Hanns and Rudolf

by Thomas Harding

  They had more success at a Berlin press agency, where they collected photographs and clippings of the SS leaders, taken before and during the war. Then they tracked down Oswald Pohl’s former adjutant, Georg Witt, also in American custody. Witt told them that Pohl and his staff had departed Berlin ten months earlier, on April 12, 1945, intending to establish a Southern Command near Munich. However, following the Americans’ swift advance through southern Germany, they had been forced to abandon this plan and, after a short stay in Dachau, the group had split up. Witt said that he and Pohl had only just managed to avoid the oncoming American forces. They reached the home of Pohl’s former wife, in the Bavarian town of Brunningsau, sometime later that evening. This was the last that he was to see of his superior; Pohl fled sometime during the night. Punctilious as ever, Hanns wrote down Witt’s testimony, along with the name and address of Pohl’s former wife, and cabled the information back to the two Haystack investigators who were hunting down the former head of the WVHA.

  By February 18, 1946, Hanns and Major Caola had built up a list of more than 130 people who had been employed by the WVHA, over 50 percent of whom had worked for Amtsgruppe D. Each name was carefully written into a small notebook, which they called the “Black Book.”

  Most critically, almost everyone they had spoken to had described the flight of the Concentration Camp Inspectorate’s most senior officers north towards the Danish border. The group had included Glücks, Maurer and Höss, along with their family members.

  In a report summarizing their trip to Berlin, Major Caola wrote:

  The main efforts of the Investigating Officers have so far been concentrated on gathering information, which, it is hoped, will lead to the location and arrest of “wanted” persons and with the exception of any lead which Capt. Alexander may obtain in Flensburg area, which he hopes to visit within the next few days, it is considered unlikely that additional information will be forthcoming until some further arrests are made. It is therefore suggested that the “Hunt” should commence as soon as Capt. Alexander has collected whatever clues are available at Flensburg. As it is the intention that Capt. Alexander will himself conduct the search for the higher officers, it is suggested that the task of searching for the minor officers and others who may be considered as potential witnesses is one that can be carried out by “Haystack.”

  Back in Belsen, Tilling briefed Hanns on the latest intelligence on the Amtsgruppe D leaders: two Haystack operatives were hot on the trail of Oswald Pohl and the Americans were looking for Gerhard Maurer, who was believed to be in their zone. Meanwhile, British intelligence had confirmed that Dr. Enno Lolling had committed suicide in May 1945, while Sommer was in American custody and Burger was being held by the Poles. This meant that Hanns’s primary targets should now be Richard Glücks, the notorious head of Amtsgruppe D, and Rudolf Höss. Both were suspected of being in the Flensburg area, near the Danish border.

  Hanns was handed a report on Glücks from a British intelligence unit based near Flensburg. Since May 1945, rumors had swirled around Glücks’s fate: some suggested that he had fled to South America; others said that he now ran a secret network of former Nazis called ODESSA, while others believed that he was still hiding in southern Germany. According to interviews with the staff at the Murvik Naval Hospital near Flensburg, the report stated that a man calling himself “Sonneman,” but believed to be Glücks, was admitted in early May 1945 and was pronounced dead only a few days later: “Poisoning by prussic acid (suicide),” the report declared, going on to state that a body had been buried in the Flensburg cemetery on May 18, and later exhumed, but with no positive identification made.

  There was no specific information on Höss, but Hanns was told to check in with British intelligence operating in the area, who apparently had a lead on members of his family.

  Taking a vehicle from the War Crimes Group’s car pool, Hanns set off for Flensburg. The roads were congested with the postwar reconstruction traffic. Large trucks transporting tools and goods from the ports around Hamburg to the cities to the south slowed the journey, and the uncleared snow from the previous week’s heavy storms made the roads slick and treacherous.

