Genn was told that the team could make use of any resources available in Belsen, including the offices occupied by the former camp administrators. Beyond this, however, they were on their own. There would be no additional help: no typewriters, recording devices, intelligence support, vehicles or communication equipment. They would have to make do, or requisition whatever they could from the local population.
Genn was not happy with the situation. In a memo sent on May 21, 1945, to his boss in London, Brigadier Scott-Barrett of the War Crimes Commission, Genn wrote: “I will of course do my best but I feel it only right to say that I cannot feel any confidence in producing the right answer, since (apart from the aforesaid inadequacy of the staff) not only have many of the horses gone, but I doubt if I have the necessary strength to shut the stable door on those that remain.”
Nevertheless, Genn set about motivating his team. Their objective was to gather evidence that could be submitted to a British war crimes trial to be held near Belsen at the summer’s end. The trials were to follow normal British judiciary procedures: a military court would be established along the lines of a court-martial; counsel would represent both prosecutor and accused; and the court was to be manned by British judges and British lawyers. Those found guilty could expect a prison term or to be sentenced to death, either by hanging or by shooting. These rules would be enshrined into British law a month later, on June 18, 1945, via the issuing of a royal warrant.
Hanns was to work alongside Captain Fox, a former police sergeant from Reading, who had been collecting witness statements from concentration camp prisoners for over three weeks. In addition to typing up Fox’s reams of handwritten notes, he would have to accompany Fox to retake these affidavits and have them properly witnessed. But first, they were to interrogate the former prison guards and administrators being held in custody.
The British wartime policy on interrogation techniques, particularly when it came to German prisoners, had been developed by Colonel Robin “Tin Eye” Stephens. During the war, Stephens had supervised the London Cage, where he and his team had been responsible for the interrogation of German spies and prisoners of war. While Stephens maintained that violence had no place in an interrogation room, he encouraged interrogators to be “breakers,” to quickly overwhelm the prisoner and disintegrate all opposition. He believed that the key attributes of a breaker were enthusiasm, common sense, travel and an experience of personal loss. Most important was an “implacable hatred of the enemy,” as “from that is derived a certain aggressive approach.” Hanns was a natural breaker.
On May 17, Hanns and Captain Fox drove to Celle, where they were given a small room with a desk and three chairs. After a short wait, Hanns puffing on his Dunhill pipe, Fox studying the questions he had prepared earlier, their first subject was ushered in. Franz Hössler had worked twice in Auschwitz, first running the camp’s massive catering operation and then, from January 1944, as head of one of Auschwitz’s sub-camps.
Hössler opened by saying that he wanted to help his interrogators in any way that he could. Speaking in German, Hanns asked him for a brief biography, and the prisoner replied that he was thirty-nine years old and a photographer by trade. When Hanns asked what he knew about the gas chambers, Hössler responded:
Everyone in the camp knew about the gas chamber at Auschwitz, but at no time did I take part in the selection of prisoners who were to go to the gas chamber and then be cremated. Whilst I was there selection of prisoners for the gas chamber was done by Dr Klein, Dr Mengele and other young doctors whose names I do not know. I have attended these parades, but my job was merely to keep order. Often women were paraded naked in front of the doctors and persons selected by the doctors were sent to the gas chamber. I learnt this through conversation with the doctors. I think those selected were mostly those who were not in good health and could not work.
As Hössler spoke, Hanns took notes in German, endeavouring to transcribe the actual words that he used. If his testimony was to be used in court, Hanns had been told, then it would have to be recorded as accurately as possible. Hössler continued:
When transports of prisoners arrived the prisoners were taken from the train and marched to the camp. Trainloads of 2,000 and 3,000 arrived at the camp and often as many as 800 went to the gas chamber. The doctors were always responsible for these selections.
As the interrogation progressed, Hanns felt a growing sense of hostility and anger towards the prisoner. There had been articles in the papers, rumors circulating in Belsen, but here was one of the participants confirming that murder had taken place in Auschwitz on a colossal, unthinkable scale. This was both new and shocking for Hanns; indeed this may well have been the first time that anybody had heard such unvarnished testimony from such a key figure. Nevertheless, Hanns maintained his composure and continued to convey Fox’s questions professionally, and then repeat the answers given by Hössler.
