Battleship Bismarck (62 page)

In the first part of his April 1942 speech, Hitler once again and vehemently denounced the “Jewish element also responsible for this war,” attacking over and over again the “Jewish world-pest,” in the style of his speech of 30 January 1941, which I had had to listen to on board the
Bismarck
. His fury towards the Jews now appeared to reach a new height and, as I learned after the war, he had in fact just signed a decree “concerning the systematic intellectual fight against Jews
. . . as a duty required by the war.” Among other things, it regulated the state’s right to confiscate Jewish cultural properties that “are ownerless or not of incontestably clear provenance.” How might they have become truly “ownerless”? Well, scarcely otherwise than by physical force, of which I had observed a small sample on the Kurfürstendamm on 9 November 1938. Only now and in the darkness of wartime disorders such physical force would be exercised even more limitlessly and fiercely. In his aims Hitler was extremism itself, and he knew he would easily drag the Germans, as he understood them, down his path. Anyone who was an eyewitness to and perceived the meaning of the 1938 pogrom already had Auschwitz before his eyes: not by name, not by number of victims, not by technique of murder. But as one of the terrible scenes from the vision of the unbounded expansion of power that his manias seemed to have burned into Hitler.

In 1938 most Germans still had not grasped that it was Hitler himself who wanted all this. In his memoirs Raeder wrote, “Hitler assured me . . . most earnestly that the entire action [of 9 November 1938], which had come to a head as a spontaneous reaction to the murder of a member of the German legation in Paris, contradicted . . . his policy in every respect. It had happened without his knowledge or consent; the Gauleiter [of Berlin, Goebbels] had let go the helm on him. …” Even today, there are historians who deny Hitler’s personal authorship of the murder of the Jews. They claim that no written order can be traced to him. These historians either did not live through that period in Germany or did not do so with an observant intelligence. For Hitler’s long arm reached into (almost) every corner of the country; it was easy for him inconspicuously to give signals, and the starting point of his orders could be hidden without trace in the mazes of the apparatus of power, covering up responsibilities, when that was indicated.

But a foreigner who saw through Hitler at an early date was Sir Horace Rumbold, the British ambassador to Berlin. On 11 May 1933, the day of his first conversation with Hitler, he wired his foreign minister, expressing his conviction “that Herr Hitler is himself responsible for the anti-Jewish policy of the German Government and that it would be a mistake to believe that it is the policy of his wilder men, whom he has difficulty in controlling. Anybody who has had the opportunity of listening to his remarks on the subject of Jews could not have failed, like myself, to realize that he is a fanatic on the subject. He is also convinced of his mission to fight Communism and destroy Marxism, which term embraces all his political adversaries.”
After three months of Hitler’s regime Rumbold, a foreigner, had already grasped what still had not dawned on Raeder after five and a half years under the regime in a leading position in Berlin.

During the program of study I could almost smile at the allusions in the Reich Supreme Court’s decisions to the universally acknowledged competence of the NSDAP in private lawsuits—the Reich Supreme Court: “The concepts of the community of housing and the responsibilities of owner and tenant are in no way in conflict if in a dispute one party turns to the NSDAP: the Party is always competent!”—almost amusing—yet the “Brown”-sprinkled doctrines of some professors in the Reich caused anger and anguish.

Otto Koellreutter, professor of law, Munich: “The political genius of Adolf Hitler . . . the new political élite as symbolizing the new political leadership preemptively excludes political organizations which represent other political ideas. . . . Absolute conformity and uniformity of fundamental spiritual-political posture . . . the defense of the Folk in its racial quality . . . the necessity of legislation to defend the Folk against the influx of alien racial elements . . . degenerate liberalism.”

Reinhard Höhn, professor of law, Berlin: “National Socialism establishes a living community . . . of racially equal Folk comrades . . . self-government has again become a vital process of the Folk.”

Hans Erich Feine, professor of law, Heidelberg: “Adolf Hitler . . . the great Leader . . . purification of public life of racially and hereditarily alien elements . . . the Leader Principle as the formative principle of German state and communal life.”

Theodor Maunz, professor of law, Freiburg-im-Breisgau: “Law is the plan formed by the Führer. . . . The plan formed by the Führer is the highest order of law. . . . As the Führer above all others is called upon to decide, proclaim and administer the law, the law is a decision concerning the content of Folk law, against which there can be no appeal to a higher authority of Folk order . . . the powers are combined in the Führer’s person . . . to a truly total power, the Führer-power . . . a kind of protective custody serves the preservation of the Community of the Folk . . . a Folk comrade who disturbs the community will be removed from his political and social environment . . . protective custody as a defense against all actions which disturb the National Socialist edifice . . . the protective custody will be carried out . . . in concentration camps. . . . The actions of the policy according to the Leader Principle are ‘rule-free’ but not ‘law-free’ . . . it signifies a complete subversion of our constitutional life the moment that police practice deviates from the Führer’s will.”
Law professor Maunz in the service of the rule of illegality, ad libitum.

Carl Schmitt, constitutional lawyer, appointed to the Prussian State Council by Hermann Goring in 1933, in his evalution of Hitler’s murders on and after 30 June 1934: “The Führer defends the law”; and “An act in the Führer’s legitimate jurisdiction.” “This suffices, Herr Schmitt,” I muttered to myself.

In such a manner did these professors, once pledged to preserve the laws of Western civilization, assist Hitler in consolidating his criminal state—these representatives of the legal profession, over whom the “Führer” repeatedly poured his scorn for their “defective personalities,” their “legal hair-splitting” that only stood in the way of his political frenzy and by whom to be “supported” he basically thought laughable. Whether they acted from coercion, stupidity, or opportunism, what did it matter? I considered it a deplorable spectacle. Hopefully, after the war these gentlemen would never again be heard from the teacher’s chair. This was a vain hope.

