The Venlo Incident

by Nigel Jones

  Some of the village people to whom news of our predicament had spread, made and sent us a delicious potato salad and two large loaves of country bread. This was the only food we had that day. In the morning, von Petersdorff and I having been elected as spokesmen, we demanded the presence of Lieutenant Bader and strongly protested about the lack of arrangements for feeding us. This man Bader was a member of the chief Gestapo execution gang and passed his life in travelling from one concentration camp to another, like a pest officer engaged in the extermination of rats. We all realized that the fact that such a man had been chosen to guard us did not presage anything particularly good, but for some reason he had so far shown himself quite polite and obliging. So, too, now. He said that really he was doing everything possible to get us food; in fact, he and his men had none either; the whole difficulty arose from lack of petrol. There was food to be had at Passau but the problem was how to get it. He had now succeeded in borrowing a motor-cycle and he was going to Passau to see whether any transport was available there to bring out supplies.

  He had to put up with a good deal of barracking from backbenchers who suggested that a motor-cycle might serve to take him to a good meal, but could never bring back enough to satisfy us, but Bader took everything in good part and Petersdorff handled the whole affair very well. In spite of everything, we were all lighthearted and gay; our adventures had knitted a strong bond of comradeship between all of us, and there was a complete absence of jealousy, impatience, or fear; only little Hoeppner lived in a perpetual state of panic but we had all decided to treat him as a joke, and whatever he did or said always drew roars of laughter.

  The following day, Sunday 8th April, 1945, Pastor Bonnhöfer held a little service and spoke to us in a manner which reached the hearts of all, finding just the right words to express the spirit of our imprisonment and the thoughts and resolutions which it had brought. He had hardly finished his last prayer when the door opened and two evil-looking men in civilian clothes came in and said:

  “Prisoner Bonnhöfer. Get ready to come with us.” Those words “Come with us”—for all prisoners they had come to mean one thing only—the scaffold.

  We bade him good-bye—he drew me aside—“This is the end,” he said. “For me the beginning of life,” and then he gave me a message to give, if I could, to the Bishop of Chichester, a friend to all evangelical pastors in Germany.

  Next day, at Flossenberg, he was hanged.

  That evening there was sausage, plenty of bread, and lots of potatoes for supper. We were cheerful and noisy again.

  Next morning, when the shaving queue was in operation, Bader came in and called out: “Best, von Falkenhausen, Kokorin—get ready to leave at once.” Everybody helped us to get our things together. Mrs. Heberlein was most apologetic because some of our laundry was not ready: “I will keep it for you and give it you when we next meet,” she said, though it was clear that she, like everyone else, thought that we too had reached the station where it is all change.

  We went downstairs, two of Bader’s men carrying our luggage, and found waiting for us a ‘Grüne Minna’, and standing next to it my old friend Gogalla, very friendly and bringing me greetings from Obergruppenführer Müller. “You know, Herr Best, I told you when you were with us in Berlin that you were to be moved to somewhere where you would be comfortable. Now I am taking you to Dachau. There will be no more solitary confinement, and you will stay there until your armies reach you.”

  This certainly looked pretty good—we were apparently not to be executed this time, and feeling quite cheerful again I stepped up into the van.

  CHAPTER IX

  DR. KURT VON SCHUSCHNIGG, ex-Chancellor of Austria, in an article which appeared in the Daily Telegraph of 3rd March, 1946, described our entry into the ‘Grüne Minna’ in these words:

  “Into the van came an elderly German general in full uniform, with bright red lining, the Pour le Mérite—the highest German decoration in World War I—around his neck.

  After him came a slim man wearing a monocle, speaking German with an English accent. And last, half in military and half in civilian clothes, a very young Russian officer.

  The first thing the three newcomers did was to roll a cigarette from the scarce supplies of the Englishman and pass it from mouth to mouth.

  Then they introduced themselves as General von Falkenhausen, former Military Governor of Belgium, Mr. Best of the British Secret Service, and Wassilli, an air force lieutenant and nephew of the Foreign Commissar of the U.S.S.R., Molotov.”

  Having made sure that my luggage was safely stowed I followed the other two into the van. I had to climb over the legs of several people before I could reach a vacant seat at the back, but it was so dark after the bright sunlight outside that at first I was blinded and could not see who our companions were. I sat down in one corner and von Falkenhausen in the opposite one; there was no room for Wassilli who had to perch on the luggage, which was piled high in the centre. Next to me was a tall man whose face seemed familiar, although at the moment I could not place him; diagonally opposite me was Dr. von Schuschnigg whom I recognized at once. I said to my neighbour: “My name is Best,” to which he replied: “Schacht”; (in Germany men always introduce themselves to each other, and it is highly incorrect to start a conversation with anyone without such prior introduction). He greeted Falkenhausen as an old friend and then introduced me to the rest of the party: Dr. von Schuschnigg, his wife, and little daughter Sissie, Colonel-General Franz Haider, General Thomas, and Colonel Bogislav von Bonin. They had all come from the Flossenberg camp, where the Schuschniggs had been ever since their evacuation from Sachsenhausen, and, having been sitting in the ‘Grüne Minna’ since four o’clock in the morning, were terribly tired and stiff.

