Nazi Millionaires

by Kenneth A. Alford

  “I gained and achieved this woman’s confidence, and believe she will give me further information at a later date, and will also inform me if she should hear from her husband,” reported the agent.15

  Hirschfeld took the opportunity to carry out Gretl’s wishes by visiting the Fegeleins one last time the next afternoon. This time the agent reversed the tables and used the daughter-in-law’s statements as a means of extracting additional information from Hans. The effort gleaned little of value.

  “I don’t think Hitler is alive,” Hirschfeld coldly provoked the old man. Fegelein, who was in bed that day with an injured leg, “raised himself up on his elbows…as the tears rose in his eyes.”

  “Herr Hirschfeld,” he admonished, “You can believe me, I’ve told you no lies and no fancy stories. I know for certain that the Führer and my son Hermann are still living; otherwise, my life would be finished.” His attempt to convince himself of the impossible was pathetic to watch.

  “But your stories sound almost fanciful,” responded Hirschfeld.

  “I have no reason to mislead you, and have no intention of lying to you, one of the last true National Socialists.” Hirschfeld must have enjoyed a quiet chuckle. “You must understand I have not told my daughter-in-law everything,” the unsuspecting Fegelein continued. “As a woman, she must be satisfied when I tell her that her husband is living.”

  For the first time the old man acknowledged that a credible report was circulating that his son was no more. “Don’t let yourself be taken in by rumors! They are saying that my son was shot on orders from Hitler because he was found running around in civilian clothing! That is nonsense!” he shouted. “I know positively that the Führer would never have done such a thing! Do not be taken in by those other rumors either, which state that the Führer and Eva Braun poisoned themselves and were burned in the courtyard of the Reich Chancellory.” He looked directly into Hirschfeld’s eyes, adding, “None of that is true.”16

  In fact, most of it was true. The father, mother, and wife all waited in vain. None of them ever heard from Hermann Fegelein again.

  The final fate of Gruppenführer Fegelein is a lingering mystery. Hushed rumors of a summary execution sketched with elements of treason and desertion undergird the tale. It took decades before enough facts and clues became available to flesh out the plausible end of this loathsome individual. Although his destiny is not entirely germane to this study, he brushed against so many of the major and minor players in our story that his end is worth recounting.17

  On April 23-24, 1945, a fateful meeting was held near the Danish border at Flensburg. The participants included Heinrich Himmler, Hermann Fegelein, the chief liaison officer between Himmler and Hitler’s headquarters, General Walter Schellenberg, the chief of Bureau VI, Foreign Intelligence, and Count Folke Bernadotte, the vice president of the Swedish Red Cross and nephew of King Gustav of Sweden. During the war’s final months Schellenberg sought to convince Himmler that Germany was losing the war because of Hitler’s poor decision making, a direct result of his obviously deteriorating health. He urged Himmler to take whatever action necessary to gain the reins of power and make peace with the Allies. Himmler, slowly but surely, lifted one leg and straddled the fence Schellenberg had dared him to step over. Several diplomatic meetings between Himmler and Bernadotte followed. Each dealt with questions regarding the release of concentration camp prisoners and ending the war; tangible results proved elusive. After one meeting Schellenberg tried to arrange for Bernadotte to convince General Dwight D. Eisenhower to set up a conference with Himmler to discuss the surrender of the German Army. “The Reichsführer no longer understands the realities of his own situation,” responded Bernadotte prophetically. The meeting of April 23-24 was but another effort by Himmler to craft a German surrender to the Western Allies rather than be crushed by the merciless Russians.18

  Late on the evening of April 25 Fegelein flew into Berlin. Although he arrived in time for the regular midnight conference, he chose not to attend. That was not so unusual since he had been shuttling back and forth between the headquarters of Himmler and Hitler for some time now. Thursday, April 26 passed as well. No Fegelein. Hitler finally took note of his absence the next afternoon—the Gruppenführer had skipped six meetings in a row, a most unwise course of action. The Führer, his suspicions immediately aroused, ordered Gruppenführer (Major General) Johann Rattenhuber, his security chief, to locate the errant SS officer and bring him in. Rattenhuber placed a call to Fegelein’s small flat on the Bleibtreustrass, just off the more upscale Kurfürstendamm. Foolishly, as it turned out, Fegelein picked up the receiver. He was drunk, but sober enough to convince Rattenhuber he would clean up and reach the bunker within a couple of hours. Fegelein, however, had no intention of ever visiting the bunker again. He was leaving to save himself. The intoxicated SS officer proceeded to make another serious mistake by phoning Eva Braun and telling her as much. He even advised her to do likewise. A hidden microphone in the switchboard channeled every call into Hitler’s private study. In all likelihood, the Führer heard every word. Fegelein was a deserter and encouraging others to follow suit!

