249–251.
12Ibid.
13“Freezing Experiments,” Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals, Vol. 2, Case 2: The Milch Case (Washington, D.C: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949–1950), pp. 847–848.
14“Extract from the Closing Brief against Defendant Sievers: Freezing Experiments,” Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals. Vol. 1, Case 1: The Medical Case (Washington, D.C: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949–1950), p. 200.
15Ernst Klee, Auschwitz, die NS-Medizin und ihre Opfer (Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer, 1997), p. 351.
16Fritz Rascher, “Affidavit 31 December 1946,” Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals, Vol. 1, Case 1: The Medical Case (Washington, D.C: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949–1950), pp. 670.
17Ibid.
18Ibid.
19“Letter from Haagen to Hirt, 15 November 1943,” Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals, Vol. 1, Case 1: The Medical Case (Washington, D.C: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949–1950), pp. 578–579.
20Ernst Klee, Auschwitz, die NS-Medizin und ihre Opfer, pp. 378–380. Later in 1944, Sievers also obtained the services of Dr. Wilhelm Beiglböck, who conducted experiments at Dachau on making seawater drinkable. As part of these experiments, Beiglböck forced his subjects to drink chemically treated seawater, resulting in serious medical injuries. “Sea Water experiments,” Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals, Vol. 1, Case 1: The Medical Case (Washington, D.C: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949–1950), pp. 418–493.
21Ernst Klee, Auschwitz, die NS-Medizin und ihre Opfer, pp. 389–391. As Klee points out, some of the best evidence concerning these tests comes from one of the prisoners, Rudolf Guttenberger, a young Gypsy. My description of the experiment is drawn from Guttenberger’s recollection of the events.
22Ibid.
23Ibid., p. 381.
24Schäfer, “Zur Filmvorführung in Mittersill,” n.d., BA, R135/31. In this speech, Schäfer outlines some of the rumors about Mittersill castle circulating among the local inhabitants.
25Historical Exhibition, Writers’ Room, 24.04.2002, Schloss Mitersill.
26Statement of Dr. Ernst Schäfer, 27.11.1945, BA (ehem.BDC) 0.916.
27Michael H. Kater, Das “Ahnenerbe” der SS. p. 213. In January 1943, Schäfer’s department was renamed the Sven Hedin Reich Institute for Inner Asian Studies in order to win support from the University of Munich and the Reichs Ministry of Education. It remained, however, a department of the Ahnenerbe.
28“Urlaubschein Nr. Verlängerung. Der Umsiedler Evert, Maria,” 10.05.1944, NARA, RG242, T81/132/166106; “Aufstellung der am 24. März 1944 in Schloß Mittersill eingetroffenen 15 Bibelforscherinnen,” NARA, RG242, T81/132/166107; Forschungsstätte für Innerasien to Reichsgesundheitsführer, 23.06.1944, NARA, RG 242, T81/132/166157; “Forderungsnachweis: 1.10–31.10.1944,” 01.11.1944, NARA, RG242, T81/132/166138; “Forderungsnachweis: 01.08.-31.08.44,” 01.08.1944,” BA, R135/12, 166145. These documents record the use of concentration-camp prisoners at Mittersill, which became a subcamp of Mauthausen. It should be noted that many of the prisoners that Himmler sent to Mittersill were Jehovah’s Witnesses: no Jewish prisoners worked at the castle. Perhaps this explains why, as Mauthausen historian Andreas Baumgartner has pointed out, “the conditions at Mittersill were probably slightly better than elsewhere.” For further details on this see Andreas Baumgartner, Die vergessenen Frauen von Mauthausen (Vienna: Verlag Österreich, 1997), pp. 133–139.
29Beger, “Vermerk: Betr. Ethnologische Tibetgegenstände,” 27.09.1943, NARA T81/130/162887.
30Frederick H. Kasten, “Unethical Nazi Medicine in Annexed Alsace-Lorraine: The Strange Case of Nazi Anatomist Professor Dr. August Hirt,” in Historians and Archivists, ed. George O. Kent (Fairfax, Virginia: George Mason University Press, 1997), p. 188.
31Indeed, Beger seems to have worked on the anthropological research data from the murdered prisoners throughout the fall of 1943 and into the spring of 1944. “Urteil. V. Die Beteiligung des Angeklagten Dr. Beger,” pp. 34–35, Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.. IfZ, Gf 03.32.. See also Wolff to Beger, 03.11.1943, BA, 135/49/163551; Beger to Wolff, 06.11.1943, BA, R135/52/162956.
