Hitler's First Victims

by Timothy W. Ryback

  Aron had planned for his client, the saddlemaker, to plead not guilty, since he had not yet admitted to the crime, but when it became evident that the other defendants had already identified him, Aron changed strategy, arguing that rising public opinion was calling for the lifting of the national ban on abortion. “It is only a matter of time until §218 will succumb to the long-standing call for change being demanded by millions of women and men,” he said, securing a reduction of his client’s sentence from eighteen months to one year. The Bamberger Volksblatt denounced Aron’s courtroom defense in an article warning of an “Epidemic of Abortions.”

  That December, Aron was back in court and in the headlines again, this time as the lead defense attorney for a group of Social Democratic activists following a violent clash with local Nazis. The incident had occurred on election night in July when the National Socialists secured a landslide victory in national elections. The Social Democrats were gathered that evening in the Nöth Restaurant on Schillerplatz to follow the election returns and deliberate on the results. Suddenly, a group of Nazis, celebrating the victory, approached the restaurant looking for a fight. “The attackers approached with rubber truncheons, leather straps, and steel rings,” one of Aron’s defendants observed. “We defended ourselves with garden chairs, broken chair legs, and logs that were stacked in the courtyard.” It took the police a full hour to quell the melee. More than a dozen of those injured were rushed to the hospital. Nazis and Social Democrats alike were arrested. The incident was dubbed “Slaughter on Schillerplatz.”

  During the trial, Aron took an aggressive stance against the National Socialists, insisting they had been the aggressors and countering the false claim that they had summoned the police when in fact they had rushed to find reinforcements. Most notably, Aron put not only the National Socialists but also the prosecution on the defensive. Why, Aron wanted to know, did the prosecution issue an indictment against Josef Dennstädt, head of the Social Democratic Party, but not against Lorenz Zahneisen, his National Socialist counterpart, even though Zahneisen had not only been present but had been seen “holding a nail-studded club”? The prosecutor provided an extended and evasive retort but eventually conceded before the court, “Because of new and concrete evidence found in the main trial, Zahneisen will have to undergo a criminal investigation as well.” The Freistaat hailed Aron as a town hero. A local pro-Nazi newspaper denounced him as a “Saujude,” or Jewish pig.

  Three months later, on the morning of March 10, Aron was taken into protective custody in the same sweep that caught Benario, Goldmann, and hundreds of others across Bavaria. Like Benario, Aron was held in local detention, where he passed his time studying for his upcoming law boards, unaware that instructions had already been given by the president of the examining board to cancel his participation in the exam because of his detention. “Should he be released from protective custody and try to continue his legal training,” the president ruled, “then he will be notified that he is until further notice on leave and will not be allowed to continue his preparatory work.” Two weeks later, Aron found himself in a world beyond the law.

  To put an end to Hartinger’s repeated intrusions, Himmler instructed Wäckerle to place the camp under martial law and to draft regulations under which detainees could be shot. The eighteen-paragraph set of “Special Regulations” outlined the rights and obligations of the concentration camp’s residents, including both detainees and SS personnel. Paragraph 1 was simple, declarative, and explicit: “The Collecting Camp Dachau falls under the rule of martial law.” The second paragraph established the inviolability of its borders: “In the case of a detainee’s attempt at escape, the guards and escort troops have the right to make use of their firearms without warning.” Here, the local regulations drew on the 1837 Prussian law that, much to Emil Gumbel’s dismay, had permitted soldiers to execute more than a thousand detainees with impunity. Infractions for which detainees could be punished included “intentionally lying,” “defying the camp regulations,” “offending or slandering,” “collecting signatures for a collective complaint,” and “being in any way in contact with or trying to contact someone outside of the camp without permission.” Paragraph 8 outlined four offenses for which a detainee could be executed:

  1. Anyone who tries to defend himself physically or resists the guard troops or members of the camp commando physically.

  2. Anyone who compels or tries to compel another prisoner to disobey the members of the camp administration or guard troops.