  Rattenhuber immediately dispatched three soldiers under SS Captain Helmut Frick in a jeep to deliver Fegelein to the bunker. He was still drinking when they arrived; evidence of earlier consumption was visible in the empty bottles of cognac littering a nearby table. The Gruppenführer had not even taken the time to dress or shave. When Frick asked him to accompany him back to the bunker, Fegelein declined the invitation. Frick hesitated. Drunk or not, Fegelein was a prominent high ranking officer, and captains simply did not arrest generals—especially in the German army. The frustrated Frick left without him.

  Hitler and Martin Bormann, the Führer’s powerful private secretary, ordered out a full SS colonel and squad to bring in the deserter. The men returned a couple hours later, kicked in Fegelein’s apartment door, and rushed inside. They found him standing at a table, freshly shaven and in a crisp uniform. A woman was with him, tall with shoulder-length blond hair. Both were busily packing her hand bag. The colonel reminded his superior of the outstanding order that he return to the bunker—immediately. Fegelein, still deeply intoxicated, agreed to accompany them. Meanwhile, the Gruppenführer’s mistress excused herself and walked into the kitchen with a platter of empty glasses to fill with water for the cognac Fegelein had offered his SS arresters. Several minutes ticked by, but the faucet continued running. One of the SS men grew suspicious and pushed his way into the kitchen, only to find the window open and the mysterious woman gone. But her travel bag and lover remained behind. Both were seized and transported to the bunker.

  The dangerous trip was a comic-tragedy of Shakespearean proportion. Like a prisoner of old, riding in a wheeled lorry to greet his executioners, Fegelein shouted and sang his way through the combat-ridden Berlin streets. The former unfortunates, however, knew death was waiting around the next corner; Fegelein was too inebriated to rationally analyze the seriousness of his predicament. Once in the bunker Hitler reduced Fegelein to the rank of private and ordered Gruppenführer (Major General) Wilhelm Mohnke to convene a drumhead court-martial. Contrary to popular belief, no trial ever took place. A stickler for military protocol, Mohnke knew the German Army manual inside and out. It clearly stated that no soldier could be tried unless he is of sound mind and body and in a condition to hear and respond to any evidence presented against him. Fegelein was “roaring drunk, with wild, rolling eyes,” remembered the general after the war. “He acted up in such an outrageous manner that the trial could not even commence.” Fegelein rejected a right to counsel and then “refused to defend himself.” Simply put, the doomed Gruppenführer “was in wretched shape,” Mohnke told investigative author James P. O’Donnell many years later. “Bawling, whining, vomiting, shaking like an Aspen leaf. He took out his penis and began urinating on the floor. He really was drunk; he was not acting.” Mohnke steadfastly insisted it was Fegelein who “tore off his own shoulder [epaule
ts] and threw them to the floor,” and not Hitler as some sources claim. “He called us all a collection of German assholes.” The general could not try Fegelein in this condition and dismissed the court.19

  While Mohnke pondered his dilemma Bormann rummaged through the mystery woman’s valise Fegelein had with him when he was apprehended. Inside was a chamois pouch, out of which spilled diamonds, rubies, amethysts, opals, necklaces, diamond-studded gold watches (including one Eva Braun had given Fegelein to have repaired), and about $50,000 in various currencies. Of more importance to the Gruppenführer’s fate was a pair of passports made out to the same woman, one British and the other probably Hungarian. (The names were different but the pictures identical.) Bormann already knew Fegelein was a deserter. Now, before his very eyes, was evidence of treason.

