Documents seized by British Intelligence agents last January prove that while the Freikorps was founded as a legitimate rightwing political party of between 1,000 and 2,000 members, Dr. Naumann had arranged for this political “front” to conceal the real nature of the organization—which consisted of approximately 5,000 carefully chosen and highly-trained Nazi men and women.
Nazi-Communist Plot Exposed
It was British M.I.5 agents from this headquarters who, investigating the one-paragraph mention of Dr. Naumann in an East German newspaper, exposed the Nazi-Communist plot and arrested Dr. Naumann and his six top assistants.
Evidence of the plot was then handed to Chancellor Konrad Adenauer by the British High Commissioner, Sir Ivone Kirkpatrick, a former Foreign Office expert and adviser on Germany and Hitlerism. Sir Ivone demanded that the Bonn Government pursue the investigations.
Reluctantly, Bonn’s police arrested four members of the Freikorps. Then papers found at their homes spurred Chancellor Adenauer and his Minister of the Interior, Robert Lehr, who at first had pooh-poohed the plot as “British propaganda,” into feverish action. Eleven more members of the Freikorps were held for questioning and the Korps was officially dissolved. Four members of the National Front, 10 members of the Socialist Action, and 28 members of the Free German Youth (all Communist organizations) were arrested and their parties also were dissolved.
A dragnet search was made by British and German police at the homes of these 50-odd leaders of the Nazi International, neo-Nazi agencies, and collaborating Communist parties. It revealed the sinister web of intrigue that Dr. Naumann and his assistant, Dr. Gustav Scheel (who also was mentioned in Hitler’s last will as Minister for Church and Education) had woven into every phase of German activity—including the Bonn Government itself.
How the Freikorps Operated
The Freikorps was a dangerous spider. As the central governing agency of the neo-Nazi movement in Germany, it knit into its executive committee the leaders of the Hamburg Truth and Justice League, the S.S. Aid Association, and the remnants of the Socialist Reich Partei—all extreme, right-wing political groups.
Freikorps leaders assumed control of the Free Democratic Party—the second largest political party in Chancellor Adenauer’s ruling coalition—and thus infiltrated the government’s highest posts. Democratic in name only, this party’s chairman is deputy Chancellor to Adenauer. Its strongly nationalistic platform was written by Dr. Friedrich Middlehauve, deputy chairman of the party and, at the same time, a member of the Freikorps. Dr. Ernst Achenbach, another member of the party’s Foreign Policy Committee, is legal adviser to Dr. Scheel.
The Freikorps collaborated with West German Communist organizations—mainly the Bruderschaft, which originally was founded as a violently anti-Western powers war veterans’ group and was financed by the Russians. Herr Helmuth Beck-Broichsitter, chairman of the now-banned Bruderschaft, is a top member of the Freikorps. He is now under arrest in Bonn.
British military police arrived too late to be completely successful when they raided the headquarters of West Germany’s new Hitler Front youth movement, also organized by the Freikorps. The secret files and membership lists of this movement, reportedly numbering more than 80,000 potential reserves for the Freikorps para-military formations, had disappeared. Only empty filing cabinets remained.
German heavy industry plays an important role in neo-Nazi plans for the rearmament of Germany. Shortly before Christmas last year it was reported from Munich that Alfred Krupp, the German armaments king of Hitler days, who was pardoned and released from jail, had returned to Munich. Documents seized by the Bonn Government reveal that Krupp, Naumann, and Scheel held an important conference there.
The Freikorps deceptive “Trojan Horse” was situated well inside the Bonn Government’s military staff, according to British agents. They say that top-secret NATO plans for an Allied and West German defense of West Europe are now in the hands of the Russians—undoubtedly given to the Reds by the neo-Nazi undercover organization.
Sir Ivone Kirkpatrick bluntly told Chancellor Adenauer that some 200 highly secret neo-Nazi and Nazi International documents, many of which were seized in the tiny Hamburg hospital room occupied by Dr. Scheel (he is no invalid, but the hospital is managed by Frau Inge Doenitz, wife of the Grand Admiral), bared the dangerous and widespread nature of this plot to overthrow democracy in Germany and establish a Soviet-backed Nazi plan to restore Hitler to power.