Translating for Fox, Hanns then asked Hössler who was in charge of the camp at the time. Hössler replied:
Whilst I was at Auschwitz the Kommandant, until June 1944, was Höss and he was succeeded by Baer. I made many complaints to Höss about the way people were being sent to the gas chamber, but I was told it was not my business.
The next day, Hanns and Captain Fox drove forty minutes west of Belsen to a military hospital in Schwarmstedt. There, they were led to a secure ward and introduced to a fifty-seven-year-old man named Fritz Klein, one of the doctors who had worked in Auschwitz before moving to Belsen. Klein did not look well. Since his arrest he had been working without pause to clear the camp, carrying corpses into the mass graves. Hanns and Captain Fox took a seat next to his hospital bed and the interrogation began. By now Hanns was adjusting to the frenetic pace, and as well as translating Fox’s questions, he came up with a few of his own.
Klein was a Romanian, and had qualified as a doctor in Budapest. After joining the SS he had been sent to Yugoslavia as a recruiting doctor and then, in 1943, had been appointed as a camp doctor in Auschwitz, where he had overseen many of the “selections.” The officer then in charge of the camp, he said, was Rudolf Höss. Explaining that he had worked as one of eight doctors in the camp, Klein then told Hanns how the “selections” operated:
When transports arrived at Auschwitz it was the doctor’s job to pick out those who were unfit or unable to work. These included children, old people and the sick. I have seen the gas chambers and crematoria at Auschwitz, and I knew that those I selected were to go to the gas chamber. But I only acted on orders given me by Dr Wirths. I cannot say from whom Dr Wirths received his orders and I have never seen any orders in writing relating to the gassing of prisoners. All orders given to me were given verbally. All the doctors whom I have previously mentioned have taken part in these selections, and although SS guards were on parade they took no active part in choosing those who were unfit to work.
Hanns next asked why Klein, as a doctor, did not try and stop the “selections.”
I never protested against people being sent to the gas chamber, although I never agreed. One cannot protest when in the Army. It was not a pleasure to take part in these parades, as I knew the persons selected would go to the gas chamber. Persons who became pregnant whilst in the camp and therefore unfit for work were also selected on later parades. I have heard that Himmler had visited Auschwitz Camp, although I have never actually seen him. It was certainly known to the higher-ups that these methods were being used at Auschwitz Camp.
The next day, Hanns and Captain Fox returned to Celle to interview Irma Grese, the second-highest-ranking female guard at the Auschwitz women’s camp before her transfer to Belsen. The press would later call Grese the “Beautiful Beastess,” because of her high cheekbones and long blonde hair. The interrogators developed a rhythm: Fox would quietly ask Hanns a question in English, which Hanns would then put to Grese in German; she would then reply and Hanns would translate back to Fox. Grese, however, refused to cooperate and denied all accusations. Fox and Hanns
grew irritated by Grese’s evasions and wrapped up the interview.
Having never been coached in police or military techniques, Hanns now studied how Fox ran the interrogations, how he structured the questions to allow the prisoners to give a full answer, and how he made it clear that he was in charge. At one point, Fox had exploded at Grese, telling her in German that she was lying—Fox could actually speak German fairly well, albeit with a bad accent—in a loss of control which had perplexed Hanns. After this interview was over he asked Fox why he had become angry. “I’m not,” said the ex-policeman, “it’s just the show of the business.”
That afternoon Fox and Hanns interviewed twenty-six-year-old Elisabeth Volkenrath, a senior women’s guard in Auschwitz and later the head of the women’s camp in Belsen. Volkenrath wore a gray woolen skirt and jacket, white shirt and short black boots. Photographs taken during this time show her as having a pointed chin, wide-set eyes and curly hair, which she wore parted and pinned to the right. During his previous interviews with prisoners, Fox had learned that Volkenrath was cruel and vicious, prone to shooting prisoners for no apparent reason. The woman before them was the most hated woman in Belsen.