  For months Hitler’s headquarters had been the scene of an intelligence seepage, the source of which had been driving the Führer, quite literally, insane. Confidential conversations, promotion lists, and other information generated within Hitler’s inner circle had been broadcast on British radio. Who was das Leck (the leak)? Now it was obvious. The woman who had been allowed to climb out of the apartment window was a spy! Fegelein—a notorious womanizer and drinker— had been sharing intimate intelligence with her in his bed chamber and she had been sending the information back to the Allies. Gestapo chief Heinrich Müller had been in the bunker for some time specifically to investigate das Leck when Fegelein and the story of the mystery woman tumbled into his lap. On Bormann’s orders Müller’s thugs dragged the disgraced, drunken officer to a secret Gestapo cellar dungeon in the nearby Dreifaltigkeit chapel. Throughout April 28 a now thoroughly sober Hermann Fegelein was beaten and tortured. Of primary concern to Müller was information concerning the identify and whereabouts of the female spy. Whether he ever revealed the information (or whether he even knew it) is not known.20

  And then the dam broke: news of the Himmler—Bernadotte meeting at Flensburg reached the Führer’s ears. The BBC broadcast the shocking news that peace negotiations had taken place between the SS Reichsführer and the Swedish Red Cross representative. “When the news was handed to Hitler the eruption was spectacular,” wrote Himmler’s most recent biographer. According to pilot Hanna Reitsch (who would soon leave the bunker) Hitler raged like a madman, thrusting the message into the direction of anyone he met inside the dank complex. How could his loyal Heinrich betray him as the Thousand-year Third Reich tottered on the brink of defeat? Himmler was beyond his immediate reach; his golden boy, the battered Hermann Fegelein, was not.

  Hitler ordered his execution. Later rumors that the Gruppenführer was hauled out into the Chancellery garden and shot are unlikely. The most plausible account is that he was murdered in the basement of the chapel the same way others who had conspired against Hitler (i.e., traitors) were dispatched: hung with piano wire from a hook cemented into the wall and strangled to death. Just one hour later Hitler and Eva Braun married. The timing was impeccable. Fegelein, the traitor married to Gretl Braun, would never be Hitler’s brother-in-law.21

  Exactly how Hermann Fegelein came to breathe no more will probably never be solved to everyone’s satisfaction. We do know that his corpse was never located. The final disposition of Eva Braun’s fabulous jewelry collection is, likewise, an enduring mystery.

  The Perpetrators

  Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler (above left) and SA head Ernst Rühm (above center) are all smiles in 1934—even as Himmler was orchestrating Rühm’s ouster from power and murder by firing squad. Himmler’s Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Security Main Office or RSHA) implemented the Holocaust and wholesale looting of Europe. NA

  A smiling Himmler looks on as his golden boy, Hermann Fegelein, meets with Adolf Hitler. Fegelein helped rape Warsaw’s civilians of their property, and slaughtered thousands in the Pripet Marshes region in Russia. NA

  RSHA Chiefs

  SS Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich (left) was the first chief of Himmler’s RSHA. He was one of the most ruthless, cold-blooded killers fielded by the Nazis. He was killed by Czech partisans— the only high ranking Nazi officer assassinated during the war. Had he lived, Heydrich would have found himself sitting in the dock at Nuremberg in place of Ernst Kaltenbrunner (below), who was tapped by Himmler to succeed Heydrich as head of the RSHA in early 1943. Without that promotion, Kaltenbrunner would have remained an obscure middle-level criminal and probably escaped prosecution. NA

  Souls for Gold in Budapest

  Oberturmbannführer Kurt Becher as an SS officer during the war (top left ) and as a rich businessman during the postwar years (above right). His bloodcurdling deal with Rezsö Kastner (above left ) in Budapest, Hungary, came within a whisker of earning Becher a well deserved hangman’s noose at Nuremberg. At the end of the war he was found with a fortune in stolen loot. How many of his millions were actually earned in the business world after the war, as opposed to money recovered from secret bank accounts or hidden caches, is open to debate. NA

  The Ghetto King

  SS Hauptsturmführer Franz Konrad poses here with his wife Agnes just before the outbreak of World War II. Konrad’s heinous activities in Warsaw helped him acquire a king’s ransom in gold, currency, jewels, and other valuables. Much of it was hidden in Austria at war’s end. But alas, a return trip to Poland awaited the “Ghetto King.” CIC File