  Hanns’s first stop was at the home of Glücks’s wife, Aloise, at 25 Friedrichshof. She confirmed that she had left Berlin with her husband at the end of April 1945—along with the other members of Amtsgruppe D, including Höss, Maurer and Lolling—arriving in Flensburg on May 1, 1945. She said that she believed that her husband had committed suicide on May 10, though she admitted that she was not a witness. When pushed, she confessed that she had heard a rumor from Professor Gebhardt—Himmler’s personal physician, no less—that her husband was alive. He had said that Glücks was “well and hidden” and that she should not look for him any further as she would be “endangering the lives of others.” Yet, she repeated, she still believed that her husband was dead, and produced what she claimed was her husband’s bottom jaw, pointing out that the bone and teeth were still filled with glass splinters, apparent evidence that he had bitten down on the poisonous capsule. Hanns remained skeptical. In a field report he wrote:

  Frau Glücks is wearing black mourning. I noticed that she wears only one wedding ring, contrary to the custom of widows wearing both, husbands and wives wedding rings, on one finger. I did not interrogate on that point, so as not to raise any suspicion.

  With Glücks’s case grown cold, Hanns turned his attention to the next name on his list: the Kommandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss.

  A few days later, on March 8, 1946, Hanns stepped out of his car and walked towards a modest white-brick building in the center of Heide, a small town situated fifty miles south of Flensburg. This was the headquarters of British Field Security Section 92.

  The British had created more than a hundred Field Security Sections to oversee the massive swath of land which they controlled in postwar north Germany. Falling somewhere between a police organization and a counterintelligence force, these Field Security Sections filled a critical hole created by the collapse of the German security apparatus, suppressing any acts of armed resistance by the local population and imposing basic law and order.

  Hanns was ushered into a back office and introduced to Captain William Victor Cross, the commander of FSS 92. At thirty-three, Cross was just four years older than Hanns. A man with a ruddy face and a stout build, Cross had served in the Intelligence Corps since 1939 and was well loved by his men.

  Hanns explained his mission: that he worked for 1 War Crimes Investigation Team, had orders to hunt down and arrest Rudolf Höss, and that he had recent intelligence suggesting that the Kommandant was hiding somewhere in the Flensburg vicinity. Cross replied that his unit’s prime activity was to maintain the peace, but as Höss’s name appeared high on the list of wanted war criminals, they too had been keeping an eye out for him. Unfortunately, they didn’t know where he was hiding or if he had adopted a new identity. However, they had been monitoring his wife and children, who were living in the old sugar factory in St. Michaelisdonn, and his men had recently intercepted a letter from Rudolf Höss to his wife—they monitored all the local mail—proving that Hedwig knew the whereabouts of her husband, or at least knew someone who did. As a result, the day before Hanns’s arrival, on March 7, they had pulled Hedwig in for questioning.

  Hanns was delighted to hear this good fortune. A few minutes later he and Sergeant Koolish, a member of Field Security Section 92 who also spoke German, were driven to Lunden prison. Inside one of the cells sat a round-faced woman wearing a dirty blouse and a peasant’s skirt. Although Hedwig no longer had servants to order about, nor the fine furniture or artwork which filled her house in Auschwitz, she retained an air of arrogance. Hanns told Hedwig in German that he was a captain in the British Army and that he had some questions regarding her husband. He asked her how long she had been living in the sugar factory and how she had made her way from Auschwitz to Flensburg. Had she been in contact with her husband? Where was he living? What identity had
he adopted? In almost theatrical fashion, Hedwig refused to reveal anything.

  Given their lack of progress, Hanns suggested that they should employ one of “Tin Eye” Stephens’s interrogation tricks: use a child to pressure their parent into talking. The next day Hanns and four members of Field Security Section 92 drove to the sugar factory on the outskirts of St. Michaelisdonn. Hanns walked up the stairs and into the apartment. It was dark, unkempt and cold. With the mother in custody, the children had had to fend for themselves. The place had little furniture—a small wooden table, some old chairs. There were no mattresses on the floors or pictures on the wall. It was more temporary accommodation than a home. Hanns was met by the four oldest children. He told them to sit on the table (the youngest was asleep under a blanket in the corner). Hanns began barking questions, demanding that they tell him where their father was living. The children replied meekly that they did not know. Hanns walked up to Klaus, and, putting his face close to the boy’s, screamed the question again: “Where is your father?” Again the same answer. Hanns banged his fists on the table in frustration. “You must know!” He walked up to the oldest daughter, Heideraud, and shouted that if she didn’t tell him the truth then he would arrest Klaus. The girl whimpered, saying she didn’t know any more than the other children. Brigitte was next. When Hanns bellowed that he would kill their mother if she didn’t confess, Brigitte ran out of the room and hid under a tree behind the factory with her hands over her ears. A few minutes later she looked up and saw the British soldiers leave. Sitting in the back of their truck was her brother Klaus.