  As we were leaving the room at Schöneberg, Heberlein had pushed a tiny packet of tobacco into my hand, all that he possessed and just sufficient for the very thin cigarette which I immediately rolled and which Falkenhausen, Kokorin, and I smoked with greatest delight, each taking a whiff and then passing it on to the next. When Mrs. von Schuschnigg saw this, she burst out laughing, and immediately handed round a well-filled red leather cigarette case and insisted on each of us taking one. So started our happy association with our beloved ‘Camp Angel’ as she was soon called by all of us. I can never express the gratitude which I feel to this beautiful, charming, and brave woman, who voluntarily shared her husband’s imprisonment and put up with every hardship without a murmur. On this first day she looked terribly tired and worn and little Sissie was fractious and tearful. She kept asking: “Is it a nice prison we are going to Mummie? Why can’t we go back to Sachsenhausen?” Poor little tot, she had been born in prison and had hardly ever known anything but confinement, high walls, and barbed wire. Von Bonin was the only one who could manage her, and at last she wore herself out and went to sleep, and her mother managed a short nap herself.

  Schacht and I got into conversation and I reminded him of a meeting in Switzerland more than ten years earlier. He had spent many months in solitary confinement in our prison at Berlin and at Flossenberg, always with the threat of execution hanging over him, and this was the first time that he had been amongst friends to whom he could talk freely. Perhaps for this reason, on this one occasion, he behaved like a normal human being and shook off the inhibition, or the pose which normally rendered any close personal contact with him impossible.

  We had a long talk about probable post-war economic problems and Schacht was at great pains to emphasize his adherence to classical economic theory, and his belief in the necessity for a return to the Gold Standard, if free international exchange of goods and services were to be achieved. Of course, at the time when this conversation took place Schacht, as indeed did all of our party, looked forward to allied victory as liberation, and still believed that the war had been waged, not against the Germans, but only against Nazi-ism.

  Schacht was for me always a very tragic figure for, having the intelligence, courage, and initiative
required to lead a successful revolt against Hitler, he was entirely lacking in the one essential quality of a leader, the power to attract a following. I believe that Schacht is an extremely honest man, and one who throughout had the courage of his convictions. If at first he did not openly oppose Hitler, this was less due to shortsightedness and failure to recognize the fallacies in his programme, than to his rather conceited belief that he would always be strong enough to put Hitler in his place. Later, when he discovered his mistake and tried to find colleagues in his fight against him, his unfortunate manner or perhaps better said, affectation of superiority, set everyone against him. His manner is one of conscious rectitude, his speech incisive and didactic, and his attitude towards everybody displays the most profound contempt. He may show enthusiasm but it is purely intellectual and cold, conveying no impression that there is any real emotion behind it; Schacht thinks, but would have you believe that he does not feel. During the weeks which I spent in his company I came to the conclusion that he was in reality a shy and sensitive man, who probably felt so deeply that he had been compelled to erect a shield between himself and the outside world, and that far from being a hard and cold man he was merely a very lonely one. Whatever the truth, one thing is certain, in his attempts to find associates who would work with him towards Hitler’s downfall he never succeeded in winning the confidence of those men who alone could have carried out his plans to a successful conclusion.

  A dictatorship organized on modern lines has nothing to fear from any revolt by the masses; secret police, informers, concentration camps, together with control of the dissemination of information through press and radio, are sufficient to subjugate and cow the population of any country. Only a palace revolution is dangerous. With the single exception of the S.A. revolt planned by Roehm, which was so bloodily beaten down, Hitler had no difficulties with his political associates, men of straw who owed everything to him and realized that without him they would be swept away, but throughout his career he was faced by an ever-present danger from the distrust and dislike of the commanders of his armed forces. He was always perfectly well aware of this opposition and the danger which it held but, having warlike intentions, he needed his generals and could not venture to take open repressive action against them, and if they had been prepared to act instead of only giving more or less sympathetic ear to plans for action, they really held his fate in their hands. The German generals were not politically minded except that by tradition they were conservative—they were military specialists who had been trained to believe that: “Theirs not to reason why” but that their responsibility ended if they obeyed the orders of the head of the state and got on with the job of preparing for, and waging war.