In postwar conversations the lack of resistance by the German military to the initiation of the Hitler dictatorship has often been held up to me. It is quite true that, corresponding to the division of power in the state, after the middle or end of 1933 only the Reichswehr could have curbed Hitler. “But,” I am accustomed to answer, “you can’t expect military men—of all people—to pass a democratic litmus test. You must realize that their traditions made them, at least at first, especially susceptible to the Prussian values that the Nazis put out like flypaper: discipline, training, duty and obedience, national greatness, the subordination of the individual to the ‘community.’ To check the Hitler movement, the military would have had to be motivated by democratic, Christian, and legal-minded civilian circles; by politicians, churches, universities, and the judicial system, for example. No impulse came from there when it could still have borne fruit. And according to the doctrines I know to have been held by the leading jurists of the time, nothing was to be expected from there.”

During our studies at Bowmanville there were indications that after the war the civil law code would be replaced by a “people’s law code.” The authors of the former, stemming from the nineteenth century, had long been showered with abuse by the Brownshirts. They were denounced as “individualists,” “liberals” and “capitalists.” In the new legal system, the “healthy instincts of the people” à la Hitler would be the baseline of the judicial process. It happened otherwise. The military defeat of May 1945 allowed the good old civil law code to survive.

*
Probationary attorney (wartime). This term was used to designate candidates for admission to the bar who, as a result of wartime exigencies, had been advanced to the “probationary” grade sooner than was customary in peace.

*
Captain Ernst Röhm, commander of the SA, was the most prominent Nazi leader killed in the Blood Purge.

41    The Battle of Bowmanville

“. . . and the Canadian government, in response to the proceedings of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht,
*
has ordered that henceforth designated officers and men of the German army in this camp will be handcuffed.”

A part of the hurried, English-inflected German sentences of the Canadian camp interpreter had been blown away by the often strong wind in Bowmanville. The background and origin of the announcement by the interpreter, who assembled us to hear it after a routine muster one evening in October 1942, remained in the dark. Amazement reigned, indignation was widespread. The following day the Canadian camp commandant gave the German camp leader a list of the army members concerned. Until further notice, the latter were to present themselves at the camp gate in the morning to be handcuffed and in the evening to have the handcuffs removed. The excitement in the camp increased, the German camp leader protested to the Canadian commandant against this violation of international law. But the latter stood firm and set a deadline for carrying out his government’s orders, failing which he threatened to use appropriate force. The camp leader also stood firm: “Commandant, our resistance is assured.”

The chain of events which would transplant the military scenario molded in Europe to Bowmanville had begun in August of that year at Dieppe on the Channel coast. Two Canadian brigades and a group of British Commandos had undertaken a landing there in preparation
for the subsequent Allied invasion of France. Their objectives were partly achieved, but mostly not, and after a bloody engagement both sides had taken prisoners. The Canadians had handcuffed the German prisoners; supposedly so that they could not destroy their papers after being captured. The Oberkommando der Wehrmacht and the British War Office had entered a public altercation over such a violation of international law, threats of reprisals were exchanged, and a chain reaction was unleashed. Its development rolled along until the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht ordered that beginning on 8 October 4,000 British prisoners in German custody would be handcuffed each day from 8:00 in the morning until 9:00 at night. The British reacted immediately and among other things ordered that, with Ottawa’s agreement, 1,100 German army members in Canadian custody should be handcuffed. This was the command that the Canadian camp interpreter had intended to make clear after the evening muster.

On the day on which our army comrades were to have been handcuffed for the first time, we all refused to turn out for the roll call, stayed inside our living quarters, and barricaded ourselves there. It was open rebellion, a direct challenge to our Canadian warders. Would these, the Veteran Guards—they were indeed all older men—suffice to overcome our resistance? After tension-filled hours the answer to that question came with the arrival, easily observed through the fence, of a company of younger, frontline soldiers. They formed up outside, where they were required to turn in their live ammunition and were armed instead with billy clubs, baseball bats, and the like. “The prisoners are to be made prisoner again and to be disciplined until they acquiesce in the handcuffing of their army comrades, but no more than that, not killed!”—thus ran the orders of the Canadian camp commandant. The “armament” was in keeping with these aims. And then they came inside to reconquer the camp. Thus began what will live on in the annals of prisoners of war as “The Battle of Bowmanville.”

The Canadians’ first objective was the cook house, which stood nearest to the camp gate and also contained the big dining hall. In this stone structure our enlisted men, whose wooden barracks would have been too flimsy for the approaching “operations,” had barricaded themselves. They had placed upended tables against the windows and posted themselves behind them, armed with hockey sticks, chair legs, and soup ladles; as projectiles they had readied crockery, cutlery, and marmalade jars.

And then the Canadians attacked. They broke the window mullions
with battering rams and stuck their heads cautiously into the cook house, but the defenders’ blows on their steel helmets checked their initial élan. Then one of them made a daring leap into the house. The superior force inside quickly put him out of action and was delighted to have his helmet as booty. But soon fighting broke out at every window, blows landed on heads and shoulders, marmalade jars and other projectiles flew, soon there were injuries and on both sides bloody and in part marmalade-smeared faces, which were easy to confuse. The fight swayed back and forth, but in the end the Canadians, with their superior numbers, succeeded in making a decisive breakthrough into the cook house and overwhelming its occupants, the “conquest” of their operational objective. Among the occupants of the cook house were the army enlisted men whom the Canadians sought to handcuff, but they had not yet found a single officer. The army officers would still have to be hauled out of the other houses, one house after the other to be stormed. The next operational objective that presented itself was House VI, which was right beside the cook house. As it served as the hospital, however, it was spared from the “prosecution of war.”