32Trojan to Beger, 23.06.1944, NARA, RG242, T81/131/164370. In this letter, Rudolf Trojan, one of the racial experts at Mittersill, asks Beger, “What is supposed to happen with the Jewish skulls? They are just lying around here and taking up space. What was originally planned for these? I think it would be best if you send them to Strassburg and they should deal with them.” It is indeed possible that these skulls came from Strassburg. When Allied investigators arrived at the anatomical institute in Strassburg in late 1944, they discovered only sixteen complete bodies from those murdered at Natzweiler. In addition to these, they discovered a number of other defleshed bodies missing their heads. The investigators concluded that the heads had been incinerated in the crematorium of Strassburg, in order to prevent their identification. But it is possible that Hirt’s staff managed to deflesh these skulls earlier by other methods of maceration, such as boiling in water. They could then have been sent to Beger. For further details, see “Photographs of treatment inflicted upon political and racial deportees and others detained at the Struthof camp (Laboratory for medical experiments),” translation of document No-483. NARA, Records of the U.S. Nuremberg War Crimes Trials: ‘United States of America v. Karl Brandt et al.’ (Case 1), Nov. 21, 1946–Aug. 20, 1947, RG238, M887/16/Jewish Skeleton Collection.
33Trojan to Beger, 08.08.1944, NARA, RG238, T81/131/164382–164385.
34Beger to Oberste Stelle für Kriegsgefangene Torgau, 10.02.1944, BA, R135/51/162463–162464.
35Beger, “Entwurf! Waffen SS. Wehrwissenschaftliche Forschungen des ‘Ahnenerbes,’” BA, R135/52/162729; Sievers to Beger, 23.11.1943, NARA, RG242, T81/132/166160.
36Sievers, “Vermerk,” 24.03.1945, BA, NS 21/329.
37Personal communication, Mrs. Ursula Schäfer.
38Sievers to Grau, 07.12.1944, BA, NS 21/ 329.
39Personal communication, Mrs. Ursula Schäfer.
40United States Fleet Headquarters of the Commander in Chief, “Amphibious Operations: Invasion of Northern France Western Task Force, June 1944,” COMINCH Pub 006, October 1944.
41Sievers to Brandt, 05.09.1944, NARA, RG242, T175/103/2625096.
42Berg, “Note re: skeleton collection in the Strassburg anatomical institute: dated 15.10.1944,” translation of document NO-091. NARA, Records of the U.S. Nuremberg War Crimes Trials: ‘United States of America v. Karl Brandt et al.’ (Case 1), Nov. 21, 1946–Aug. 20, 1947, RG238, M887/16/Jewish Skeleton Collection.
43Sievers to Hirt, 18.10.1944, BA, NS 21/908.
44Henrypierre, “Affidavit,” 17.11.1946, Office of U.S. Chief of Counsel. Translation of Document No. NO-880. StA Mchn. Stanw 34878/14.
45Berg, “Aktenvermerk für Brandt,” 26.10.1944, BA, NS 19/1582. Also Sievers to Brandt, 07.12.1944, BA, NS 21/908.
46“Discovery of human testicles in the Strasbourg Institute,” 25.05.1945, translation of Document NO-521. NARA, Records of the U.S. Nuremberg War Crimes Trials: ‘United States of America v. Karl Brandt et al. (Case 1),’ Nov. 21, 1946–Aug. 20, 1947, RG238 Nuernberg, Organization Series 516–517. Box 11, Entry 174. NM-70.
47Thomas Greif, Der SS-Standort Waischenfeld: 1934–1945, pp. 80–82.
48Sievers to Hirt, 20.01.1945, BA, NS 21/909.
49Hirt to Sievers, 19.10.1944, BA, NS 21/908.
50Sievers to Six, 28.03.1945, BA, NS 21/909.
51Hirt, “Stellungnahme zu der Veröffentlichung der ‘Daily Mail’ vom 03.01.1945,” 25.01.1945, BA, NS 19/2281.
52Ibid.
53Sievers to Six, 16.02.1945. BA, NS 21/909.
54Wolff to Trojan, 19.02.1945, BA, NS 21/909; Wolff to Beger, 19.02.1945. BA, NS 21/909.
55Thomas Greif, Der SS-Standort Waischenfeld, p. 83.
1Albert Speer, Infiltration (New York: Macmillan, 1981) p. 146.
2As quoted in Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb (New York: Touchstone, 1988) p. 403.
3Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, pp. 404–405.
4Ibid.
5Ibid.