  In the period immediately preceding the war Schacht undoubtedly saw the dangers which his country faced, and was inspired with absolute determination to do everything within his power to destroy the Nazis, and did not shrink from the idea of removing Hitler by assassination. But all his efforts to bring his plans to fruition were, in my opinion, frustrated by the distrust and even dislike he aroused in all the men whose co-operation he tried to win, so that in the end he found all doors closed to him and the responsible military leaders refused even to see him. Since the end of the war a lot of information has been published about the numerous conspiracies which were forged against Hitler, but on this evidence any intelligent person must, I think, come to the conclusion that none of them held hope of ultimate success owing to lack of any real unity of purpose amongst the conspirators—they all lacked a commander-in-chief.

  Our journey progressed with quite good speed, for the ‘Grüne Minna’ was powered by petrol instead of wood fumes, and at about nine o’clock we reached our destination, Dachau. Although Gogalla had already told me that we were going there, one could never quite trust anything these people said and we had learnt to require proof of the truth of their statements. We all got out and were taken into a sort of large hall at the entrance, dimly lighted and very cold, and there followed what seemed an interminable wait. There were no seats, we were hungry and tired, and for about an hour we just hung about there, our spirits getting lower every minute. At last a portly SS colonel made his appearance and with great politeness introduced himself as Obersturmbanführer Weiter, the Commandant of Dachau. With a most obliging air he made us a regular speech of welcome, even gallantly attempting, but failing, to kiss Mrs. von Schuschnigg’s hand. He was very sorry that we had been kept waiting for so long, but Dachau was very crowded and it had really been most difficult to find suitable accommodation for such distinguished guests. He had done what he could but, even so, realized that the quarters to which he would now conduct us were far from being such as we expected and deserved, but really they were the best that he could provide, and he hoped that we would forgive their shortcomings.

  We then walked a matter of 200 yards, some prisoners carrying our luggage, until we came to a large stone building where we were shown into what seemed to us almost luxuriously appointed cells; the luxury consisted mainly in the fact that there was a w.c. in some cells and a basin with running water in others. The Schuschniggs were given a large room and a small cell, while von Falkenhausen and I took possession of two cells which communicated with each other, with a w.c. in the one and a basin in the other; the rest of our party found satisfactory accommodation near us. We were all of us dead tired and famished into the bargain. Mrs. Schuschnigg looked as though she might faint at any moment, and my state was not much better as I was suffering from violent diarrhoea, probably an after effect of the sausage we had eaten at Schöneberg the previous day which had not tasted too fresh. After some difficulty, the kitchen being closed, a trusty found and warmed up some carrot soup which we ate; not too bad, and ‘so to bed’.

  Next morning we discovered that our cells were almost like normal rooms with low French windows which, although there were bars before them, we could open wide. From our room we looked out upon something almost worthy of the name of garden, with flower-beds, a plot of grass on which were standing a bench and some camp chairs; a pretty girl was talking to an SS guard. When we were up and had breakfasted on black bread and jam we were called out into the passage where we were addressed by a young Untersturmführer named Stiller, who was in charge of the building in which we were housed. He told us that we were free to go in the garden whenever we liked and could associate with anyone else we met there; we must, though, be careful, as we were expressly forbidden to speak to any people in the building who were not with our party, and if we did so the commandant would not fail to take appropriate action to prevent this taking place. He wished to allow us as much liberty as possible, but it depended on our good sense whether it could be continued. We soon discovered that our cells were at the eastern end of a long single story building which was called the Sonderbau (special building), and were separated from the main passage, a continuation of our own, by a steel door near which was the orderly room. This door was left open, as to get to the garden we had to pass through it. As we did so, I could see through it a long passage, at least three times as long as that on which we lived with cell doors on each side.

  One of the first persons I met on our arrival in the building was the chief trusty, a man named Paul Wouwer, who in 1940 had for a time been the barber at Sachsenhausen. Of course this was a touching reunion between old friends, and we had much to tell each other about what had happened during the years which had passed. He had two pieces of news for me. One, that Ettlinger was still a prisoner at Dachau, but that after he got out of the punishment squad he had soon managed to wheedle himself into the good graces of the commandant and had been given a responsible job which freed him from all manual labour. The other news was, that immediately on our arrival, Georg Elser, who had been in the building for some weeks past, was taken out into the garden by Stiller and shot in the back of the neck. The man who shot him had been brought from one of the condemned cells and had been executed immediately after and both bodies had been taken at onc
e to the crematorium. This apparently accounted for our long wait at the entrance to the camp.

  Wouwer had known Elser well and had shaved him daily at Sachsenhausen; he said that when Elser first reached Dachau he was in a very low state and daily expected execution, but latterly he had become more cheerful as it was rumoured that the entire SS staff of the camp intended to bolt before it was reached by allied troops, in which case the prisoners would not be evacuated further. When Gogalla came with us to the camp he brought with him a number of orders from Gestapo H.Q. in Berlin which resulted in a renewed tightening up of discipline and, unfortunately, the execution of a number of death sentences. One of the orders which he brought with him, later came into my possession, and since it deals with our arrival and the death of poor little Elser, I am giving the translation now: