The successful Weiss transaction made Wilhelm Billitz a celebrity of sorts in Budapest’s Jewish circles. He had, after all, secured the safety and freedom of dozens of Jews. Pleas for help from the Budapest Jewish Council poured in. Fearful of deeper involvement but willing to lend assistance as he might, Billitz was slowly but surely entangled in the expanding movement to rescue Hungary’s Jews from extinction. Billitz’s notoriety attracted the interest and efforts of Rezsö Kastner, who quickly learned of Billitz’s connection with Becher and its subsequent tangible results.
A lawyer with a thick head of greased black hair, glasses, and a sharp hawkish gaze, Dr. Israel Rezsö (Rudolph) Kastner was the Chairman of the Hungarian Zionist Organization. In 1941, following the annexation of his hometown of Cluj, Transylvania, to Hungary, the 35-year-old relocated to Budapest. There, he helped found the Relief and Rescue Committee for the purpose of assisting the masses of Jewish refugees who had escaped the horrors of the Nazi regime in neighboring occupied countries. The German invasion of Hungary compelled Kastner to redouble his efforts on behalf of Hungarian Jewry. The Hungarian fascist party, Arrow Cross (whose inspectors carefully oversaw the process), refused to permit any exceptions to the mass round-ups and early deportations being carried out under Eichmann’s direction. The Jews were only being relocated to Kenyermezo, Eichmann’s minions explained. Kastner’s misgivings increased. Perhaps turning to Becher and the German occupation authorities to save lives was a viable option? Billitz was the Jewish gatekeeper who held Kurt Becher’s ear; Becher, in turn, held Himmler’s ear. Kastner was about to cut a bargain that would haunt him for the rest of his life.10
Both Eichmann and Becher made Kastner’s acquaintance, the former as early as May 22, 1944. By this time the trains were already rolling to Auschwitz. Eichmann told Kastner he had made an offer to the Allies to issue 600 Jewish exit visas in exchange for equipment and supplies. The idea captivated Kastner. The pair struck up a working relationship. “I concentrated on negotiating with the Jewish political leadership in Budapest,” recalled Eichmann years later as he waited for death in his Israeli jail cell. “One man stood out among them.” His name was Dr. Rezsö Kastner, “an authorized representative of the Zionist movement. He was a man, about my age, an ice-cold lawyer, and a fanatical Zionist. He agreed to help keep the Jews from resisting deportation and even keep order in the collection camps if I could close my eyes and let a few hundred or a few thousand young Jews emigrate illegally to Palestine. It was a good bargain. For keeping order in the camps,” concluded Eichmann, “the price of 15,000 to 20,000 Jews … was not too high for me.”11
Kastner was fully aware that death ultimately awaited every Hungarian Jew who could not escape Eichmann’s foul net. Yet, he willingly remained quiet as families gathered in housing projects or other specified locations to await trains that would carry them to Auschwitz. Eichmann himself shed light on Kastner’s motives. He was an “idealist” who willingly sacrificed hundreds of thousands of his fellow Jews to save “the best biological material.” Simply put, Kastner’s primary interest was to save select groups of Jews for emigration to Palestine. Kastner, explained Eichmann, “was not interested in old Jews or those who had assimilated into Hungarian society. The human material he was seeking had to be capable of reproduction and hard work.” In other words Kastner, the diehard Zionist, was only concerned with saving those who could help make the state of Israel a reality. “You can keep and kill the others,” was Kastner’s tacit agreement with Eichmann, “but let me have this group here.” Eichmann’s next statement was chilling. Kastner, he explained, provided the Nazis “a great service by helping keep the deportation camps peaceful.” Kastner actively misrepresented to Hungary’s Jews what was about to take place so there would not be a repeat of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Because of this cooperation, wrote Eichmann, “I would let his groups escape. After all, I was not concerned with small groups of a thousand or so Jews.”12
Eichmann damning indictment of Kastner continues:
Except perhaps for the first few sessions, Kastner never came to me fearful of the Gestapo strong man. We negotiated entirely as equals. People forget that. We were political opponents trying to arrive at a settlement, and we trusted each other perfectly. When he was with me, Kastner smoked cigarettes as though he were in a coffeehouse. While we talked he would smoke one aromatic cigarette after another, taking them from a silver case and lighting them with a little silver lighter. With his great polish and reserve he would have made an ideal Gestapo officer himself.