  3. Anyone who incites or tries to incite behavior mentioned under number 1 and 2.

  4. Anyone who participates in collective disobedience or a physical attack mentioned in number 1.

  From a juridical perspective, paragraph 18 was the most consequential. It bore the heading “Jurisdiction” and accorded the commandant his own legal jurisdiction within the camp perimeter and established a judicial process that was clear, simple, and comprehensive. “The jurisdiction within the camp and regarding the prisoners is exercised without exception by the commandant of the camp,” the regulation stipulated. “All cases that fall under paragraph 18 undergo trial in the camp court, which consists of the administration of the camp, one or two of the officers in charge, and one of the SS guards.” The prosecutors were to be selected by the commandant from among the SS. In case a decision could not be reached, the commandant was to cast the deciding vote. In the absence of the commandant, the powers devolved to his deputy. In six brief pages, the Dachau Concentration Camp was transformed into the smallest jurisdiction in the country.

  On May 15, a bright spring day with warming temperatures, three transports arrived in Dachau, two from Nuremberg and one from Bamberg, adding ninety-five detainees to the camp population. As usual, the trucks roared through the gate and stopped on the square in front of the commandant’s office. A clutch of SS guards stood waiting, pizzles twitching expectantly in their hands, but this time the camp legal counsel Otto Franck was there to oversee the arrivals. As the men tumbled out of the transport, an SS guard identified a short, balding man in his late fifties. “Here we have the Jewish pig Schloss,” he called out. “Do with him whatever you want.” Louis Schloss was a shopkeeper from Nuremberg who had been featured repeatedly in Der Stürmer as a “typical Jewish pig.” Franck commanded Schloss to step forward and strip. Schloss was a stocky man with a thickish, flabby belly and buttocks. He undressed awkwardly before the assembled men, and was then ordered to lie facedown on the large curved fender of the bus. The SS men, with sleeves rolled up and kepis thrown back, set upon him, flailing him mercilessly into unconsciousness. The other detainees watched in silence.

  When the SS guards had finished with Schloss, Franck ordered Willy Aron to step forward. “I still see our dear Willy, tall, reddish-blond hair, blue-eyed, freckled and in shorts, a breadbag dangling from his belt, the former emblem of the hiking and friends-of-nature youth,” a fellow detainee recalled. “He looked at us optimistically, the way he always was.” Emil Schuler, the police trainer who had intervened in the shooting of Benario, Goldmann, and the Kahns, was also witness to Aron’s arrival. “He had barely gotten off the truck when an SS man lunged at him, beat him to the ground and stomped on his body with his feet,” he remembered. “I immediately intervened and yelled at the SS man for his behavior. He said it was none of my business, I was just a police officer. Thereupon I issued a complaint to the commandant and shortly thereafter I was sent back to Munich.”

  When the new arrivals had been assembled into a double rank, Aron was ordered to identify himself.

  “Aron, Wilhelm,” he yelled out. “Junior attorney.”

  “Not anymore,” Franck shot back. He had already been informed of the decision to revoke Aron’s legal privileges.

  Besides Aron and Schloss, four other Jewish detainees were pulled from the ranks that morning—Max Bronner, Bertoldt Langstädter, Hans Neumann, and Hans Oppenheimer—and handed over to Steinbrenner, who took them to the isolated storage room
in Barrack II. “We were called in there one by one and had to undress upon command,” Oppenheimer recalled. “We were laid down onto the table, held by SS men, and whipped by the others with pizzles from our thighs to our necks until we fell unconscious.”

  Whether it was Aron’s defiance and threats or his striking appearance, he appeared to have provoked a particularly impassioned ferocity. While four SS men held Aron in place, Steinbrenner and Johann Unterhuber stood on either side and began the routine lashing, first across his calves, then along the back of his thighs, then across his buttocks, and up across his back to his neck, only to repeat the process in the other direction. The lashes cut into the skin. They began to draw blood. The men whipped Aron into unconsciousness, then threw him into the toilet stall and hurled his clothes and pouch after him.