  CIC Entrapment

  The only known image of SS Obersturmführer Walter Hirschfeld (top left). The SS officer-turned-spy helped American Intelligence capture Einsatzgruppen leader SS Brigadeführer Franz Six (top right). Hirschfeld’s postwar activities as a CIC agent were shocking displays of excess. NA. The bloodstained clothes Adolf Hitler was wearing during the assassination attempt of July 20, 1944 (above), were hidden by SS officer Franz Konrad, and later recovered. Though ostensibly these items were burned in 1947, CIC agent Robert Gutierrez (above left, in later life) may have ended up with the uniform. NA and New York Times

  The Moneymakers

  This grainy image (right) depicts SS Oberführer Josef Spacil, the head of RSHA Bureau II. Spacil helped launder hundreds of millions in fake English pounds. During the war’s final days, Ernst Kaltenbrunner ordered Spacil to shuttle truckloads of gold and currency out of Germany into Austria in an attempt to keep it in SS coffers and out of Allied hands. He may have largely succeeded.NA

  This drawing (below) shows the plates used in the counterfeiting of English Pound notes in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Declassified documents reveal for the first time that part of the operation was so secret even Berlin was not aware of it. CIC File

  Gold in Blaa Alm

  Lovely Blaa Alm (above) near Altaussee, Austria. Several SS groups hauled multiple millions in gold, jewels, and currency into this area in 1945; only some of it was recovered. Gold bars and coins are still occasionally found here by farmers and treasure seekers. Did RSHA chief Ernst Kaltenbrunner’s lost truck of gold end up here? His adjutant, Arthur Scheidler, oversaw the transfer of at least six large sacks of gold coins from Berlin to Austria. A mistake resulted in a near miss: the truck made it into Upper Austria—where the gold vanished. Scheidler (below on a CIC file card), never told Kaltenbrunner about the mix-up. Evidence indicates the gold ended up in Altaussee. NA

  United States Army officers inspect Nazi treasures. Tons of large solid gold bars (below left) were smelted from dental filings, rings, and even coins. Most of the Blaa Alm gold bars were thin pencil-size ingots—but from the same repulsive source. The cloth sacks shown in the remaining two photos (below right and bottom) were stuffed with currency, coins, and other valuables. Ernst Kaltenbrunner had a half-dozen similar sacks full of gold coins. All six disappeared in the Aussee region of Austria in May 1945. NA

  Eichmann’s Holocaust Gold

  SS Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann is the face of the Final Solution. At the end of the war “SS Group Eichmann” hauled millions in gold bars, coins, and currency to the Blaa Alm Inn. With the Americans and Russi
ans closing in, and with the snow deep and heavy, Eichmann attempted to flee on foot. He was apprehended and later released by accident. Some of his gold bars and coins were later discovered; the bulk of his treasure was not. The Nazis smelted stolen gold from dental fillings and rings (like those shown below) into gold bars to erase the scent of death. NA

  Eva’s Letter sand Jewels

  Gretl Braun Fegelein (far left) and her sister, Eva Braun. Gretl married in 1943 SS Gruppenführer Hermann Fegelein, and bore his daughter days just before the war ended. It is doubtful whether she learned his true fate. Gretl ended up with much of Eva’s jewelry, papers, and other valuables. The Polish 18th century silverware (below) was looted for Eva and stamped with her initials. Part of the collection was stolen at war’s end by a CIC agent, the rest supposedly turned over to the U.S. Army. Where it ended up is anyone’s guess. The silverware (and Eva’s letters, diary fragments, jewelry, and other items) is largely unaccounted for. Odd pieces of “EB” silverware still surface at military shows. NA

  The Bloody Red Cross?

  SS officer Walter Schellenberg (left), the crafty counter-intelligence chief who ran Bureau VI of the RSHA, escaped a lengthy prison sentence (or worse) after the war by assisting Allied prosecutors during the Nuremberg trials and by providing intelligence on the Soviet Union he had gathered during World War II. Recently disclosed documents prove for the first time that he arranged for assets to be sent abroad during the war. CIC agents opened the investigation, dubbing it “Walter Schellenberg’s External Assets.” NA