M-T
The Canadian Jewish News, Thursday, January 24,1980 - Page 5
* ion
A book cxaminmg the wcio-e^^^^^ background of the German SS officer corps is now being wriiien bv Gitnnar Boehnert. 47, a-professor ofMstorvat-
^Gueiph University: A former niiliiarvJiis-torian at : the Royal. Canadian Air Forces,Staff College m tonmto. Boeh--hert is also a second-generation Canadian ^
:. of .German ancestry, Tlie book, based upon Boehnert's doctoral thesis for I he University of London in Bigland in 1977. explodes the myth of the SS as a homogenous group of young social misjits and sadists: who rose from the lowest ranks of society.- Rather, the author savs.' as the SS grew, it diiracicd talen'ted people from across, the, whole spectrum of society: -
ByBEVERLEYSTERN First of two parts
' Remember baby-faced Michael Moriarty as the family-loving SS Major Erik Dorf in NBC's TV jproduction of Holocaust?
According to Professor Gunnar Boehnert, , the picture of Dorf is right on in terms of who joined the SSat a certain time and why.
"Dorf was represented as an intelligient, ambitious and unemployed lawyer who joined the SS in the mid-30s because there were no jobs elsewhere. This was very true.'' said Boehnert, who did a computerized study of 5,250 SS officer case histories.
"Dorf was exactly the type the SS tried to attract in order to gain respectability and status after Hitler came to power in January 1933.
"Lawgraduates,asamatterof fact, were the largest single professional group of the SS Fuhrerkorps," added Boehnert, whose data came from thi? Berlin Document Centre in West Berlin. '
Located in the underground facilities of a onetime thriving spy. post for the Third -Reich, the Berlin Document Centre today is a goldmine of information about life in Nazi .Germany from 1938. It houses some 30 million personal files.revealing Nazi party correspondence, and a master file on millions of citizens and party members.
Boehnert's study covers what he calls three major phases of SS developorrient: (1) the infancy periood fr6m 1925rl930; (2) the developmental period from 19131-1934, and . (3) the functional period from 1934-l'939.
He stressed that "these were the peacetime years and people joined voluntarily .There was no coercion or fear of what wouid.happen if they did not join at that, time." ■
Over those years too, explained. Boeh-: nert, a former major in the Canadian armyv the SS began to change and develop.
Reinhard Heydrlch
institutionally. At, first, members were just "brain-bashers", but later on, particu-iarly; after -Hitler came to power, they formed such units as the: security service called the Gestapo, the armed SS trciops, and the Death Head Units who were the concentration camp guards.
There was also the general SS, a large uniformed body which added stature and class to the huge Nazi rallies with its cadre of nobility, academics and retired army , officers.
The SS, said Boehnert, made its first appearance in 1923 when it einerged in the form of a tight personal bodyguard to protect Hitler and his speakers at rallies. Called then by the name of Stosstrupp, it was forced to disband after the failure of Hitler's Munich putsch.
Upon Hitler's release from imprisonment, in 1924, he again reconstructed his loyal, personai bodyguard. .Boehnert, described theirorigins as lower socio-economic. Often unemployed, they were said to have co;ne from sturdy biirgher backgrounds and possessed only mediocre intelligence.
A typical officer of the SS who joined between 1925 1930 was Ludwig Merk. A baker who served in World War 1, it took him 17 years to reach the rank of captain. That was in 1943, said Boehnert,; and probably Meirk would not have even have risen to this rank if the Third Reich had not been desperate. ,
Educationally, \qnly 32% of those early •joiners ever went to high school, and only 4% qualified for university entrance. Almost 60% were, under 30 years of age.
Boehnert remarked upon the SSat this time that they were like "flotsam" in an unstable era, and that they flocked to the SS because it gave them social cohesion as well as jobs.