  After some time Aron managed to get dressed and stagger out of the barracks and into line with the other Jewish detainees, who were now ordered to assemble in front of the barrack. Oppenheimer, who stood beside Aron, remembers the blood streaming down his legs from the open wounds in his buttocks. Suddenly Aron collapsed. An SS man saw him fall and ordered, “Get up, you Jewish swine!” Aron struggled to get to his feet but he could not find the strength. He held up his hand to Oppenheimer for help. When the SS man saw Oppenheimer reach down, he lunged forward and drove his boot with a deep powerful kick into Aron’s lower back. The blow knocked Aron unconscious. The other detainees were ordered to march to the barrack, leaving Aron a broken heap on the ground.

  Aron was dragged back to his barrack and dumped onto his bunk. Defying a camp rule against detainees entering barracks other than their own, one of Aron’s friends sought him out. “When I came into the room, people were sprawled on the beds as if they were already half-dead,” he recalled. “I found Aron, who was lying crumpled on a straw sack. I rearranged him and asked what was wrong. Aron groaned incessantly and indicated that he had internal injuries.” “His buttocks had been lashed such that the flesh was torn off and the bones lay bare,” another detainee recalled. When he asked Aron if he could do anything to help, Aron weakly asked for water.

  Aron was taken to the sick bay, where he was attended to by Dr. Katz, and “visited” regularly by Steinbrenner, Unterhuber, Erspenmüller, and, once or twice a day, Wäckerle. “During the morning visit around about 9–10, Steinbrenner as well as the second in command Erspenmüller fetched Aron from his hay sack, to continue his beating,” a fellow barrack mate recalled. “The procedure took place in a room next to the guard’s changing room, where they beat the Jew Aron’s naked body and infected wounds yet again.” Aron grew delirious. He began to thrash so violently that he had to be tied to the bed. The following morning, Steinbrenner appeared again. He stood over Aron and commanded, “Get up!” Aron did not move. Steinbrenner kicked him with his boot. Aron remained still. When Steinbrenner went to the table to write a notice of infraction for Aron’s disobedience, Dr. Katz called to him, “He’s dead you know.” Steinbrenner marched out.

  Later that day, Aron’s corpse was placed in a shed with several other corpses. “Rumors had it that on arrival of a new transport, four Jews were immediately taken aside and were beaten in the cellar under the prisoners’ kitchen,” Steinbrenner recalled. “It was said that salt water was poured onto their open wounds to heighten their agony.” Steinbrenner noted further that Wäckerle was concerned about a repeat intrusion by Hartinger—despite the new camp regulations—and ordered the corpses burned.

  That night, around ten o’clock, the shed burst into flames. The camp alarm sounded. Chaos followed. The Dachau fire department responded to the alarm but the firefighters were halted at the main gate and refused entry. Inside the walls, Anton Schöberl, a detainee responsible for the camp fire brigade, assembled his men, but their firefighting equipment had been moved. Schöberl eventually located the gear and rushed his men to the scene. Flames were already cutting through the roof. The firefighters attached their fire hose to a nearby hydrant but discovered it was not operable. They located a second hydrant and attached the hose. An SS man, however, refused them access to the shed, insisting he had orders to keep it locked. Schöberl clambered onto the roof of the shed and started breaking the roof tiles to clear an opening for the fire hose. “I could still recognize Aron but not the others,” he said later. “Aron was a noticeably slim man and because of the light from the flames I could distinctly recognize him.” The fire hose was passed onto the roof and the flames eventually extinguished. Schöberl and his crew were then ordered to leave the equipment and proceed to the canteen, where they were all given a round of beer. Afterward they returned to their barracks in the wire enclosure. The next morning, they were dispatched back to the shed to retrieve the firefighting equipment. The door was still locked.

  “It was rumored that the structure had been intentionally torched and all the delays preplanned,” Steinbrenner was to say years later, “to prevent the real cause of [Aron’s] death from being clarified.” The official cause of death was given as pulmonary edema, allowing Aron’s abused and charred body to slip unobtrusively through Paragraph 159 of the Criminal Procedure Code and beyond the reach of Josef Hartinger. Aron’s body was placed in a sealed metal coffin and shipped to Bamberg, where word had it that the twenty-eight-year-old had died of “heart failure.”