As he later told Kastner, “We, too, are idealists and we, too, had to sacrifice our own blood before we came to power.”13
Negotiating “entirely as equals … trusted each other perfectly … would have made an ideal Gestapo officer … sacrifice our own blood.” These words, written by the devil himself, are chilling to read even today. Kastner was playing God in Budapest—a role he had no right to assume. His failure to spread the word throughout Hungary and the world that the Nazi trains rolled in only one direction, to the gas chambers, resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people who might otherwise have survived.
After Eichmann had cemented the framework of the agreement into place, Kurt Becher implemented its details. He worked elbow-to-elbow with Kastner to save a handful of Jewish lives—for a price determined in advance for each soul saved. One transaction in particular stands out. In May, Eichmann had offered to free 1,000,000 Jews in exchange for 10,000 trucks and other items like soap and food. Joel Brand, another prominent Zionist, carried the offer to the Mideast but was arrested and incarcerated by the British. Kastner stepped into the diplomatic fissure to take up Brand’s torch. Kastner told Eichmann the Allies had agreed “in principle” to his proposal, but wanted some show of good will before they would move forward. This could be obtained by letting a small number of Zionist leaders, say 750 (including many of Kastner’s friends and relatives from his hometown of Cluj) emigrate to a neutral country. Eichmann agreed to the deal in exchange for a small number of trucks.
With Kastner’s active complicity, the massive roundup of the rest of the Jews living in Budapest and elsewhere continued. These unfortunates were herded like animals into housing projects or crammed onto an island in the Danube River to await deportation to Poland. Others were also working hard, but with the intent of derailing Eichmann’s plans. Some thirty partisans, trained in England, had recently parachuted into Europe to help organize Jewish resistance. Three of them were Hungarian Jews dropped into Yugoslavia in March 1944. One of the paratroopers was a young woman named Hannah Szenes, a poet and writer born in Budapest. She crossed into Hungary in June and was promptly arrested by Hungarian authorities, probably because of an informer. She was tortured for information and then executed by firing squad. The two other Hungarian partisans, Peretz Goldstein and Joel Nussbecher-Palgi, also slipped into Hungary and there made a fatal mistake: they contacted Kastner to seek his assistance. If these radical Jewish freedom fighters spread the word through the Jewish population, Eichmann would surely renege on his agreement to let Kastner’s select trainload of Jews out of the country. In a savage double-cross, Kastner informed the Gestapo. Both men were seized and dispatched to Auschwitz. Goldstein perished there; Nussbecher-Palgi managed to escape and eventually make it to Palestine. Kastner’s eventual attempt to explain why he failed to notify Swiss authorities of Hannah’s capture or assist the partisans (discussed later in this book) outraged everyone who learned of it.14
Kastner’s precious plan remained intact, but would the Allies actually turn over trucks and supplies to the Nazis? Eichmann had growing doubts. Frantic efforts in Switzerland and elsewhere failed to raise the funds necessary to buy the trucks and complete the first stage of the Eichmann-Kastner deal. Eichmann finally pulled the plug. On June 30, 1944, the train carrying Kastner’s handpicked fortunates left Budapest for the concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen. The passengers, frightened beyond words, reached the camp on July 8 and remaine
d there in what can only be described as a hellish limbo—hanging by a thread between life and death while others negotiated to determine whether they were worth saving.
In an attempt to grease the skids and get the ball rolling again, Kastner and Kurt Becher traveled to St. Margareten on the Swiss border on August 21. There, on a bridge linking Switzerland with Austria, the men met with several negotiators, including Saly Meyer, the Joint Distribution Committee’s Swiss representative. When a letter of credit for ten trucks was finally produced, 318 of the Jews were shipped into Switzerland and freedom that August. The rest remained behind barbed wire within sight and smell of the crematorium chimneys, their fate still in doubt.15
The bribing for lives then began in earnest. Reaching agreement proved difficult. Eichmann himself got involved in the preliminary negotiations. “Characteristically, his price was the lowest, a mere two hundred dollars per Jew,” explains one author who has written extensively on Eichmann’s wartime activities in Hungary. Why did he ask such a low sum per head? This was not “because he wished to save more Jews but simply because he was not used to thinking big.” Eventually, Kastner agreed that the Jews would pay Becher $1,000 per head, and the total number of people had risen to about 1,700. The ransom was collected from the Budapest Jewish underground in the form of gold and platinum bars, gold coins, diamond rings, necklaces, watches, and currency. The 1944 value of this treasure trove was $1,856,000—or almost $2,000 per person. For the chosen few, that was the price of life in Kastner’s Budapest.16
Becher and Kastner, meanwhile, continued negotiating with Swiss authorities. Another meeting held in early September bore little fruit. A third encounter followed at the end of the month. Yet another, the fourth face-to-face meeting, was held during the first week of November in St. Gallen and Zurich. Roswell McClelland, a representative of the World Refugee Board and the United States government, joined the conference. McClelland favored continuing the negotiations as a means of slowing down or stopping the Holocaust, but he was against putting a penny into the hands of Becher’s SS. A final meeting on December 5, this one without Becher, broke the stalemate when the World Refugee Board decided to deposit funds into blocked accounts in a Swiss bank. That goodwill gesture, coupled with the large sum of money and gold Kastner had raised, convinced Eichmann to release the remaining Jews from the hell of Bergen-Belsen. A few days later almost 1,400 men, women, and children arrived in Switzerland.17
Although Kurt Becher had been dealing officially on behalf of the SS, he was unofficially negotiating on his own behalf to line his pockets. As events would later prove, a fortune in gold, jewels, and currency were miraculously discovered in a home he would come to occupy in Austria. Unfortunately for him, however, his money-making sojourn in Hungary was nearing an end. Soviet troops were rapidly closing in on the country from several sides. During a meeting with Himmler in Budapest in late November, Becher was ordered to remove everything of value under his authority from Hungary and transfer it to Germany. Entire factories with tens of thousands of workers were dismantled and shipped into the center of what was left of the Third Reich. Tons of raw materials and inventories from the Weiss Works and other plants were also loaded onto railroad cars and trucks and shipped out of Hungary.
Dr. Billitz remained in Budapest in an attempt to protect the operation and save the Weiss family fortune. Despite orders from Becher, Billitz did everything he could to slow down the breakup of the factory. With help from some of the plant’s staff, he sabotaged the dismantling and evacuation process. While Becher was ripping the heart out of the Hungarian industrial base and scheming to transfer his loot to safety, Eichmann was providing his staff officers, including his adjutant SS Sturmbannführer (Major) Wilhelm Höttl, the green light to loot Jewish homes. Höttl took advantage of the opportunity to steal valuables from the palace belonging to Madame József Haatvany.18
A few days before the final Christmas of the war, Becher took wing and made for Vienna. Saving himself and safeguarding his accumulated wealth was more important than helping his old division, the 8th SS Cavalry Division Florian Geyer, now under the command of 35-year-old SS Gruppenführer (Major General) Joachim Rumohr, defend Budapest. The division was slaughtered in a useless effort to save the capital from the advancing Russians. Because the massive Weiss complex could not be efficiently utilized in Germany without the help of Billitz, Becher ordered him to ride with him to Vienna. There, explained Becher, Billitz would work for Germany and help create armaments that would be used against the Allies. Billitz refused. When Becher threatened him with force, Billitz disappeared with his wife. The couple hid with friends in fear for their lives until Becher, furious at Billitz’s trick, left Budapest. Billitz returned home the next day, happy to be rid of the SS man. His joy was short-lived. Three SS officers were waiting. At pistol-point they ordered him to accompany them to Vienna. Left with little choice, Billitz packed a small suitcase and calmed his concerned wife. He was so sure he would eventually return that he decided not to tell his wife about any of his business dealings or financial affairs. He even took his own car and chauffeur, Geza Varga, with him. It was the last time Mrs. Billitz saw her husband.19
On Christmas Eve, Billitz and SS Obersturmführer (Lieutenant) Weber arrived in Vienna and checked into a small hotel. Weber ordered wine with dinner. Billitz drank a single glassful and complained aloud that he was not feeling well. The wine had not tasted right; perhaps it had gone bad. Within a short time he had spiked a fever and lost consciousness. A physician was called and Billitz was eventually transported to the Cottage Sanatorium.20
Rezsö Kastner was not about to remain behind in a Hungary about to be overrun by the Russians. He, too, fled for the relative safety of Vienna. There, he received news of Billitz’s illness and paid him a visit on December 30. He found him in bed with a high fever. “I was taken from Budapest against my will by Becher’s representatives,” Billitz muttered in half-delirium. “Now,” he lamented, “I am here all alone without my family. I only took the position beside Becher to save the Manfred-Weiss organization. In Budapest, I at least had the feeling that I was doing something for Hungary. Now, they expect me to help them fabricate weapons to be used against the Allied forces. What is Becher thinking?”