"Once in the SS." said Boehnbrt, "a very disturbing phenomena took place. Although most were law-abiding citizens before they joined the. SS — without any > prior records of antisocial or criminal behaviour-^once into the SS fold, it was as if their most primeval instincts had been released, and they became brutes, sadists — "brain-bashers."
From the beginning, members of the SS had to sweair a: special oath of loyalty to : Hitler, who distrusted the regular German army and its traditionalism, socially and politically. It was for this reason, Boehnert maintained, thiat Hitler felt compelled to create his own political police system whose fidelity would be unquestioned.
Hitler is alleged to have declared that he wanted his SS men ready, if necessairy, to shoot their own brothers if so commanded.-.
As with the Italian fascists, Hitler dramatized the appearance of his SS with a distinctive uniform. By the late 1920s, the SS wore immaciilately tailored black'uniforms with elegant silver facings aiid the death-head insignia. Worn publicly at rallies, ceremonies and social events^, the , unifqrrn marked the hew man oh the move in Germany.
.V'Notwithstanding the inferior calibre of the early SS recruits, however," Boehnert obset-yed, "that it was during this first infancy phase that such principles of racial selectivity, elitism and nationalism were . Assimilated into the SS code."
Members of the SS had to prove the purity of their Aryan backgrounds. The officers had to show proof of their Aryan backgrounds as far back as 1750, while lesser ranks were allowed {6 start at 1800.
With the, appointment of Heinj-ich Himmler as Reichsfuhrer in 1929, Hitler unconsciously chose as chief of the SS a man who had just the right combination of fanaticism and.correct social background to mount a police state that would draw the
Henrlch Himmler
co-operation of the country's finest minds. and talents. - ' .
Himniler brought to his tasks the fierce convictions of a super German patriot and racist. Even more rabidly than Hitler, he believed in the superiority of the Nordic Aryan peoples and the rule of the Germans as the master-race.
A member of the upper bourgeoise. a ^ gpd-childofbneof the members of the royal familyofBavaria, a student at an agricultural college. Himmler's social credentials helped Hitler win wide-spread public favor.
Physically, however, he was very unimpressive. Thin, narrow-shouldered, wear-
ing a rimless prince-nez, it Was difficult to recognize Himmler as a figure of authority.
Moreover, the SS at this, time, while -assuming more importance in its security and mtelligence work; still .numbered only . about _200 men. Furtheri. it vvas still subordinate to Hitler's mass army of storm trcwpers. the brown-shirted SA, whose brutal methods of winning over voters to the Nazi party was beginning to be counterproductive.'
The bankers and industrialists funding Hitler for his anti-Commuhist activities , looked upon the SA's street hooliganism with aversion.
A new man. fortiiitously again for the Nazi party, appeared on the scene. His name was Reinhard Heydrich. Brilliant, socially accbmplisihed, a talehtied violinist, linguist, sportsman, fencer'!and: skier. .Hcvdrich was picked by Himmler to be chief of the newly formed SS intelligence service called the SD — later to be merged with the . Gestapo. It was this merger that would form the notorious police apparatus of the Third Reich. ; .
As head of the SD, Heydrich used more subtle and sophisticated means to extend the power of the SS not only over old allies such as the SA but over all critics of the Nazi
pari)-'. ■
Together, with Himmler, Heydrich now systematically proceeded to establish the SS as the most formidable instrument of power in theparty. On Jan. 30. 1933, when Hitler became chancellor, the Nazi party was on its, way to fiill power. Polished technocrats were now called for. The did days of the SS as unemployed "brain-bashing" bodyguards would soon, be over.
Next week: The SS from 1931-1939
Gueiph University history professor Gimnar Boehnert enters the Berlin Docoment Centre
By BEVERLEY STERN
In a bombshelter ' hidden beneath a farmstead surrounded by towering pine trees in the Zehlendorf area of West Berlin is the single, most important cache of primary source material on the Third Reich in the whole world.
