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“The Situation is Once Again Quiet”: Gestapo Crimes in the Rhineland, Fall 1944

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 March 2012

Michael P. McConnell
Michael P. McConnell
Affiliation:
University of Tennessee-Knoxville
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Extract

On the morning of October 25, 1944, eleven foreign workers were transported from their overcrowded cells in the infamous Brauweiler prison to the Cologne neighborhood of Ehrenfeld. Upon arrival the prisoners were forced to mount a gallows constructed in an abandoned concrete lot next to an elevated train line. In front of a large crowd of assembled onlookers and police, the accused were executed for crimes ranging from petty theft to armed resistance. Their executioners cataloged their handiwork from start to finish in a detailed series of photographs that revealed that for one unfortunate, the gallows proved too short, forcing the victim to be “assisted” by a plainclothes Gestapo officer who held his legs until he expired.

Type
Articles
Information
Central European History , Volume 45 , Issue 1 , March 2012 , pp. 27 - 49
Copyright
Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 2012

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References

1 These photographs are now housed in the Historisches Archiv, Stadt Köln. Duplicates may be found in the photographic archive of the United States Holocaust Memorial, Washington, D.C. (hereafter USHMMA).

2 Nordrhein-Westfälisches Hauptstaatarchiv Düsseldorf (hereafter HStAD), RW 34-8, 2; RW 37-24, 45; RW 37-11, 44. The figure of 200,000 evacuees is a rough estimate taken from a combined total of numbers mentioned in the after-action reports of the Cologne Gestapo and Order Police units. The real number is unknown due to the fragmented source material and is probably much higher.

3 Unfortunately due to space constraints only a brief essay of the historiography is possible and will include the main works. Rusinek's, Bernd-A.Gesellschaft in der Katastrophe. Terror, Illegalität, Widerstand, Köln 1944–45 (Essen: Klartext, 1989)Google Scholar is the most comprehensive examination of conditions inside Cologne in fall 1944. The work astutely reconsiders the activities of German youth gangs in the city and convincingly debunks much of the postwar mythology surrounding the resistance work allegedly conducted by these groups. Unfortunately, due to its focus, the study does not address the events that occurred in the surrounding hinterland and therefore does not reveal the true extent of the violence that occurred in the left-bank region. Several essays in the two-volume anthology edited by Paul, Gerhard and Mallmann, Klaus-Michael, Die Gestapo. Mythos und Realität (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1995)Google Scholar, and Die Gestapo im Zweiten Weltkrieg. “Heimatfront” und beseztes Europa (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2000)Google Scholar, also address crimes committed in the region during the regime's final months as part of larger overviews of Gestapo activity during the end of the war. These essays reveal the most adequate explanations for the motives for these atrocities and touch on the connections to police operations in eastern Europe. Yet, because of their broad nature, the articles lack a closer examination of these experiences' influence on late-war atrocities. Both volumes also aptly examine the organizational structure of the Nazi security apparatus and chart the evolution of its radicalization. Gellately's, RobertBacking Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Johnson's, EricNazi Terror: The Gestapo, Jews, and Ordinary Germans (New York: Basic Books, 1999)Google Scholar peripherally address the fall 1944 events in Cologne as part of their larger studies on public opinion. Bessel's, RichardGermany 1944: From War to Peace (New York: HarperCollins, 2009)Google Scholar weaves the events in the Rhineland into a comprehensive study of the collapse of the Third Reich.

4 HStAD, RW 37-7, 20. Zumbro, Derek S., Battle for the Ruhr: The German Army's Final Defeat in the West (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2006), 9, 22–23, 27Google Scholar.

5 Rusinek, Gesellschaft in der Katastrophe, 103. Kenkmann, Alfons, Wilde Junge. Lebenswelt großstädtischer Jugendlicher zwischen Weltwirtschaftkrise, Nationalsozialismus und Wahrungsreform (Essen: Klartext Verlag, 2002), 240Google Scholar. Burgdorff, Stephan and Habbe, Christian, eds., Als Feuer vom Himmel fiel. Der Bombenkrieg in Deutschland (Munich: Spiegel Verlag, 2003), 21Google Scholar.

6 USHMMA, RG-68.017M, R58, fiche 990; HStAD, RW 34-8, 1-2.

7 Beck, Earl, Under the Bombs: The German Home Front 1942–1945 (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1986), 151–152Google Scholar; National Archives (hereafter NARA), RG 242, T175, Roll 224, Frame 2762605.

8 HStAD, RW 34-8, 1; RW 37-7, 43; RW 37-21, 42. Rusinek, Gesellschaft in der Katastrophe, 195.

9 HStAD, RW 34-8, 10, 14; RW 37-21, 58; NARA, RG242, T175, Roll 240, Frame 2729942.

10 See Herbert, Ulrich, Hitler's Foreign Workers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985)Google Scholar, 1, for statistics on estimated total number of foreign workers inside the Reich. While no figures exist for the entire left-bank region of the Rhineland, Cologne had become home to roughly thirty thousand foreign workers by 1944. Rusinek, Gesellschaft in der Katastrophe, 341.

11 See USHMMA, RG-68.017M, R58, Fiche 992, for a report concerning the morale of foreign workers. The report lacks a publication date, but the research guide lists it as dating from February 1944 and some comments, such as the locations of Russian forces in the Ukraine, coincide with the period.

12 Gerhard Paul, “Kampfende Verwaltung. Das Amt IV des Reichssicherheitshauptamtes als Führungsinstanz der Gestapo,” in Die Gestapo im Zweiten Weltkrieg. “Heimatfront” und beseztes Europa, ed. Paul and Mallmann, 45; Wildt, Michael, Generation des Unbedingten. Das Führungskorps des Reichssicherheitshauptamtes (Hamburg: HIS Verlag, 2003), 24Google Scholar.

13 Wildt, Generation, 73, 79.

14 NARA, RG242, A3343 (SO) Roll 343. Rüter, C. F. and Mildt, D. W. de, eds., Justiz und NS Verbrechen. Die Deutschen Strafverfahren wegen Nationalsozialistischen Tötungsverbrechern, vol. 23 (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2007), 133–134Google Scholar.

15 Wildt, Generation, 137–142.

16 Rüter, and de Mildt, , eds., Justiz und NS Verbrechen, vol. 5, 1–91Google Scholar; Wagner, Patrick, Hitlers Kriminalisten. Die deutsche Kriminalpolizei und der Nationalsozialismus (Munich: C. H. Beck, 2002), 94Google Scholar.

17 Stokes, Lawrence D., “From Law Student to Einsatzgruppe Commander: The Career of a Gestapo Officer,” The Canadian Journal of History 37 (2002): 52–64Google Scholar; NARA, RG242, A3343 (RS), Roll 343 Personnel file of Kurt Matschke; Rüter and de Mildt, eds., Justiz und NS Verbrechen, vol. 12, 585–599.

18 Paul, “Kampfende Verwaltung,” 68. Paul notes that an estimated seventy-five percent of Gestapo personnel spent part of their careers outside the borders of the Reich. See also Rüter and de Mildt, eds., Justiz und NS Verbrechen, vol. 23, 156; Bernd-A. Rusinek, “‘Wat denkste, wat mir objerümt han.’ Massenmord und Spurenbeseitigung am Beispiel der Staatspolizeistelle Köln 1944/1945,” in Die Gestapo, ed. Paul and Mallmann, 409.

19 HStAD, RW 34-31, 80.

20 HStAD, RW 34-10, 74-75; RW 34-31, 53-56. See also NARA, RG242, T175, Roll 250, Frame 2741687; Roll 224, Frame 2762041; and Wildt, Generation, 698–699.

21 Gellately, Backing Hitler, 231; and NARA, RG 242, Roll 30, Frame 2537746.

22 HStAD, RW 34-8, 1-6; RW 37-21, 145.

23 HStAD, RW 37-11, Oct. 30, 1944, notes the average age of police personnel as fifty-two; RW 37-21, 176; NARA, RG242, T175, Roll 488, Frame 9348895; Roll 224 Frames 2762934-276939. For more on the history and wartime activities of the order police, see Westerman, Edward, Hitler's Police Battalions: Enforcing Racial War in the East (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 2005)Google Scholar; NARA, RG 319, File XE019542.

24 HStAD, RW 34-8, 3; RW 34-31, 34; RW 37-21, 114-115; RW 37-11, 34-36; NARA, RG242, T175, Roll 487 Frame 9348200, Nov. 14; Roll 30, Frame 2537746, Dec. 12, 1944; Roll 157, Frame 2688995.

25 NARA, RG242, T175, Roll 488, Frame 9348895; Roll 157, Frame 2687793; Roll 224, Frames 2763257-2763258, 2763219. HStAD, RW 34-21, 62; RW 37-7, 57. The Gestapo also sought to capitalize on the chaotic nature of the border region and insert its own spies and saboteurs behind the American lines.

26 HStAD, RW 34-8, 1-6; RW 37-7, 57. For more on the conduct of anti-partisan warfare in eastern Europe, see Gerlach, Christian, Kalkulierte Morde. Die deutsche Wirtschafts- und Vernichtungspolitik in Weissrussland 1941 bis 1944 (Hamburg: HIS Verlag, 2000)Google Scholar; and Shephard, Ben, “Hawks, Doves, and Toten Zonen: A Wehrmacht Security Division in Central Russia, 1943,” Journal of Contemporary History 37, no. 3 (July 2002): 349–369CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 NARA, RG242, T175, Roll 471, Frame 2729942; Roll 30, Frame 2537746; Roll 224, Frames 2763258, 2763041-2763042.

28 HStAD, RW, 34-31, 53-56; RW 37-7, 33; RW 37-21, 58, 161.

29 NARA, RG242, T175, Roll 224, Frame 2729942, 2762932; Roll 471, Frame 2729942. See also RG242, T1021, Roll 17, Frames 556-582, Feb. 4, 1945, which includes a list of 677 prisoners destined for transport to concentration camps, sent from Klingelpütz prison to the Cologne Gestapo, giving evidence that prisoners were transported from other posts in the outlying region. Most Germans listed were sent from the Cologne office in late November and early December, during the height of operations to consolidate the city. The list documents a broad range of age groups, the youngest being seventeen years old and the oldest seventy; a mother and her daughter were also listed. Offenses ranged from looting and propagating anti-regime propaganda and remarks, to black marketeering.

30 See HStAD, RW 34-10, 74-75; RW 34-30, 79, for a list of eighty prisoners executed by the Erkelenz commando from Sept. 21, 1944, to Dec. 21, 1944. Of the eight Germans executed, one was accused of looting, and the other seven of crimes connected to resistance or attempts to cross enemy lines. RW 37–7, 57; RW 37–11, 44.

31 Herbert, Hitler's Foreign Workers, 361–362.

32 Ibid., 360.

33 NARA, RG242 Roll 471, Frame 2729942; HStAD, RW 34–8, 50, 61.

34 NARA, RG242, T175, Roll 240, Frame 2728942. Kenkmann, Wilde Junge, 228–230.

35 Kenkmann, Wilde Junge, 77, 83-86. NARA, RG242, T175, Roll 277, Frame 5487839.

36 Gellately, Backing Hitler, 97-99. See USHMMA, RG-68.017M, R58, Fiche 1027 (RSHA), May 26, 1941, for an RSHA document pertaining to the creation and use of AELs. For more on the history of the AELs, see Lofti, Gabriele, KZ der Gestapo. Arbeitserziehungslager im Dritten Reich (Munich: Deutsche Anstalt Verlag, 2000)Google Scholar.