  As soon as they arrived in Lunden, Hanns pulled the boy from the truck and escorted him into the prison, where his mother was being held. She was shocked to see her son. Yet, despite any fears that she might have had over his safety, her answer remained the same as it had been for days: “I do not know where my husband is living.” But having seen her anguish when the boy was brought in, all Hanns needed was to find the best way to convince her that Klaus’s life was in danger.

  When Hanns came in to question the boy the next day, the young Höss seemed willing to talk. He said that he hadn’t seen his father since the last days of the war, in May 1945, when he’d carried a letter from Rudolf to Hedwig, along with Rudolf’s Totenkopfring, the silver death’s-head ring with the Reichsführer’s signature engraved inside which he’d been given personally by Himmler. However, he maintained that he did not know where his father had been staying for the past few months.

  Seeing her son being interrogated, Hedwig decided to retaliate by announcing that she and Klaus were now on a hunger strike. In response, Hanns asked the prison warden to move Hedwig to a separate cell. But each time Hanns entered Hedwig’s cell and asked one question—“Where is your husband?”—she replied, “He is dead.”

  With their tactics of isolation and intimidation failing to produce a result, Hanns realized that they must develop an alternative approach. At twilight on March 11, 1946, a noisy old steam train was driven past the rear of the prison. Hanns burst into Hedwig’s cell and informed her that the train was about to take her son to Siberia and that she would never see Klaus again. Allowing the message to sink in for a few moments, Hanns then added that she could prevent her son’s deportation if she told him where her husband was living and under what alias. Hanns then left Hedwig sitting on her cot with a piece of paper and a pencil. When he returned ten minutes later, he saw that she had written a note with Rudolf’s location and his alias: the Kommandant of Auschwitz was living at Hans Peter Hansen’s farm in Gottrupel under the name “Franz Lang.”

  16

  HANNS AND RUDOLF

  GOTTRUPEL, GERMANY

  1946

  * * *

  As soon as Hanns had heard Hedwig Höss’s confession, he rushed over to Captain Cross, and the two quickly agreed on a plan. They should carry out the arrest under the cover of darkness, and as soon as possible. And they would need serious firepower. It was unclear if Rudolf was alone, and there was every chance that he would resist arrest.

  Over the next hour the men of Field Security Section 92 were assembled and briefed on the operation. Many of them were German Jews like Hanns, from the Pioneer Corps—men who had been driven out of their country and who had lost family members in Auschwitz. Some had kept their original names, such as Kuditsch and Wiener. Others had taken on British-sounding names, like Roberts, Cresswell and Shiffers. There were also English-born soldiers from Jewish families, similarly enraged, men such as Bernard Clarke, from the south coast, and Karl “Blitz” Abrahams, from Liverpool.

  Rifles were checked and supplies loaded into the trucks: blankets, a field radio, cartons of extra ammunition. A box of axe handles was stashed into the back of one of the vehicles. Hanns, meanwhile, put a call in to the commander of Field Security Section 318, explaining the mission and requesting additional backup. He also arranged for a doctor from the 5th Royal Horse Artillery regiment to join them.

  Two hours later, the small convoy of trucks and jeeps hurried along the narrow roads towards Gottrupel. Darkness had descended on the German countryside. Inside the vehicles twenty-five men sat nervously on benches, fidgeting with their gear. Hanns knew that they all wanted to be “in on the kill.”

  It was pitch black and utterly quiet when the convoy rolled into the farmyard in Gottrupel at eleven o’clock on March 11, 1946. Getting out of his jeep, and accompanied by the medical officer and the driver, Hanns ordered the others to hold back. He walked towards the barn and knocked loudly.

  Rudolf was “woken with a start” by the commotion outside. At first, he was unconcerned, assuming “that it was one of the robberies which were very frequent at this time in the area.” Then he heard a stern voice ordering him to open up. Realizing that he had no alternative, Rudolf opened the door. Two men in British uniform stood facing him. Rudolf could tell by their insignia that one was a captain, the other a doctor. Behind them stood at least twenty soldiers, their guns drawn. He was confused by the lights and the presence of all these men.

  Without warning the tall, handsome, fierce-looking captain thrust a pistol in his mouth. He was then searched for cyanide pills. “Go and see that he is clean,” Hanns said to the doctor, holding Rudolf while his mouth was searched for vials of poison. After a few seconds the doctor gave the all-clear.

  The captain began talking in perfect German. It was immediately obvious to Rudolf that the man was a native speaker. He introduced himself as Captain Alexander of the British War Crimes Investigation Team, and demanded to see Rudolf’s papers. The Kommandant handed over his identity documents—Franz Lang, temporary card number B22595. Hanns had seen this name on the plate next to the barn door, but knew it to be untrue. The man looked too similar to the figure in the photograph that he carried with him. Older, sicker, thinner, to be sure, but similar.

  Hanns flashed the photograph and told Rudolf that he believed him to be the Kommandant of Auschwitz. Again Rudolf denied the claim, pointing once more at his identity papers. Perhaps he would be able to wriggle out of this: after all, the British had let him slip through their fingers in the past.

  However, Hanns remained convinced. He rolled back the man’s shirtsleeves to see if there was a blood group tattooed on his arm, but there was nothing. The conversation went around in circles. Yet Hanns wasn’t going to give up. His eyes roved about the barn entrance searching for a way to prove the man’s identity.

  At last Hanns looked down and noticed his wedding ring.

  “Give it to me,” he said.

  “I can’t, it has been stuck for years,” Rudolf answered.

  “No problem,” Hanns said, “I’ll just cut off your finger.”

  Hanns asked one of the members of Field Security Section 92 to fetch a kitchen knife from inside the barn. When this man returned, he handed the knife to Hanns, who stepped forward, clearly intent on carrying out his threat. Realizing he would lose the ring either way, Rudolf reluctantly removed the wedding band from his finger. Then, s
taring furiously at Hanns, he handed it over. Hanns held the ring up to the light and looked inside the band, where he saw the names “Rudolf” and “Hedwig” inscribed. Hanns thanked him and put the ring in his pocket.

  Having identified his man, Hanns was ready to make the arrest. But he sensed that his colleagues wanted to vent their hatred. Indeed, he wanted to join in. He had to make a quick decision: should he allow them free rein, or should he protect Rudolf? Turning to his men, Hanns said, “In ten minutes I want to have Höss in my car—undamaged” and walked off. He knew that this made him responsible for what was about to happen, but he was prepared to face the consequences.

  Rudolf was immediately surrounded by the remaining soldiers, who dragged him to one of the barn’s slaughter tables, tore the pajamas from his body and beat him with axe handles. Rudolf screamed, but the blows kept coming. After a short period, the doctor spoke to Hanns: “Call them off,” he said, “unless you want to take back a corpse.”

  Just as suddenly as it had started, the beating stopped. A rough woolen blanket was wrapped around Rudolf’s shoulders, and he was carried out of the barn.

  *

  At around midnight the prisoner was loaded into the truck. Hanns and three sergeants climbed in after. Hanns told the driver to make for Heide, where they would deliver Rudolf to the local jail. Hanns sat on one of the benches next to Rudolf in the back of the truck. As the vehicle rumbled along the narrow roads, Hanns asked the prisoner a series of questions: What is your name? What was your rank in the SS? What role did you play during the war? Did you work at Auschwitz? At last, after repeated questioning, Rudolf confirmed to Hanns that he had worked as the Kommandant of Auschwitz, and that he had been “personally responsible for the deaths of 10,000 people.” Hanns realized with rising excitement that not only had he captured his man, but he was willing to talk.