“Battle of Jordan . . .” To the Allies, this battle was known as the First Attack on Amman.
Chapter Two
“Although he came from a comfortable . . .” Alfred Alexander wrote about the death of his mother in his Little Red Book, an unpublished series of remembrances about his life. After graduation he went on to study medicine in Munich, determined to find a cure for leukemia. He had qualified as a general practitioner with top marks and was offered a prestigious job at Frankfurt’s city hospital, but only if he agreed to convert to Christianity. While Alfred was not particularly religious, he was also unwilling to compromise his identity for the sake of professional advancement. Instead, he accepted a lower-paid training position in Berlin. The following year Alfred’s mother had been struck down by severe heart and asthma attacks. Arriving at her bedside, he was told that there was no way to prolong her life, “which to me was the most precious thing on earth.” He “begged” her doctors to administer morphine to put her out of her misery. One doctor was “outraged at this damaging suggestion,” but the other consented. Her last words were, “Thank you, dear boy.” Heartbroken after his mother’s death, Dr. Alexander gave up the search for a cure and returned to Berlin to start up a general practice.
“This book inspired the boys . . .” As Hanns and Paul grew up, their pranks became more ambitious and elaborate. One day, for instance, they were fighting on a streetcar on the way to school and broke the glass partition behind the driver, damage for which their father had to pay. On another occasion, and rather more seriously, they unhooked a streetcar while the driver was having tea in a little hut nearby, and then pushed the car up the line, derailing it. Nobody found out who was responsible for the vandalism. When Hanns recalled this incident seventy years later he thought it amusing, clearly unconcerned about the inconvenience, not to say danger, that he and his brother had caused.
“The production of the Torah . . .” The nineteenth verse of Deuteronomy, chapter 31, states: “Now write down this song and teach it to the Israelites and have them sing it.” Accordingly, the 613th and final commandment dictates that each Jew should write or have commissioned a Sefer Torah during their lifetime, and that producing a Sefer Torah is considered a holy task or mitzvah. As such, the commissioning of the Alexander Torah brought a blessing upon Moses Alexander and the entire Alexander family, including Alfred and his son Hanns. When he had first arrived in Berlin, Dr. Alexander had offered to lend the Torah to the Neue Synagogue, but had been told that they would not accept it on loan. Hence, it was stored in a cupboard in the doctor’s library.
Chapter Three
“A little later . . .” Under the armistice, Germany had agreed to remove its forces from the Baltic region, but the British government had proven willing to delay the withdrawal if it meant stopping the Russians from taking control of Latvia, a bulwark against any westward spread of Bolshevik power.
“It is not clear . . .” While in his memoirs Rudolf remembers going straight from Mannheim to East Prussia, Rudolf probably first met up with Rossbach in Berlin, as it was here that Rossbach was amassing his men before they set off for the Balkans. It is possible he served first with the East Prussian Volunteer Corps, as is recorded in his SS personnel file.
“After being pushed out of Riga . . .” The Freikorps also turned their attention to domestic politics, for instance when Rossbach and his men occupied the Reichstag in support of Wolfgang Kapp’s failed putsch, which for four days overthrew the government. Rudolf’s role in this uprising is not clear.
“During the party, Rossbach . . .” Robert Waite describes Rossbach’s celebration in his book Vanguard of Nazism, p. 196, and is sourced from a Munich Post newspaper.
“As the group walked through the doors . . .” This description of Hitler’s Kindlkeller speech and the beer hall comes from Ernst Franz Sedgwick Hanfstaengl. This speech is most likely the same one that Höss heard, as it coincides with his membership day as well as with Rossbach’s anniversary.
“Martin Bormann . . .” Martin Bormann was a twenty-two-year-old with a stocky build and a mouth that seemed permanently downturned. He had dropped out of school to become a supervisor on a farm in Mecklenburg, which is where he had met Rudolf in 1922. Following Rudolf’s suggestion, Bormann had joined the Nazi Party soon after.
“Rudolf, Bormann and the others joined Kadow . . .” This description of Kadow’s murder was revealed in court and described by the Times, March 17, 1924.
“Rudolf had been unworried . . .” Höss’s assumption about the “unspoken agreement” between the government and the Freikorps, which he hoped would result in the shortening of his prison sentence, was actually misguided. The Bavarian government may have accelerated the release of some right-wing supporters, but this was not the case for the Prussian government (who had jurisdiction over his crime).
“On November 9, Hitler . . .” This description of the Munich beer hall incident and Hitler’s quote comes from the Times, November 10, 1923. Since his speech at the Munich Kindlkeller, Hitler had had great success in growing the party: more than 35,000 new members had been recruited between February and November 1923, bringing the total to 55,000. He had also built up the military wing of the party, the Sturmabteilung or SA, which was filled with former First World War soldiers and veterans of the Freikorps. Yet despite Hitler’s fundraising and recruitment trips around the country, including to Berlin, the party’s core membership had been limited to Munich and its surrounding areas.
“He studied English, so that . . .” According to his SS personnel records, Rudolf could speak English fluently.
Chapter Four
“The family used the cottage . . .” Another favorite summer pastime was climbing one of the garden’s cherry trees and then competing as to who could spit the pips out the farthest, or who could hold the most pips in their mouth. No matter how much he tried, Hanns always lost to his eldest sister. Bella was the champion at both efforts, with an unbeatable record of thirty-four pips stuffed into her cheeks. Well into old age, Hanns and his siblings often kept a pip tucked under their top lip, only to realize that it was still there when they ate another cherry or when they visited the dentist.
“In terms of their studies . . .” “They didn’t do very well at school, the darlings,” remembered Bella many years later. “I don’t think they ever worked very hard.”
“Throughout his childhood . . .” The Alexanders kept a record of their famous visitors, with Henny asking each to add their name to a guest book. For Dr. Alexander’s fiftieth birthday party in 1930, many attendees added sketches and publicity photographs along with their good wishes. The names included: Hanns Purrmann, Hans Joachim Pagels, Emil W. Herz, Albert Einstein (thanking Alexander for his human kindness following the death of Einstein’s uncle), James Franck, Leonhard Frank, Rudolf Kayser, Alfred Polgar, Walter Hasenclever, Fritzi Massary, Max Pallenberg, Paul Hartmann, Sybille Binder, Alice Nikitina, Molly Wessely, Erik Charell, Paul Wegener, Max Reinhardt, Grete Scherk, Olga and Bruno Eisner, Sabine Kalter. There was also a photo of retired colonel Otto Meyer, Alfred’s commander in the First World War.
“or Albert Einstein eating at their dinner table . . .” One evening, for example, Hanns looked through the dining room door and saw Albert Einstein and his wife eating with his parents—the professor absent-mindedly still sporting his house slippers. After dinner Alfred escorted his guest to the salon to take coffee, intending to quiz him about the theory of relativity on Henny’s behalf. But when Alfred returned to his wife later that evening, he failed to produce an answer: the two had become so engrossed in discussing the latest detective novels, a passion they both shared, that he had forgotten to ask.
“Hanns also mixed with his parents’ friends . . .” Hanns was well used to fancy dress. As an infant, and then later as a young man, he had been forced to wear the same costume as his brother. In order to obtain a crisp image, they had to hold their pose for many minutes, as their father—who fancied himself a photogra
pher—fiddled with the camera equipment. The tedium of these photo shoots was not helped by Henny, who walked around telling the boys that they looked “sehr schön,” very beautiful. When they were very young they had been dressed in brown rabbit costumes, with pointy silk-lined ears, soft woolen mittens and stubby silken tails. A few years later, they had been photographed wearing lederhosen, white shirts and little black boots. When they were in their teens, they had worn matching sailor outfits, with long woolen gray coats, leather gloves and a round hat with a ribbon strapped around its rim and hanging off to one side. This delight in costumes did eventually rub off on Hanns; many years later, he would organize his own fancy-dress parties, where he would greet his guests wearing a nurse’s uniform, complete with starched white hat, white dress, black canvas belt around the waist, stockings and black buckled shoes.
“Their bar mitzvahs now complete . . .” To hear Hanns’s tape-recorded account of his bar mitzvah is to hear an echo of his thirteen-year-old self: one can still hear a boy, less than thrilled that he had been forced to perform in the ceremony and completely unaware that his world was about to be turned inside out.
Chapter 5
“After the ceremony the newlyweds posed . . .” When I visited Brigitte in her home in Virginia, in the United States, I noticed her parents’ wedding photograph—Rudolf and Hedwig Höss—still hanging on the wall above her bed.
“At this time the SS was made up of only a few . . .” According to the historian Peter Longerich, the number of SS members may in fact be lower, as this “few hundred” figure comes from Himmler and he may have been inflating his achievements in building up the organization.
“Like a nursery gardener . . .” This quote on the qualities that Himmler was looking for in an SS member is taken from his speech given on January 19, 1943.
“The SS officer reviewing this application . . .” Peter Longerich provides a good description of the formation of the SS and the application process in his biography Heinrich Himmler.
“Although it was no longer the romantic . . .” Rudolf’s daughter Brigitte remembered the family’s time in Dachau as “wonderful” and “very pleasant.”
“He had mastered a new skill . . .” Hedwig knew that Rudolf was a senior camp officer and that the inmates were political prisoners. But the oath of silence that all SS soldiers pledged would have insulated Hedwig from the more disturbing incidents taking place inside the Dachau camp walls.
Chapter Six
“The boycott of Jewish businesses . . .” On March 26, 1933, Hitler had met with Joseph Goebbels, the newly appointed propaganda minister, and talked to him about what he saw as the greatest remaining threat to national security: the German Jews and their international supporters. According to a note made in Goebbels’s diary, Hitler said that the solution was a large-scale boycott of all Jewish businesses in Germany. Hitler added, “Perhaps the foreign Jews will think better of the matter when their racial comrades in Germany begin to get it in the neck.”
“The Reichstag fire . . .” Bella would return to Berlin a few months later for her wedding celebration. But the move out of the house and overseas had been made.
“That night the rabbi . . .” Hanns later said that the rabbi was being “theatrical,” realizing the impact that his delayed arrival would have.
“To protect themselves . . .” In an interview Hanns said: “We were trained on how to give answers to the Nazis when they attacked us as ‘dirty Jews.’ What one should say and what one should do. There was a book called the Anti Anti. They were the anti-Semitics and we were the anti anti-Semitics.”
“Regardless of the new laws . . .” In a taped interview with his nephew John Alexander, sixty years later, Hanns remembered this small act of resistance with satisfaction: “I was very keen on ice hockey. We just went, nobody took any notice. It was not for the public, but we managed to get in somehow. It wasn’t done, one knew when one was not wanted. There was probably a notice saying ‘Juden raus!’ (‘Jews Out!’). We shouldn’t have gone, but we were a law unto ourselves.”
“The first step was to secure . . .” Prior to obtaining an entry visa to a new country, Hanns had to secure an exit certificate from the German authorities. Hanns’s document cost 10 RM and was signed by the Berlin chief of police. The certificate reads: “The official document Homeland certificate (for a stay abroad). Mr. Hanns Hermann Alexander, born 6th May 1917 in Berlin. Holds German nationality. This certificate is valid until 31st December 1936. Dated Berlin, 10th June 1936. Signed by the Chief of Police. The holder of this certificate must sign himself before he presents it to a foreign authority.” It is a mystery, at least to me, why the Berlin exit certificate is dated on 10 June 1936, eight days after Hanns arrived in Croydon.
“The next day, Hanns woke early and walked to the British . . .” The British consulate was run by Frank Foley, who had built a good reputation within the Berlin Jewish community. Indeed, between 1936 and 1939, Foley’s office would enable more than 10,000 Jews to leave Germany. In 1999 he was honored by Yad Vashem as one of the Righteous Among Nations.
“Individuals with significant assets . . .” The original Reich Escape Tax was only levied on individuals with assets exceeding 200,000 Reichsmarks, or had a yearly income of over 20,000 Reichsmarks. At the time, the RM was set at a rate of 6.7 RM per pound sterling, therefore 200,000 RM was equivalent to £30,000 (or approximately £440,000 in today’s money). These figures were lowered in 1934, resulting in a much larger number of people having to pay the tax and creating a larger impediment to departure. The new asset threshold figure was now only 50,000 RM (equivalent to about £100,000 today). In the 1950s, the West German government passed a law to repay Jews whose assets had been confiscated by the Nazis. The Alexanders never received funds for the clinic, since they had sold it (rather than abandoning it), despite it being under duress and for non-market value.
“Hanns arrived at Croydon Airport . . .” Imperial Airways blazed the trail of early commercial flight, having established the first daily flight from London to Paris a little over a decade before in 1924. However, flying Imperial could also be dangerous. By June 1936, seven of their planes had crashed, including one accident when a plane caught fire shortly after taking off in Croydon, killing the pilot and all seven passengers.
“as the Nazis were still keen . . .” The Nazi government expedited the Jewish exodus by increasing pressure through restrictive laws and violence (particularly Kristallnacht), approving exit visas, and even negotiating with the authorities in Palestine to accept Jewish refugees. The view of the Nazi leadership at this time was that if there were fewer Jews in the country then there would be fewer Jews to take care of later. In January 1933, there were 523,000 Jews in Germany, a third of them in Berlin. By September 1939, more than 202,000 Jews remained in Germany, most of them elderly.
“Hilde took Henny at her word . . .” When the boxes were unpacked in their new home in London, the Alexanders found all their belongings intact, Dr. Alexander’s First World War uniform among them. Later Hanns and Paul worried that a Kaiser outfit might not make such a good impression with their new English neighbors. So one night the twins crept out of their rooms and discarded the uniform piece by piece in rubbish bins up and down Kensington High Street: the shiny pike helmet went in one bin, the tasseled jacket in another, the boots in another. The one thing Dr. Alexander would not let the twins throw away was his Iron Cross First Class. He kept it in its green box, tucked away in a desk drawer.
“At the camp he witnessed . . .” One of the atrocities Paul Graetz may have witnessed during his time in Sachsenhausen was the deaths of twelve Jewish men who had refused to follow a guard’s orders. They were beaten to death with sticks.
“As soon as Ann’s father made it home . . .” According to his daughter-in-law, Antonia Grey (or “Tonny,” as she is known by her family members), Paul Graetz was haunted by his eighteen days in Sachsenhausen for the rest of his life. Even in his last few days—fifty years later
, in a London hospice—Paul Graetz called out in terror, pleading for a camp guard not to beat him.
“Then, one month later, on July 24, 1939 . . .” The Ausbürgerungslisten were published in the Reich Gazette, the official newspaper of the German government under the Nazis. Over 390 lists were published with over 39,000 names. The final list was published in 1945.
Chapter Seven
“One of these guards was Josef Kramer . . .” At the end of his prison memoirs Rudolf describes many of the men he worked with over the years—Himmler, Glücks, Maurer, Pohl, for example. But he does not discuss Josef Kramer in any detail, even though he worked closely with him for many years. However, Rudolf had sufficient respect for his former adjutant to approve Kramer’s appointment as Kommandant of Belsen.
“In November 1940 . . .” This meeting between Rudolf Höss and Heinrich Himmler was likely to have taken place in Berlin, for there is no record of Himmler having visited the camp at this time.
“The children transformed the villa . . .” Much of the material from this section concerning the life of the Höss family in Auschwitz comes from a series of interviews I conducted with Rudolf’s second daughter, Brigitte. It took me more than three years to find her, persuade her to talk, and eventually meet.
‘Angel of Auschwitz . . .’ This praise for Hedwig was echoed by Anieli Bednarskiej, a young woman who lived in the town of Oświęcim. Though not a prisoner, Anieli worked in the Höss villa from 1940 to 1943. In testimony provided after the war, she said, “Frau Höss behaved towards me in a very decent manner. She tried to persuade me to sign the ‘Volksliste’ [in which a non-German citizen could declare themselves German]. When I refused she didn’t try to persuade me further.”
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