Called the Berlin Document Centre, this repository of files and docurnents from the earliest days of the Nazi party until the end of the war, offers a goldmine of research possibilities not only on the emergence of the ''Jewish problem" but many other.vital areas as well.
The first academic to gain unlimited access to the valuable' archives- housed in the centre was- Gunnar Boehnert, a history professor from the University of Gueiph, .who worked solidly at the centre from 197G
to 1973. ■
A second-generation Canadian of Ger-; man ancestry. Boehnert had also been a major in the Canadian Army. He became interested in what he calls the 'Isocial structure of the military class" during his earlier work as a military historian at the RCAF Staff College:in Toronto.
Because of his special coipbination of background arid interests, Boehnert, in , 1970, asked the centre for pennissipn to do researchon the socio-economic background of the SS Fuhrerkorps from-1925-1939.
Once inside the centre, he was astounded at the staggering accumulation of data. There, in 28 archives, lay the labored efforts of a police state which, undertook to record all. the minutiae of human behavior which riiight prove usefiil to the purposes of the p'arty."'' ■ ■ ,.
There are 238,600 "racial files" estab-: lishedto investigate brides chosen by the SS men in order to clear any suspicion of non-Aryan blood.
Other archives include a master file on about 11 million Nazi party members — much of it with detailed biographical information. The infamous Dr. Josefs Men-gele's own curriculum vitae. written in his own hand, is among thern.
There is a Nazi partv cbrresponderice archive of 1.482,225 files. . ■
The whole official culture of the. Nazi, regime lies hidden with 185.000 more files on writers, librarians, conductors, film : "producers., theatre artists and architects. . ' Equally fascinating, he continued, are the files from the Supreme Party Court • These include, disciplinary actions taken, against violators of party .regulations
jidd votvels to Hebrew to
I should like to call your attention that now is the ideal time to add vowels to written Hebrew. I say now because the changes that are taking place in the area of written communications mean such increased efficiency and economy that Israel must inevitably adopt these new devices. Therefore, before such/expensive investments take place, a modern system of writing which includes permanent vowels
should be devel9ped in order to make clearly understood ideas and facts which; as. presently written, are ambiguous or even obscure. .
This would bring Hebrew literature and newspapers within the reach of at least.nine million Jewish people some of whom live in Israel, who cannot read it as it is presently written. ■ ' ;
Many, precedents for change exist.
Spadina boys, JacoU, the King and J£< spellbind each other with Yiddish stories
ByJ.B.SALSBERG
And so, as the narrative narrates, I put on a suit fit for a king. After all, it isn't everyday that a fellow lunches with royalty. The last time I did it was a couple of years ago and there were at least one thousand social climbers that filled every seat at every table in a dining room as big
, as a ball park. Any chance for an intimate tete-a-tete with the British royal couple was ruined.
But here it was going to be different. Here there would be only my friend, Lou Jiacobi, who, as they used to say in the
•Yiddish theatre; is everybody's favorite. The King of Kensington and poor (but lucky) me. I was sure that I would have no difficulty monopolizing the conversar
; tion.
And so I found myself dressed, as uncle Eliezer would say. "in esig un in honik," entering Meyer's feeding station as the clock struck 12.30. (Not since
the last luncheon with British Royalty have I been on time anywhere.)
I entered and Meyer led me to a table with a card in the centre saying that it was reserved. How else? Royalty is royalty! Before I could cast disdainful glances at the lower classes that seemed to have penetrated the spacious emporium, Meyer, bursting with pride, led The King and Lou towards the-reserved table.
Nu, nu! Don't ask! It seemed as if everyone there recognized The King and gawked. It also became apparent that almost everyone recognized the great Lou Jacobi; even though he reigns in the entertainment spheres of New York. And, all modesty to the winds, I honestly believe that more than a few even recognized^e. And so, this reserved, this privileged, this Royal table became the centre of attention.