With everyone seated, Hanns asked Volkenrath about her background. She said that she had been born in a small town in Poland and that she had worked as a hairdresser before the war. She had then joined the SS and become a guard in Ravensbrück before her transfer to Auschwitz in March 1942. Like Grese, she denied being involved with the gassings, although she admitted being present during the “selections.”
Throughout the testimony, Hanns continued to translate the guard’s words, and then translate Fox’s questions back into German. At the end of the interrogation, Hanns asked Volkenrath who was responsible for what took place in Auschwitz.
It is my opinion that the man most responsible for the conditions at Auschwitz was Höss as he was in charge of all camps in this area. Reichsführer Himmler is, of course, responsible for all concentration camps. At no time did I see any orders in writing relating to concentration camps.
Once they had completed the interviews, Hanns and Fox returned to the small office that the WCIT had established in one of the old army buildings next to Belsen. On the walls were pinned photographs of SS guards and administrators that had been collected by the investigators, underneath which were labels listing their names, ages, titles and any distinguishing characteristics. Also hung up was the list of war criminals that had been published by the UN War Crimes Commission at the end of the war.
Fox next showed Hanns how to prepare the affidavits. With Elisabeth Volkenrath, for example, he selected the salient parts of her statement, typed them up in English, then Hanns translated them into German. Once all the statements were prepared, they returned to Celle and presented the documents to the prisoners. In Volkenrath’s case, they asked her to read over her affidavit, and when she had approved its contents, she signed her name, below which Hanns wrote:
Certified that I have accurately translated the above statement from German to English and have read it over to Elisabeth Volkenrath in German, the said Elisabeth Volkenrath having signed it in my presence.
Signed H. H. Alexander
For Hanns, these interviews opened a new door into the reality of the Nazi concentration camps. He had already seen what starvation and appalling conditions had done to the prisoners in Belsen. Now he had confirmation of an even grimmer reality: that the old, the sick, as well as children were selected for execution by the doctors in Auschwitz; that thousands of Jews had been gassed to death—at this point he could not know that the figures would climb to over a million—and that the Kommandant in charge of this horror was Rudolf Höss.
Hanns had by now developed two sides to his personality. On the surface he remained charming and jovial, quick to tell a dirty joke, eager to make those around him laugh. This was the Hanns, or “Alex,” known to the Belsen soldiers and medical staff. Yet his other side, his German-Jewish side, he revealed only to those who shared his suffering, to a few former prisoners in the camp, and to his family back home. To these people, Hanns was serious and determined, fierce to the point of brutality with those he interrogated, and full of hate.
By the end of May 1945, Hanns had spent three weeks in Belsen, translating the words spoken by SS guards. It was important work, but a task that he felt any German linguist could manage. Most of those he had interrogated were low-level guards who could not be blamed for the horrors of the camps. The few senior officers who had been processed had by now given their statements and would sit around in their cells for the next few months waiting for their trials to start. But there were many men missing. For every one guard interrogated, another three or four were implicated.
Realizing that he had skills beyond those of a mere interpreter—he understood the German people, he knew the country, he could navigate the streets—he vowed to hunt down these missing war criminals, especially Kommandant Höss.
Hanns walked over to Leo Genn’s office and asked permission to start looking. But Genn declined his request, believing that Hanns lacked the necessary experience, and reminding him that there was still plenty of work to be done at Belsen. Appearing to acquiesce, Hanns walked out. But the next day he drove out of the camp. Regardless of protocol, Hanns would become one of the very first, if not the first, men in the British Army to hunt for Nazi war criminals.
Genn was right. Hanns was entirely ill-equipped to carry out his self-appointed task: he had no police experience; he had received no training as a detective; he was without tactical support; he had no intelligence, no leads or clues. He was just an interpreter, barely able to seek, let alone arrest, the wanted men. But his lack of a plan or authority wasn’t going to stop him.