Nothing alleviated Billitz’s condition. He lingered for several days before finally dying. The official cause of death was listed as “typhoid fever.” He was buried in the Evangelical Central Cemetery in Vienna.21
On April 19, 1945, Kastner once again crossed over the Swiss border. This time he was not negotiating for ransomed Jews but seeking to establish residency in Geneva. Kurt Becher was also doing everything he could to save his hide. While the victorious Russians and Allies swept through what was left of the Third Reich, Becher retreated westward in the direction of Zell am See and Fischhorn Castle.
His caravan included a fortune in stolen loot.22
Chapter 5
“If things go badly, and you are not able to get through, drive the truck over a cliff….But by all means deliver the suitcases and the trunk.
Fifty years from now the suitcases will make history.”
— SS Hauptsturmführer Franz Konrad to SS Unterscharführer Johannes Haferkamp
Fischhorn Castle: The Last SS Headquarters
Zell am See is a small resort village bordering a lake of the same name three miles long, one mile wide, and 255 feet deep. Schloss (Castle) Fischhorn crowns the south end of the lake just a handful of miles southeast of Berchtesgaden. This picturesque setting was the scene of frenzied activity during the final few weeks of World War II. Seemingly everything and everyone converged upon the castle. Automobiles and trucks came and went at all hours of the day and night. Motorcycles roared in and out. Wehrmacht and SS officers and high ranking party and state officials were seen everywhere in the small Austrian village.
The goings-on around Fischhorn are particularly instructive for our study. Every member of the SS knew their days of freedom were limited, and the f
eeling of collapse triggered a frenzy of activity. Some went steadily about their duties, working overtime to destroy evidence of crimes or personal papers they did not want ending up in the hands of the victors. Others, especially prominent SS officers who had played a role either directly or indirectly in the Holocaust, thrashed about in a final mad dash for plunder to secret away for later use. As will eventually be seen, some of this last gasp effort was in vain. Much of it, however, was not.
It was in the almost impenetrable Alpine mountain region of Austria that Adolf Hitler’s remaining faithful gathered at his request for a purported “last stand” against the relentless Allied advance. Fortifications were to be strategically arranged along ridges and hillsides bristling with machine gun nests, artillery pieces, and anti-aircraft guns. This entire defensive network would then be tied to Berlin and Berchtesgaden with an advanced communication system based on wireless transmission. Ammunition depots, repair workshops, and factories for the production of jet aircraft and missiles would be constructed in deep mine shafts and tunnels carved into granite mountains. Heavy fighting had already proven that mountainous terrain was readily defensible—during the winter of 1944, the Germans held nearly 300 miles of mountains and passes along the Italian frontier with a relatively small force. Unfortunately for the Germans, little of this Alpine dream had been realized by the time Hitler was trapped in Berlin. The Allies, who dubbed the region the “National Redoubt,” saw such a stand as a real possibility and were moving with all speed into Austria to disrupt the enemy defensive effort.
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