But did we. i.e. Lou; The King and I, your weekly ray of sunshine,, did we show any awareness of the envious glances of the hoi poUoi around us? We most assuredly did not. That is, we were not entirely unconscious that most eyes were on us, but made sure that they would not miss our regal indifference to their existence.
In fact we became so indifferent to what was going on around us that we quickly became habitants of another world. We were three Spadina boys quickly receding into the^golden past of Spadina Ave. (or St. Lawrence,^MonK^
real,, or Main St., Winnipeg), and sve quickly slipped into the old mother tongue of Spadina, we found ourselves speaking in Yiddish and sharing anecdotes in Mame Loshen (mother tongue).
After the first few warming-up minutes I began sliding into Yiddish. First it . was 25% Yiddish and the balance
; English. After the first five minutes it became 50%; Yiddish and after the first 15 minutes it became. 100% mame loshen. Jacobi wasn't far behind me in: the switch to Yiddish and The King not to -
. be outpaced, kept as close to us as was possible for him.
■ By and by we became totally unaware of our surrounding. Al Waxman (The King/that is) toldarollicking story about an old uncle of his who was briefly in Canada ages ago, who lives in Israel and who insisted on speaking "Engelish": with his mishpoche from Canada. The old gentleman wanted to show off and impress the Israelis in the house who knew no English. It was a side-splitting story. But don't ask The King to tell that story in public...
But the show was really stolen by Jacobi. Unaware of the surrounding scene and totally indifferent to it Jacobi began to recite David Edelshtat's poem "Die Varheit" (the truth), a poem that nurtured the hope of the American Jewish-sweatshop workers towards the eidof the 19th^^century. Jacobi'sfather, a religious garment worker, who was also a hazzanj nevertheless faught his ,
young son to recite Edelshtat at union meetings. That young son. now a prominent actor; ignored the surtound-ings and recited that old "revolutionary song" with all the melodramatic souhds and gesticulations that he was taught as a youngster and that gained him wild applause at union gatherings.
Finally Jacobi recited* again entirely from memory, the complete monologue by M. Kaplan, called "Ich foraheim kein Vlednik," (I'm.going home to Vlednik). He did it better than anyone I ever heard do that once very-popular piece. (It's about a man who, after some years" in America, dreams about going back to his birthplace and how he will lord It "over the greenhorns" jn Vlednik.)
It was a tour de force and the King and' 1 were fascinated by,.the performance. It was not done in a whispering voice either. It was done in full voice and with all the theatrics that were called for.
What did the people; in that large restaurant think? Who cared! They didn't exist as far as we were concerned.
Who knows, maybe those people were also fascinated by. the strange phenomenon that they saw and h^ard?
The nostalgic and spiritual ithmersion was over all too soon/The real world called^us to the muhdane talsks that waited for each of us. But vvon't you comeback soon, Lou Jacobi? Won't you, Qh^ King, bring, him for a Command Performance? Please do, J (Curtain drops slowly)
A Hebrew scholar has sent me a copy of a very clever system, which he has invented for indicating vowels in Hebrew writing, mostly by changes in serifs. This system would not.cost more in terms of paper and ink them current Hebrew writing but is far more readable than the'clumsy-'points" now in use in "easy" Hebrew,
Whatever system is finally adopted one thing is certain, Hebrew must be written with vowels if it is to become a vital force in Jewish life, a meaningful language accessible to everyone interested in it, not just to those who speak it fluently.
Mrs. Daniel Lionel, Syosset,N.Y.
What was said by me in The Canadian Jewish News of Nov. 29/79 was that violations of human rights by the government of Quebec .was being carried out in . that province. 1 further stated that I resented, bitterly, attempts by people in positions of leadership of the Quebec Jewish community to confuse citizens by making public statements which could easily be described as apologies for those people who accused the government of being something less than democratic.