Driving around northern Germany he noticed that there were few other vehicles on the roads; if any of the local population still had a working car after six years of war they would have found it virtually impossible to find fuel given the shortages. The towns he passed through were quiet, save for military traffic, and the shelves of the rarely opened shops were mostly empty, stocking only the bare necessities. The residents he attempted to speak to were withdrawn and unwilling to converse with the unofficial detective.
On one of his unsanctioned outings, Hanns paid a visit to his brother, who was at that time in charge of a prisoner-of-war camp north of Hamburg. With Paul by his side, Hanns walked along the line of German soldiers, inspecting their arms for signs of the telltale blood-type tattoo marking all members of the SS. But to Hanns these men were only “small fry,” not worthy of arrest.
Before Hanns left, the brothers discussed their great-aunt Cäcilie Bing. The family had lost contact with her when she was still living in Frankfurt. Paul said that he would be in the city soon and promised to make inquiries. Cäcilie’s fate was a source of constant worry for the Alexanders. Since their arrival in England they had pleaded with her to join them, reminding her of the danger she faced in Germany. But in 1941 her responses—bold, resolute, indefatigable—had suddenly stopped.
After their brief meeting, the two brothers went their separate ways. On June 15, Hanns heard from Paul. His trip to Frankfurt had been fruitless. None of their friends had any news of Auntie Bing. The hotel where she had been staying had no record of her departure. The police were clueless as to her whereabouts. In a letter Paul wrote, “I don’t know whether Lilly [Cäcilie] is still alive, but I doubt she lives in Frankfurt.” Five days later, Henny wrote to both Hanns and Paul with news. The Red Cross had found a partial trace of Cäcilie Bing: she had been forced out of her hotel in Frankfurt on September 20, 1942, loaded onto a train with a thousand other Jews, and sent to Theresienstadt, a concentration camp in Czechoslovakia. They did not know if she had remained at this camp or if she had survived the war. Hanns wrote back immediately, “Sorry about Lilly Bing but by what I have seen here [in Belsen] she could only have been better off in Theresienstadt. I hope she did not have it too hard and too long.”
*
Over the next weeks, Hanns made trips out of the camp whenever he was not on duty. On July 15, 1945, he wrote a letter to his sister Elsie, telling her about his new activity and why he had been too busy to write. “My biggest enjoyment is chasing these SS about, but lately haven’t been too lucky catching anything interesting.” He explained that he was conducting this Nazi hunting in his “spare time” because it was not authorized by his superior officer, Leo Genn. “Unfortunately my boss has different ideas to mine. He says our job is to deal with those in custody, and I agree with him, but if I can help catch one that is not behind bars, I do it.”
Four days later, he wrote to his parents. First, he thanked them for his prized Dunhill pipe, which they had had repaired and returned to him. Then he congratulated his father on having built up his doctor’s practice, comparing it with the work he was doing as a Nazi hunter: “I am very pleased about the practice. It is marvelous what you have done in only a few years, after all under adverse conditions, war after all is war and it has upset almost everybody one way or another. 1800 [patients], jolly good show. I wished I could already say that I have helped to make 1800 SS swing, but I suppose that will never happen. It is amazing, but the least said about it the better. Thank God some die off in the meantime, at last some satisfaction, of those I am certain, but the others, one never knows.”
Throughout the summer of 1945, Hanns made short forays into the countryside, interviewing hundreds of German soldiers and civilians, but few provided any useful information. Despite his lack of success, he was driven to continue.
*
Meanwhile, back in London, Alfred and Henny Alexander were still trying to rebuild their lives. After the celebrations of VE Day in May 1945, they had struggled like the rest of the population. Food was still rationed—bacon, butter, jam, eggs, chocolate—as was gasoline. The doctor could not make journeys out to the countryside as he liked to do, and it was difficult to move around the city, as the streets were full of construction crews and the public transport system had not recovered from the years of bombing. So while he waited for his sons to return home, the doctor focused on his work. He rented rooms on Wimpole Street and continued to build up his practice.
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