The British charged that Dr. Naumann had made minute plans to create a new Nazi Germany within four years—united and unified in a single party. They told Adenauer that papers seized on Karl Kaufman, former Hamburg Gestapo chief and assistant to Dr. Naumann in the Freikorps, showed that Naumann had access to the secret files of the Bonn Government, had constant contact with many former generals of the Wehrmacht (both in the West and in the Russian-dominated East zones of Germany), and had planned to seize political power by swinging all of the right-wing parties, particularly the German Party and the all-German Bloc, into their orbit.
These papers showed that the Freikorps was looking towards Soviet Russia for direct help in unifying Germany into a strong, single state in return for a Nazi promise to weld a Nazi-Government alliance against the rest of the world.
Under the time-table laid down for returning Hitler to Germany and for reestablishing a new and stronger Reich, the Freikorps planned to seize power in 1956. Arrangements had been made for the coup d’état to coincide with the release that same year of Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz from the Spandau prison upon completion of his ten-year Nuremberg jail sentence.
Doenitz would assume control of the new Nazi Government under the mandate of Hitler’s last will and testament—and within one year, the Freikorps believed, Germany would be strong enough for Hitler to return without fear of Allied reprisals.
Dr. Naumann’s Plan
Dr. Naumann’s plan was simple and logical, say the British. He reasoned that the Allies would not dare march against Germany if the Nazis first obtained the support of the Soviets.
The Freikorps believed that in the United States, the Nazi Bund would have bolstered Germany’s value as a bastion in the East against a Russian invasion of France or the Lowlands. The Bund would have succeeded, they felt, in turning American public opinion against Britain and France.
Meanwhile, Nazi International agents in the Middle East and North Africa would have created unrest by linking these nations with a Nazi anti-Semitic movement. Britain and the Lowlands, they thought, would not attempt a demonstration against Germany, even though her initial twelve divisions were weak, for fear of Russian intervention. France might protest, but she could not act alone.
In the United Nations, they were confident, the pro-Arab and Asian blocs would frustrate any attempt at more than superficial condemnation, and the Soviet could be counted upon to veto any motion in the Security Council.
Hitler would have won the day. Within weeks his heavy armaments industry would be churning out war materials. It would then be too late for intervention of any kind, and the arms race that leads inevitably to war—to World War III—would be on once again.
This is the pattern for Hitler’s return. What action will the Allies take, now that they know?
HITLER’S HAND REACHES BACK INTO GERMANY
by BILL DAVIS
“We will hold our meetings, even over your dead bodies,” is the threat made to German officials by Nazi leaders. Here’s the first authoritative account of the new menace …
The blood-soaked hand of Hitler is reaching back into modern Germany. Brutal and menacing, it is stirring up a brand-new hotbed of Nazis.
Less than a decade and a half after Allied power completed the annihilation of the dictator’s regime, Germany today again echoes to the ominous sound of “Heil Hitler.” It appears at the foot of letters to newspapers. It has been heard at meetings of former Nazis. It is linked to a campaign to “whitewash” German war atrocities—even to claim that
they were never committed.
And as the pro-Nazi faction grows in strength, West Germans and foreign observers recall with black misgivings the pattern of the Hitler rise to power.
For the neo-Nazi movement of today has much in common with that begun by the power-crazed housepainter it seeks to imitate.
Already Nazi-hating West Germans, protesting a meeting of an organization formed of former S.S. members, have been threatened with “reprisals.”
Already, a Nazi-minded editor—Robert Kramer, of “Die Anklage,” (The Accusation)—has demanded in his columns “the founding of the old party again.”
Already, through Kramer, pro-Nazis have discovered that the way of the transgressor is not always too hard to take. For Kramer escaped with a remarkably light sentence—two years in Jail (perhaps less with parole). And as Nazi victims have been quick to point out, the judge who handed it to him—Senat-President Kanter, presiding over the Third Criminal Senat of the Criminal Court—himself stands accused of responsibility for killing more than 100 members of the Danish underground movement. Kanter has not yet refuted the charge.