6German historian Rainer Karlsch has suggested that the German government did indeed succeed in building a “hybrid tactical nuclear weapon,” but his contentions have been met with skepticism. See Rainer Karlsch, Hitlers Bombe (Munich: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 2005).
7Proposal by Elektro-Mechanische Apparatebaugesellschaft, 28.10.1944, as quoted in Albert Speer, Infiltration, p. 146.
8Felix Kersten, The Memoirs of Doctor Felix Kersten, ed. Herma Briffault (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1947), pp. 252–253.
9Office VI to Dr. R. Brandt, 08.01.1945, as translated and quoted in Albert Speer, Infiltration, p. 146.
10Oseberg to Brandt, 07.02.1945, as translated and quoted in Albert Speer, Infiltration, p. 147.
11Antony Beever, The Fall of Berlin 1945 (New York: Viking, 2002), pp. 28–32, 67.
12Ian Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945 (London: Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 2000) p.818.
13Ibid., pp. 817–819.
14Ibid., pp. 716–717.
15Stephen Cook and Stuart Russell, Heinrich Himmler’s Camelot (Andrews, N.C.: Kressmann-Backmeyer, 1999), p. 204.
16Ibid., p. 204–205.
17Ibid., p. 206.
18“Wewelsburg Kr.Paderborn.-Museumeinrichtung 1935–1944,” Nach Erinnerungen von Wilhelm Jordan, 29.12. 1979, KWA 70/1/2/14.
19It is currently unknown exactly how much wartime plunder made its way to Wewelsburg. But some inkling can be gained from a few surviving documentary sources. Paulsen. “Dienstreisebericht von Peter Paulsen,” 04.01.1940, as reproduced in Andrzej Mezynski, Kommando Paulsen (Cologne: Dittrich-Verlag, 2000) pp. 55–67; Jordan, “Verzeichnis von vorgeschichtlichen Funden aus dem Museum für Vorgeschichte in Dnjepropetrowsk,” 31.12.1943, BA, NS 19/3638.
20Jochen von Lang, Der Adjutant (Munich: Herbig Verlag, 1985), p. 162.
21Stuart Russell and Jost W. Schneider, Heinrich Himmlers Burg (Essen: Heitz & Höffkes, 1989), pp. 180–181.
22Stephen Cook and Stuart Russell, Heinrich Himmler’s Camelot, p. 212.
23Ian Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945, pp. 816–817.
24Ibid., p. 819.
25Peter Padfield, Himmler (London: Cassel & Co, 2001), p. 608. See also Willi Frischauer, Himmler, the Evil Genius of the Third Reich (London: Odhams Press, 1953) p. 256.
26“Churchill Sure Himmler Faces a Glowing Future,” The New York Times, May 17, 1945.
27One of Himmler’s companions was SS-Hauptsturmführer Macher, the man Himmler had sent to destroy Wewelsburg.
28“Search for Himmler Widens,” The New York Times, May 15, 1945.
29Peter Padfield, Himmler, p. 610.
30“Himmler, Caught, Ends Life by Poison: Arch Criminal Dies,” The New York Times, May 25, 1945.
31Peter Padfield, Himmler, p. 610.
32Peter Padfield, Himmler, p. 611.
33“A Grave on the Heath,” Time, June 26, 1945. For a picture of one of these plaster casts, see “Time’s Winged Chariot, Heinrich Himmler,” Time, June 24, 1945.
34Willi Frischauer, Himmler, p. 258.
1Martha Gellhorn, The Face of War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1959) p. 213.
2Ibid.
3“Protocol of Proceedings,” Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers, The Conference of Berlin (The Potsdam Conference), Vol. II (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1960), p. 1483.
4Thomas Greif, Der SS-Standort Waischenfeld 1934–1945 (Erlangen: Palm & Enke, 2000) p. 82.
5In fact, there are two accounts of how the files were hidden. One, provided by Sievers’s assistant, Wolff, noted that they were placed behind the rubble of a blast. A second, provided by the Ahnenerbe’s cave expert, Dr. Hans Brand, suggested that they were placed behind a false wall. I think Wolff’s version is somewhat more credible, as Brand and his coworkers noted after the war that they had not taken part in this action. As Sievers’s trusted assistant at Waischenfeld, Wolff would more likely know what had happened to the files. For further details see Thomas Greif, Der SS-Standort Waischenfeld, p. 82.
6Thomas Greif, Der SS-Standort Waischenfeld, pp. 85–86.
7Major Frank Wallace to Murray Bernays, as quoted in Robert E. Conot, Justice at Nuremberg (New York: Harper & Row, 1947), p. 38.