Two courts of Quebec, the lower court, and thehighestcourt. the Court of Appeals, . have provided ample evidence to convince people w'ho: have doubts on this subject. > These two courts have judged sections of Bill 101 to be invalid. The Supreme Court of Canada has also pitched in and contributed -even more documented proofjito. demon-: ; strate that violations of human rights by this government in the Province of Quebec have . taken place.
. However.-the executive director of the Canadian Jewish Congress, Jack Kantro-witz, after making public statements to the: contrary, 'and then reiterating these ill-advised declarations in the CJN 9f Nov. 8/79. persists in employing'a hair-splitting and obfuscating jargon at covering up those apologist remarks that would best be forgotten.
That response to my remarks by Mr. Kantrowitz in the CJN should provide sufficient evidence to convince his em- . ployers, the executive of the Canadian Jewish Congress, that they have ample reason to instruct him thathe attend only-to>s^ matters placed beforehim at his deskby the community. . ■ /
: The subject of . violations
of human rights is one specific matter which the.CJC should not place at the^disposal of ' this present executive-directof to speak on \ publicly. '.
iRenbenCarin, ^\Montre*l.
- covering such infractions as embezzliement. tax avoidance, non-Aryan, descent and homosexuality.
Although never publicized, the centre now quietly draw's about 50 scholars a year from throughout the W'orld. Boehnert disclosed that only accredited academics can gain access to the files.
"It is for this reason that not even Simon Wiesenihal can get in." he said.
So far. the major users of the centre are aging West Germans who want to establish proof of their government service during . the Nazi years so they can establish their right to social security benefits — or . paradoxically, those. West Germans w;h.o want to prove publicly their disassociation ffom the N^zi party by showing when they dropped out.
But these West Germans asking for information are not-granted access to the files: they can only submit, a request for specific data.
Right now, the Berlin Document Centre is in the hands of the American government' which started its grim gathering of official Nazi documents following, the end of the ■ war. ■ ■■. ■ '. .■ '
With post-war Germany reduced to. a . shambles, and not too many large, intact building standing, . there was a serious problem of finding safe-and appropriate accommodation for the massive accumulation of data from the Third Reich .-
Finally, in its own sector of occupation, the American government came upon a bomb shelter which originally-had been built in 1938 as a secret spying post for the Nazi party. ...
On top. the spy complex ; had the appearance of a pleasant farmstead; It had neat white cottages surrounded by pine trees, and to complete the pastoral quality, avvoodland lake. Underneath, however, a. vast subterranean-world with intersecting tunnels and huge .vaults had been built.
It was here in this underground hideaway faithful bureaucrats would sit around the clock tuning in on conversations of the suspected enemies of the Reich.
Today, security still continues at the centre in the form of barbed wire and an armed guard. All employees have to be certified anti-Nazis to get security clearance. No Russians, East Germans br other Communist blockmembers are permittedto even enter the centre — let alone see the files. -
According to Boehnert, the West German government, fears a witch hunt if East . Europeans ever got their hands on the files in the centre. It is largely out of this same fear of retaliation by all former victims of Nazi war crimes, that the West Germans so far have shied away from asking to take over the centre from the Americans. —
The West German government simply does not want the responsibility of srfying who gets access to the files. '
It fears a no-win situation. If it restricts ' access, it would then be accused of covering up the past ajid protecting old Nazis. If it gave direct access to the general public, it fears it would be flooded by people seeking revenge. ■,
: Another important consideration is that the archival laws of West Germany do not permit anyone to see a file until- the person named has been dead for 30 years. Also; the family of the deceased has * to give its permission for the information to be revealed. These restrictions, needless to say; would put a tight lid on the contents of: the centre.
Meanwhile, the Americans are busily microfilming everything in the archives. Concerned to keep this information ^for posterity, they're making sure that anydhe in the future who wants to know why and how a man like Hitler arose, or under what circumstances the. Holocaust could have happened, will not be ^denied the right to fin<} out.