Five major factors flash danger signals at those West Germans who dread the prospect of a return to Third Reich horror. They are:
1. The letters written to neo-Nazi publications by former S.S. men, openly signed “Heil Hitler,” “German Salutation,” and “Long Live Liberty.” They are eagerly read by former Nazi officers and high-ranking officials of the Hitler regime, many of whom now hold well-paid jobs and prominent positions in the political, economic, and social life of West Germany.
Outcry Against “Hitler’s Bloodhounds”
2. The newly-formed organizations of former Nazi fanatics. These are numerous and varied in size. They exist to weld together and help sympathizers of the Nazi cause—such men as editor Kramer, who will be sure of many a helping hand on his release from Jail. When one such group, composed of former S.S. men (known as “Hitler’s Bloodhounds” by their victims), planned a meeting in the town of Arolsen, the public outcry was so great that eventually the meeting was held elsewhere. But not before a spokesman of the organization threatened: “The meeting will be held one way or the other, even over your dead bodies.” Other similar organizations, though not so blatant, are known to be increasing their membership by every means possible.
3. The “whitewashing” or denials of war atrocities. Typical of Nazi efforts to erase memories of war crimes were statements made at the meeting described above by ex-S.S. General “Panzer” Meyer. The war crimes, he said, were nothing but stories, and those that circulated them “dirty swine.” Amid thunderous approval, Meyer declared: “Let us take care that these germ-carriers of mental decay find no propagation. The crimes of Mazzabotto and Lidice are only fairy tales.”
(Lidice, a mining village in Czechoslovakia, was “eliminated” as a reprisal for the assassination of S.S. General Reinhard Heydrich).
4. The important positions held by men known to have been Nazis. Under the headline “Law Scandal in Mannheim” a West German newspaper has reported that several former Nazi judges again hold responsible positions in the Mannheim law administration. Public prosecutor Rehder-Knospel, for instance, used to be first public prosecutor at one of the so called “special courts” (Sondergerichte) in Prague.
A facsimile of a sentence, condemning 15 Czechs on the grounds of alleged sabotage to death and bearing, among others, the signature of Rehder-Knospel, has just been published.
Rehder-Knospel is not the only Nazi-jurist to hold a high post in the Mannheim law-administration. There are others: Bussejahn, former county court judge on a special court in Danzig and Graudenz, today acts as county court judge in Mannheim; Lohrey, former district judge on a special court in Mannheim, today is a director at the Mannheim county court; Von Muhlenfels, another former county court judge at a Nazi special court in Mannheim, today is attorney general in the same town; Dr. Heinrich, former attorney-general at the special court in Mannheim, today is director of the county court in Mannheim.
At least three more judges in the law administration of Mannheim alone (a city of 290,000) are known to have held high posts during the Nazi regime. Their names are no secret: Drs. Brauns, Muhlenberg, and Hoffrichter.
5. Lack of action against former Nazis or Nazi supporters. Many ex-Nazis have reached retirement age. But they still manage, sometimes with the help of institutions like the SS’s “Organization for Mutual Help” or with the aid of some still-active, influential former party-friends, to receive an old age pension. The merits they “earned” themselves during the Third Reich pay off well in West Germany of 1959.
Ex-Nazis Draw Fat Pensions
A Frankfurt administration court sentenced the town of Offenbach to pay its former Nazi-mayor Schranz, retroactive as of April 1, 1951, a transition salary and after his 65th birthday a monthly pension. Schranz became a member of the Nazi party as early as 1925 and acted as mayor of Offenbach from 1934 until the end of the war in 1945.
Pensions men like Schranz and other former members of the Nazi party receive today sometimes run to almost incredible amounts. The former Secretary of State in the Nazi Ministry of Justice, Dr. Kurt Rothenberger, was sentenced during the Nuremberg trial of war criminals to a long prison term. He was released in October 1951.