8Michael H. Kater, Das “Ahnenerbe” der SS 1935–1945 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1974), pp. 239–243. Some doubt now exists about whether all the children were stolen. See Ernst Klee, Auschwitz, die NS-Medizin und ihre Opfer (Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer, 1997), p. 353.
9Michael H. Kater, Das “Ahnenerbe,” pp. 243.
10Local officials arranged for Hirt’s body to buried, and it was not until the mid-1960s that Israeli investigators closed the books on the case. According to medical historian Frederick Kasten, the Israeli secret service contacted officials in the Black Forest region and had them exhume the body of the man who committed suicide there in the early summer of 1945. An Israeli pathologist conclusively identified the bones as those of Dr. August Hirt.
11“Indictment,” Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals, Vol. 1, Case 1: The Medical Case (Washington, D.C: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949–1950), pp. 8–10.
12“Opening Statement of the Prosecution by Brigadier General Telford Taylor, 9 December 1945,” Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals, Vol. 1, Case 1: The Medical Case (Washington, D.C: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949–1950), pp. 27–29.
13“Final Statement of Defendant Sievers,” Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals, Vol. 2, Case 1: The Medical Case. (Washington, D.C: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949–1950), pp. 157–159.
14Gedächtnisprotokoll Unterredung Frau Hella Sievers-Michael H. Kater, 26–27.4.1963, IfZ. ZS/A-25. vol. 2.
15Ibid.
16For years, prominent historians such as Michael Kater cast considerable doubt on the existence of this resistance group. Recently, however, a German sociologist, Ina Schmidt, has conducted interviews with several close associates of Hielscher, who claim that this group did indeed exist and that Sievers was a member. Ina Schmidt, “Der Herr des Feuers” (dissertation, Hamburger Universität für Wirtschaft und Politik, 2002), p. 229, pp. 235–239.
17One poem that Sievers kept among his Ahnenerbe papers is entitled “Poem dedicated to Wolfram Sievers to remember the [ ] nights from 21–24.01.1933.” The author of the poem is identified as “F.H.” One stanza reads “We burn like flames/and taste every pleasure/and fall together/and fight breast to breast.” BA (ehem BDC) RS Sievers, Wolfram (10.07.1905).
18Michael H. Kater, Das “Ahnenerbe,” p. 313.
19Ina Schmidt, “Der Herr des Feuers,” pp. 228–229.
20Ibid., pp. 235–236.
21Ibid., pp. 228–229.
22“Extract from the Closing Statement of the Prosecution,” Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals, Vol. 2, Case 1: The Medical Case (Washington, D.C: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949–1950), p.4–5.
1Anna Funder, Stasiland (London: Granta Books, 2003), p. 284, footnote for p. 119.
2The Encyclopedia of the Third Reich, ed. Christian Zentner and Friedemann Bedürftig (New York: Da Capo Press, 1997), s.v. “Questionnaire.”
3Adalbert Rückerl, NS-Verbrechen vor Gericht (Heidelberg: C.F. Müller, 1984), pp. 117–120.
4C.M. Clark, “West Germany Confronts the Nazi Past,” The European Legacy 4, no. 1 (1999): 114–115.
5Adalbert Rückerl, NS-Verbrechen vor Gericht, pp. 117–120.
6C.M Clark, “West Germany Confronts the Nazi Past,” p. 116.
7Ibid.
8Ibid., p. 117; The Encyclopedia of the Third Reich, ed. Christian Zentner and Friedemann Bedürftig (New York: Da Capo Press, 1997), s.v. “Persil Certificate”; Adalbert Rückerl, NS-Verbrechen vor Gericht, pp. 117–120.
9C.M Clark, “West Germany Confronts the Nazi Past,” p. 116.
10Wirth to Zaharia, 18.07.1946, StA Mchn, SpkA K2015 vol.2.
11Ibid.
12Ibid.
13Sievers to Wüst, 04.01.1940, BA, NS 21 /46.
14Ingo Wiwjorra, “Herman Wirth—Ein gescheiterter Ideologe zwischen ‘Ahnenerbe’ und Atlantis,” Historische Rassismusforschung, eds. Barbara Danckwortt et al (Hamburg: Argument, 1995). p. 108.
15Personal communication, Dr. Luitgard Löw.
16Ibid.
17Ibid.
18Riksantikvarieämbetet to Wirth Roeper Bosch, 20.03.1965, ATA Stockholm.
19Riksantikvarieämbetet to Wirth Roeper Bosch, 20.03.1965, ATA Stockholm.
20Personal communication, Mr. Paul Rohkst.
21Peter Adam, “Schenkel der Göttlichen,” Der Spiegel 34, No. 40 (29.09.1980).
22Ibid.
23Personal communication, Mr. Paul Rohkst.
24After the opening of the museum exhibit of Wirth’s casts, the government of upper Austria established a commission to investigate the role of Wirth and his colleague Ernst Burgstaller during the Nazi regime. Personal communication, Dr. Luitgard Löw.
25Franz Mandl, “Das Erbe der Ahnen: Ernst Burgstaller/Herman Wirth und die österreichische Felsbildforschung,” Archäologie und Felsbildforschung: Mitteilungen der ANISA 19/20, no.1/2 (1999).
26Personal communication, Mr. Juhani von Grönhagen. Yrjö von Grönhagen does indeed seem to have worked in some capacity for the Finnish foreign ministry during the war. But the exact nature of this work is unclear. For further details, see Grönhagen, “RKK Fragebogen,” 07.03.1942, BA (ehem. BDC) RKK: Grönhagen, Yrjö von (03.11.1911); Herta von Grönhagen to Mag. Puntila, 10.11.1940, ARK, A 3860.
27Grönhagen, “RKK Fragebogen,” 07.03.1942, BA (ehem. BDC) RKK: Grönhagen, Yrjö von (03.11.1911).
28Volckmar, “Erkläring,” 01.07.1946, ARK, A 3860.
29British Security Service, “To whom it may concern,” 28.06.1946, ARK, A 3860.
30“Einige Angaben über das Geschlecht Grönhagen,” unpublished document in collection of Mr. Juhani von Grönhagen.
31While researching this book, I and my colleague Charlotte Stenberg managed to track down many of these lost recordings in an archive in Berlin, bringing to scholarly attention again the voices of long-dead singers.
32Personal communication, Dr. Juha Pentikäinen.
33Ibid.
34Ibid.
35Personal communication, Mr. Juhani von Grönhagen.
36Personal communication, Dr. Ruth Altheim-Stiehl.
37Ibid.
38Altheim and Trautmann, “(Vertraulicher) Bericht über eine im Sommer und Herbst 1938 unternommen Forschungsreise in Schweden, Rumänien, Syrien und Irak,” approximate date 05.12.1938, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Altheim, Franz. 06.10.1898; Altheim and Trautmann. “(Vertraulicher) Bericht” n.d. BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Altheim, Franz (06.10.1898); Sievers to RFSS, 15.01.1941, NARA, RG242,T175/48/2585099; Altheim and Trautmann, “Notwendigkeit einer deutschen Initiative im arabischen Raum Vorderasiens,” 14.01.1941, NARA, RG242, T175/48/2585100.
39Sievers to RFSS, 15.01.1941, NARA, RG242, T175/48/2585099. This letter included an attachment entitled “Notwendigkeit einer deutschen Initiative im arabischen Raum Vorderasiens,” 14.01.1941, NARA, RG242, T175/48/2585100.
40“Sonderbericht über Iran,” 11.06.1941, BA, NS 21/2414. The original covering letter for this report appears to have been lost, thus making indisputable identification of the author extremely difficult. However, a number of clues point to Altheim and Trautmann. The report was found in a file belonging to Himmler’s personal staff. This same file contained the secret Iraq report that Altheim and Trautmann submitted five months earlier. In addition, the Iran report was typed in a similar format to the Iraq report. Also, it contained information similar to that which Altheim and Trautmann gleaned during their 1938 trip to Iraq. For example, this Iran report notes that “in the lower classes, one can often come across the opinion that the Führer is the thirteenth imam who will deliver all Islamic Iranians from earthly suffering.”
41Personal communication, Dr. Ruth Altheim-Stiehl.
42Ibid. Surviving letters show that Altheim did indeed try to obtain the release of the young Hungarian woman—Grazia Kerényi, the daughter of the prominent Hungarian historian Karl Kerényi, who had been a close friend of Altheim before the war—from an Austrian concentration camp in 1944. For further details, see Völker Losemann, “Die ‘Krise der Alten Welt’ und der Gegenwart,” Völker Imperium Romanum, ed. Peter Kneissl and Völker Losemann (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1998).
43Personal communication, Dr. Ruth Altheim-Stiehl.
44Indeed, by 1944, Altheim had taken to describing Trautmann as an “elderly” lady. She was forty-seven years old. See Altheim to Neugebauer, 16.08.1944, DAI Nachlass Neugebauer, Karl Anton.
45Personal communication, Dr. Ruth Altheim-Stiehl.
46Personal communication, Dr. Bernhard Caemmerer.
47Personal communication, Dr. Dieter Metzler.
48Eberhard Merkel, “Bibliographie Franz Altheim,” Beiträge zur Alten Geschichte und deren Nachleben, ed. Ruth Stiehl and Hans Erich Stier (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter &Co., 1970), pp. 390–426.
49“Am 17. Oktober 1976 verstarb im 79.Lebensjahr,” Der Tagesspiegel, Berlin, October 24, 1976.
50Personal communication, Dr. Bernhard Caemmerer.
51“… unsere verstorbene Base Erika Trautmann,” Familienblatt Nehring 9 (1968): 54.
52Personal communication, Dr. Dieter Metzler.
53Even Bohmers’s former colleagues at the Ahnenerbe found this claim utterly unbelievable. “The idea that Bohmers was part of the resistance is absurd,” wrote Lothar Zotz, a fellow Ahnenerbe archaeologist, after the war. “Gedächtnisprotokoll. Unterredung Zotz/Freund und Michael H. Kater,” 18.03.1963, IfZ, ZS/A-25 vol. 3. p. 787.
54Personal communication, Dr. Oebele Vries.
55Personal communication, Dr. H.T. Waterbolk.
56Bohmers to Sievers, 11.11.1940, BA (ehem.BDC) Ahnenerbe: Bohmers, John Christiaan Assien (16.1.1912).
57Personal communication, Dr. H.T. Waterbolk.
58Personal communication, Dr. Oebele Vries.
59It is clear from surviving pieces of correspondence that Bohmers did indeed meet Himmler, but it seems highly unlikely that he ever addressed him to his face as Heini.
60“Zeuge Dr. Schäfer,” 07.11.1962, StA Mchn, Stanw 34878/18. See also Wüst to Kater, 07.06.1964, IfZ, ZS/A-25. vol. 3.
61Personal communication, Mrs. Ursula Schäfer. Also, “Zeuge Dr. Schäfer,” 07.11.1962, StA Mchn, Stanw 34878/18.
62“Urteil Ernst Schäfer,” 13.06.1949, StA Mchn, Spruchkammer-Akt 1573.
63Personal communication, Mrs. Ursula Schäfer.
64“Der Anti-Disney,” Der Spiegel, No. 13 (1959): 60–61.
65Ibid.
66Exhibit on Mittersill’s history in Writers Room, 24.04.2002, Schloss Mittersill.
67Andrew Lycett, Ian Fleming (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1995), pp. 294–295.
68Ibid., p.295.
69Victor and Victoria Trimondi, Hitler, Buddha, Krishna (Vienna: Ueberreuter, 2002), p. 111.
70“Entlassungsschein,” 19.06.1947, HHA, Wiesbaden. Abt. 520 KS-HL Nr. 88, Spruchkammer Kassel; Kellner to Spruchkammer Kassel. 29.06.1948, HHA. Abt. 520 KS-HL Nr. 88 Spruchkammer Kassel.
71Kellner to Spruchkammer Kassel, 14.07.1948, HHA, Wiesbaden. Abt. 520 KS-HL Nr. 88 Spruchkammer Kassel.
72“Protokoll der öffentlichen Sitzung am: 5 August, 1948,” HHA, Wiesbaden. Abt. 520 KS-HL Nr. 88, Spruchkammer Kassel.
73Ibid.
74Ibid.
75“Spruch,” 05.08.1948, HHA, Wiesbaden. Abt. 520 KS-HL Nr. 88, Spruchkammer Kassel.
76Robert E. Lester, ed., Art Looting and Nazi Germany (Bethesda, MD: LexisNexis, 2002), p. v.
77Rotraut Wolf, “Nachruf Peter Paulsen 1902–1985,” Fundberichte aus Baden-Württemberg 10 (1985): 727–728.
78Ibid.
79Gert Kerschbaumer, “Das Deutsche Haus der Natur zu Salzburg,” in Politik der Präsentation, ed. Herbert Posch, and Gottfried Fliedl (Vienna: Turia and Kant, 1996), p. 182.
80Ibid., pp. 182–183.
81Gottfried Fliedl, Das Haus der Natur in Salzburg als Institut des SS-Ahnenerbes, http://homepage.univie.ac.at/gottfried.fliedl/mouseion/hausdernatur.html.
82Personal communication, Dr. Dieter Jankuhn.
83Ibid.
84Ibid.