37 HStAD, RW 34-8, 1-6, 10, 67-70; RW 34-30, 86. Rusinek, Gesellschaft in der Katastrophe, 268.

38 HStAD, RW 34-8, 74-77.

39 Ibid.

40 Kenkmann, Wilde Junge, 255–259. Fritz, Stephen, EndKampf: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Death of the Third Reich (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2004), 219Google Scholar. Biddiscombe, Perry, “The Enemy of our Enemy: A View of the Edelweiss Piraten From the British and American Archives,” Journal of Contemporary History 30 (Jan. 1995): 48–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Rusinek, Gesellschaft in der Katastrophe, 90, 124–125.

41 See Rüter and de Mildt, eds., Justiz und NS Verbrechen, vol. V, 189, 740; and NARA, RG242, T175, Roll 471 (RFSS) Frame 2729942, Dec. 10, 1944, Oct. 31, 1944, Nov. 27, 1944, Dec. 11, 1944, for Cologne Gestapo weekly situation reports. As noted in these reports, many suspects were apprehended due to tips from anonymous informers, illustrating that the Gestapo's network was still active and effective even as the Reich entered its final months. See also NARA, RG 242, T1021, Roll 17, Frames 556–582, Feb. 4, 1945.

42 NARA, RG242, T175, Roll 487, Frame 9348200.

43 NS-Dokumentation Zentrum Köln (hereafter NS-Dok K): Z 20614, Interview with Kazimierz Tarnawskj, Sept. 13, 1995; Z 20545, Interview with Marija Schabanowa, Sept. 22, 1991. For conditions inside EL DE Haus, see NARA, RG242, T175, Roll 471, Frame 2729942; RG 242, T1021, Roll 17, Frame 542. For conditions inside Klingelpütz prison, see Lofti, KZ der Gestapo, 272–273; Weymar, Paul, Conrad Adenauer, His Authorized Biography (New York: E. P. Dutton & Company, 1957), 139Google Scholar; Johnson, Eric, Nazi Terror: The Gestapo, Jews, and Ordinary Germans (New York: Basic Books, 1999), 348Google Scholar.

44 See Rüter and de Mildt, eds., Justiz und NS Verbrechern, vol. 5, 724–758.

45 Rüther, Martin, Köln im Zweiten Weltkrieg. Alltag und Erfahrungen zwischen 1939 und 1945 (Cologne: Emmons Verlag, 2005), 464–465Google Scholar. Daners, Hermann and Wisskirchen, Josef, Was in Brauweiler geschah. Die NS Zeit und ihre Folgen in der Rheinischen Provinzial-Arbeitsanstalt (Pulheim: Pulheim Verein für Geschichte, 2006), 121Google Scholar. Wachsmann, Nikolaus, Hitler's Prisons: Legal Terror in Nazi Germany (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004), 244, 308Google Scholar. Wachsmann notes that guards in Klingelpütz were encouraged to execute prisoners as they were paid an extra tobacco ration (300 extra cigarettes per month) and also were allowed to appropriate the property of the deceased. Lofti, KZ der Gestapo, 293, 290, 303-304. Johnson, Nazi Terror, 349. NARA, RG 242, T1021, Roll 17, Frame 551.

46 NARA, RG242, T175, Roll 224, Frames 272932, 2762041; Roll 606, Frame 35; Roll 229, Frame 2767630.

47 Zumbro, Battle for the Ruhr, 67-84. See NARA, RG 319, File XE019212, for a U.S. Army Intelligence report concerning the interrogation of Krefeld Kriminalsekretär Theodor Schommer. He told his interrogators that although the rest of the personnel evacuated the city, he remained, as he considered he had not done anything to warrant his arrest by the Americans.

48 HStAD, RW 34-31, 8. Noakes, Jeremy, ed., Nazism 1919–1945: A Documentary Reader. Volume 4, The German Home Front (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1998), 658–66Google Scholar. See Rüter, and de Mildt, , eds., Justiz und NS Verbrechen, vol. 13, 681, 685–686Google Scholar; Weymar, Adenauer, 146–150; Lofti, KZ der Gestapo, 297–310.