Since that date Rothenberger has received 190,726 German Marks (about 47,000 dollars). His monthly pension thus amounts to 2073.19 German Marks, equivalent to the monthly salary of a West Germany company president.
Rothenberger was succeeded by Franz Schleglberger in the Ministry of Justice. Together with Nazi-leader Kaltenbrunner he inspected concentration camps during the war, and found “everything in order.”
With his assistance the notorious 13th decree was prepared, under which Jews were no longer subordinate to the courts but to the SS.
Schleglberger receives a monthly pension only slightly less than that of his predecessor.
Former Nazi-lawyer Lautz still receives a monthly government pay-check of 750 German Marks, roughly two-and-a-half times as much as the average West German income.
Firms Loyal to Hitler Still Flourish
Business firms which today contribute to the Economic Recovery of West Germany showed exactly the same loyalty to the Nazi Government. But no steps have ever been taken against them.
The neo-Nazis of today are tarred with the same brush as the thugs who rose to power with Hitler. By uncovering their organizations whenever possible, the West German Government and democratically-minded citizens, are fighting them tooth and nail. Only recently, lectures dealing with the dark days of the Hitler era have been made obligatory in West German High Schools. And it is more than a gesture of goodwill that the West German Government wants to extend reparation rights to former victims of the Nazi regime now living in East Germany.
But West Germans know only too well the Hitler threat is real. Even the government has no doubt that the neo-Nazis have found fanatical supporters among disgruntled veterans of World War II and easily-influenced youths who think of Hitler as a martyred hero.
HITLER’S TOP AIDE IS ALIVE!
by HARVEY WILSON
Martin Bormann directs world wide anti-Jewish campaign from hideout
Today, throughout West Germany 30,000 Jews, the remnant of the half-million who lived there before Hitler’s purges got going, are lying low again, wondering just how far the clock is slipping back for them.
In Cologne, West Germany, a synagogue was smeared with a Nazi swastika and daubed with the dictum “Juden Raus” (“Jews get out”).
In Berlin’s Glienicke Park, 25 German students dressed with the old trimmings—brown shirts, breeches, jackboots and armbands emblazoned with swastikas, chanted Nazi songs and tramped with a Nazi flag.
In New York two teenagers and a mail clerk of 21, were discovered with swastika armbands, a recording of Adolf Hitler’s maniacal rantings and membership cards in a hate-inspired National American Renaissance Party.
In Cl
eveland four high school boys of “superior intelligence” organized themselves into the “Fourth Reich,” dedicated to extermination of “all Jews and Communists.”
This wasn’t a quarter century ago when Hitler was whipping Germany into World War II. This was 1960.
It was happening in far flung parts of the world—in London and Rome, in Cincinnati and Chicago. Churches have been desecrated, public buildings vandalized. Even tombstones have been violated by painted swastikas.
Martin Bormann was fulfilling his destiny—Martin Bormann, the man who seized leadership of the ruthless SS (Elite Guard) when Der Fuehrer foresaw his doom as Russian artillery battered Berlin on April 29, 1945—nine days before Germany’s unconditional surrender. Martin Bormann was executing his heritage of hate.
Bormann was the No. 2 Nazi in 1945, Hitler’s first deputy.
For 15 years he has flitted from city to city, nation to nation, continent to continent. He has never been caught—but now the Police Gazette can reveal that he has been seen, stamped as the mastermind plotting a worldwide rebirth of anti-Semitism. That’s the way Hitler willed it that night of April 29, 1945, in the momentary security of a bomb shelter under the Reichschancellory.
Bormann has been playing an international game of hide-and-seek with intelligence officers. But last August an Italian secret service agent came face-to-face with him in Argentina.
The agent waited three years, and his patience was rewarded. During those three years he gained the confidence of the Fascist units in Italy working closely with Bormann’s Nazi cells.
Infiltrating the Fascist underground in Italy, the agent became a courier to and from Bormann’s contact man in Munich, operating under the undercover name of “Max Wagner,” one of the cruelest characters to cross from Germany to Northern Italy during the Hitler-Mussolini war alliance.
Hitler Is Alive! Page 25