85Heiko Steuer, “Herbert Jankuhn und seine Darstellungen zur Germanen-und Wikingerzeit,” in Eine hervorragend nationale Wissenschaft, ed. Heiko Steuer, (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2001), p. 425.
86Personal communication, Dr. Dieter Jankuhn.
87“Nachruf. Dr. phil. Herbert Jankuhn,” Georg-August Universität Göttingen, October 1990.
88Personal communication, Dr. Anders Hagen.
89Anders became so worried that the courageous resistance of Norwegian archaeologists against Jankuhn and the Ahnenerbe would be forgotten that he wrote an article on the subject in 1985 and published it in a prominent Norwegian archaeological journal, Viking. Jankuhn had retired from teaching by then, but he remained active in European archaeology, working as a consultant for the Commission for Antiquities Studies in Middle and Northern Europe in Göttingen. Soon after the article was published, one of Hagen’s students translated the article into German and passed it around among archaeological students in Germany. Most, noted Hagen, had never heard of the Ahnenerbe and had little idea that one of the leading figures in German archaeology had played such an important role in it. “They were shocked,” recalled Hagen. “They hadn’t heard about this.”
90“Gedächtnisprotokoll. Unterredung Dr. Herbert Jankuhn und Michael H. Kater,” 14.05.1963, IfZ, ZS/A-25, vol. 1.
91Personal communication, Dr. Dieter Jankuhn.
92Völkischer Beobachter, 06.07.1941, as quoted in Victor and Victoria Trimondi, Hitler, Buddha, Krishna, p. 39.
93Wüst to Sievers, 13.11.1944, BA (ehem. BDC) Ahnenerbe: Wüst, Walther (07.05.1901); Wüst. “Garantieschein.” 01.11.44. BA, R51/10146.
94That the institute was an integral part of the Ahnenerbe can be seen from a letter that Wüst wrote to Himmler’s personal staff on February 6, 1944. In this letter, Wüst notes that Hirt’s experiments “are conducted under the Institute for Military Scientific Research in the Amt Ahnenerbe.” StA Mchn. Stanw 34878/75.
95“Results of Detailed Interrogation, Prof. Dr. Walther Wüst,” AIC NO. 1760. n.d. StA Mchn. SpKa Karton 2015, Wüst Walther.
96Minister fur politische Befreiung, Bayern. “Entwurf.” 18.03.1953, BHA, MSo 1921; Wüst to Hauptkammer Munich, 27.06.1952, StA Mchn. SpkA K2015.
97Prof. Gustav Freytag to Wüst, 05.08.1954, BStM, Ana 625: Correspondence.
98Personal communication, Dr. Helmut Humbach.
99Adalbert Rückerl, NS-Verbrechen vor Gericht (Heidelberg: C.F. Müller, 1984) pp. 139–167.
100Zentrale Stelle Ludwigsburg, “Vermerk über Sievers Tagebücher,” 18.05.1967, StA Mchn. Stanw 34878/1.
101Max Vogt, “Aktenvermerk,” 24.11.1969, StA Mchn, Stanw 34878/5. Recent efforts by several researchers to locate Wüst’s missing records have also met with failure.
102Staatsanwalt München I, 23.03.1972, StA Mchn, Stanw 34878/10; Staatsanwalt München I, 13.06.1972, StA Mchn, Stanw 34878/10.
103Wüst to Pers. Stab., 06.02.1944, StA Mchn, Stanw 34878/75.
104“I. Die Angeschuldigten: Lebenslauf, Dr. Bruno Beger,” p. 6, Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971. IfZ, Gf 03.32; Grau to Sievers, 19.12.44, BA, NS 21/39; Beger to Sievers, ? 02.45, BA, NS 21/39.
105“Urteil. II. Der Angeklagte Dr. Beger,” p. 10, Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–-04.1971. IfZ, Gf 03.32.
106Ibid.
107The publishing house was run by Margarete Landé and therein lies a very complicated story. Landé was a German woman of Jewish ancestry who was raised as a Christian and who entered into a close and rather enigmatic relationship with Clauss. Clauss was a handsome, charismatic man who attracted much adulation from his female students. During the war, Clauss was accused of breaking the Nazi racial laws by employing Landé. Beger intervened on behalf of Clauss, helping to get him off. Clauss then proceeded to hide Landé at his hunting lodge, where Beger finally discovered her. But Beger kept the information secret, quite possibly out of his deep friendship for Clauss. For further details, see Peter Weingart, Doppel-Leben (Frankfurt am Main.: Campus, 1995).