  The Bamberger Volksblatt reported Willy’s death in respectful but notably circumspect terms. “The corpse of junior attorney Willy Aron who passed away in the Dachau Concentration Camp was transferred to Bamberg yesterday,” the newspaper noted on May 13, “and interred in the Israelite Cemetery at seven-thirty in the evening.” The funeral was attended by an exceptionally large number of mourners, not only from the Jewish community, but also from Willy’s broader circle of friends, including members of the Wirceburgia fencing club. Rabbi Katten gave a eulogy in front of the sealed coffin. He spoke of the pain felt by the parents for the loss of their only son. He said that Willy’s fate, which had shaken so many so deeply, had been “the fate of the Jews for centuries.” He noted that Willy was now in a better place and closed the ceremony by again offering words of comfort to his parents. A friend of Willy’s offered further remarks as Willy was lowered into his grave. The funeral was observed by local SS men, who maintained watch for several days afterward to make certain the coffin was not disinterred and opened. One rumor held that it contained only lead plates in place of Willy’s abused and charred corpse.

  In those same days, the Völkischer Beobachter reported on the Hitler government’s efforts to curb animal cruelty. The newspaper reminded readers of the Field and Forest Police Law that provided “a fine of 150 marks or up to a week in prison” for anyone caught disturbing eggs or nesting birds. In addition, the minister of transport, Paul von Eltz-Rübenach, had publicly condemned the mistreatment of animals, especially horses, being transported across German territory. “In response to repeated complaints about the intolerable conditions on trains transporting foreign horses on the German railway system, the Reich transport minister in cooperation with the management of the German Reich Railway Company and the respective Reich and Prussian offices, have taken measures,” the minister said. “A special procedure will be introduced on a test basis to prevent too many animals being placed in individual railcars.” He also observed that a watchman would accompany each transport in order to assure “orderly treatment” of the animals. The May 11 article bore the headline REICH TRANSPORT MINISTER AGAINST ANIMAL CRUELTY.

  ON MAY 13, a day after the Dressel investigation was closed and Willy Aron was laid to rest, Dr. Moritz Flamm declared himself a full-blooded Aryan. With his tight, elegant signature, Flamm confirmed three generations of pure Aryan lineage, and declared that he had never been a member of the Reichsbanner, the militant wing of the Social Democratic Party; the German Communist party’s Iron Front; the Human Rights League; or the republican Union of Judges or Civil Servants.

  Flamm was responding to a directive from the president of the Munich II court reques
ting compliance with the April 7 Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service. This was the same law that had cost Leo Benario his teaching position at the Nuremberg Professional School of Business and Social Sciences, and deprived Emil Gumbel of his professorship at the University of Heidelberg. The law had come amid a cascade of spring legislation—the March 23 Enabling Act that invested Hitler with near dictatorial powers, followed a week later by the first Gleichschaltungsgesetz (synchronization law) of March 31, and the second synchronization law of April 7—that strangled the surviving vestiges of state sovereignty. In mid-April, a police officer could still push an SS guard to the side on the Würm Mill Creek footbridge, or order him to fetch assistance to help a wounded Jewish man. A surgeon could still scare off a storm trooper in front of the door to the room of a patient in the Nussbaum Street surgical clinic. The archbishop of Munich and Freising could still order the state minister of the interior to release prisoners in time for the Easter holiday. By early May, this was no longer the case. Individuals grew increasingly cautious. The SS was growing ever bolder. A swastika flag fluttered permanently over the Dachau Concentration Camp.

  The National Socialists were no longer intruders in the system, they were becoming the system. The judicial foundation on which Hartinger relied began to crumble. Pro-Nazi sentiments proliferated. “What is usually very simple in the administration of the prosecutor’s office proved exceedingly difficult and complicated under the conditions of that time,” Hartinger recalled. “The director of administration for the prosecutor’s office was a Nazi, and was bearer of the golden party pin, which he always wore. The security guard, who was responsible for transferring the files, was of the same persuasion. The entire bureaucracy was filled with Nazi sympathizers.” People hesitated to report transgressions by members of the Nazi Party. Witnesses grew reticent. Files were misplaced. Evidence disappeared. The investigation materials regarding the shooting of Benario, Goldmann, and the two Kahns, along with the police sketches, could no longer be found.