108“I. Die Angeschuldigten: Lebenslauf, Dr. Bruno Beger,” p. 6, Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971. IfZ, Gf 03.32.
109Personal communication, Bruno Beger. See also Vareschi, “Dienstvertrag,” 15.06.1943, NARA, T81/130/163316; “Urteil I. Die Angeschuldigten: Lebenslauf und politischer Werdegang,” Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971; “Zeuge Prof. Clauss 30.10.1962,” Voruntersuchungsache gegen Dr. Beger, StA Mchn, Stanw. 34878/13.
110Bruno Beger, Mit der deutschen Tibetexpedition Ernst Schäfer 193S/39 nach Lhasa (Wiesbaden: Schwarz, 1998), p. 5.
111Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971. HHA, 4 Ks 1/70.
112“Urteil. V. Die Beteiligung des Angeklagten Dr. Beger,” pp. 33–34. Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971. IfZ, Gf 03.32.
113Max Kaase, “Demokratische Einstellungen in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland,” Sozialwissenschaftliches Jahrbuch fur Politik, vol. 2, ed. Rudolf Wildenmann (Munich: Olzog, 1971), Vol. 2, p.325.
114“Strafverfahren gegen Dr. Beger, Dr. Fleischhacker und Wolff wegen Beihilfe zum Mord,” IfZ, ZS/A-25, vol.1.pp. 20–21.
115Ibid; “Im Namen des Volkes: Strafsache gegen Beger und Wolff,” Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971. StA Mchn, Stanw 34878/93. See also “SS-Anthropologe Beger zu drei Jahren Freiheitsstrafe verurteilt,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, April 7, 1971, p. 8.
116“Strafverfahren gegen Dr. Beger, Dr. Fleischhacker und Wolff wegen Beihilfe zum Mord,” IfZ, ZS/A-25, vol.1.pp. 20.-21; “Im Namen des Volkes: Strafsache gegen Beger und Wolff,” Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971. StA Mchn, Stanw 34878/93.
117“Urteil gegen Beger,” Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971. StA Mchn, Stanw 34878/93.
118The four prisoners listed in a letter of commendation that Sievers sent at Beger’s request to the commander of the Auschwitz camp were Ludwig Wörl, Kasimir Kott, Josef Weber, and Adolf Laatsch. Ludwig Wörl was born in Munich on February 28, 1906. He was arrested for his political activities as a Communist and imprisoned first in Dachau and deported to Auschwitz on August 20, 1942. There he became a Blockältester, or senior block prisoner in charge of a barrack. Josef Weber, also known as Józef Weber, was born in Poland on July 27, 1920. He, too, was arrested as a political prisoner and transported to Auschwitz on May 2, 1941. Kasimir Kott, also known as Kazimierz Kot, was born in Poland on February 11, 1914. He arrived in Auschwitz on May 22, 1942, as a political prisoner. Adolf Laatsch was born on April 18, 1892, in the German city of Witten. He was sent first to Dachau, and then to Auschwitz on April 1, 1943. There he quickly became a Blockältester responsible for one of the camp barracks. Sievers to Commander of KZ Auschwitz, 22.07.1943, BA, NS 21/907; Jerzy Wróblewski, Panstwowe Muzeum Auschwitz-Birkenau, to Charlotte Stenberg, 24.03.2005, collection of the author; personal communication, Professor Rudolf Vrba. Professor Vrba is not only one of the few prisoners who succeeded in escaping from Auschwitz, but he also coauthored The Vrba Wetzler Report in 1944, which described the Auschwitz killing machine, supplied estimates of the numbers of Jews murdered, and warned that an additional eight hundred thousand Hungarian Jews were in danger of extermination at Auschwitz. Professor Vrba knew one of the prisoners, Ludwig Wörl, personally,
119“Urteil gegen Beger,” Frankfurter Schwurgericht. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971. StA Mchn, Stanw 34878/93; “Im Namen des Volkes: Strafsache gegen Beger und Wolff,” Frankfurter Schwurgerichts. Strafverfahren gegen Bruno Beger, Hans Fleischhacker, Wolf-Dietrich Wolff. 27.10.1970–06.04.1971. StA Mchn. Stanw34878/93.
120Beger to author, 03.10.2004, author’s collection.
1Ashley Montagu, Statement on Race (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972) p. 143.
2Ibid., p. 146.
3Ibid., p. 146.
4Some of the most famous inner emigrants include poet and novelist Ricarda Huch, sculptor and playwright Ernst Barlach, composer Carl Orff, and the artist Emil Nolde. Personal communication, Dr. Peter Stenberg.