Liberation of the SS hostages in South Tyrol

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Colonel Bogislaw von Bonin (uniform) with Sigismund Payne Best (black jacket) on May 5, 1945 near Lake Braies

The liberation of the SS hostages in South Tyrol took place at the end of the Second World War on April 30, 1945 in Niederdorf ( Italian : Villabassa ) in Alta Pusteria . Soldiers of the Wehrmacht , led by Captain Wichard von Alvensleben freed 141 special and kinship prisoners imported from Germany and sixteen other European ancestral states from the hands of SS commandos. Among the liberated were those believed dead like the former Austrian Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg , the former French Prime Minister Léon Blum and Pastor Martin Niemöller as well as other well-known personalities such as the industrialist Fritz Thyssen and the former Reich Minister of Economics Hjalmar Schacht .

prehistory

The starting point was probably a plan by Ernst Kaltenbrunner , head of the security police and the SD , to deport prominent prisoners as hostages of the SS to the “ Alpine fortress ” in South Tyrol . As a bargaining chip they should be available there for armistice negotiations with the Western Allies . In the spring of 1945, a selection of such prisoners and some relatives from various National Socialist concentration camps , including Buchenwald , Flossenbürg and Mauthausen , were amalgamated in the Dachau concentration camp . From Dachau, which were already approaching American troops now 141 prisoners from seventeen nations of Europe were of a special detachment of SS and into three groups on the 17th, 24th and April 26th, 1945 SD first in the camp Reichenau in Innsbruck deported . The transport was led by SS-Obersturmführer Edgar Stiller . The escorts were fifty, according to other sources, eighty SS men who were instructed to murder the prisoners in case of doubt. Most were SS guards from Dachau, the rest belonged to an SD command under an SS-Untersturmführer Bader.

From Innsbruck, the prisoner transport continued on April 27th by bus and truck. On the morning of April 28, the transport arrived at Niederdorf in Hochpustertal. The original goal, a hotel on the nearby Lake Braies , which is normally still closed at this time of year , was unexpectedly occupied by the Wehrmacht generals Hans Schlemmer , Hans Jordan and Alfred Bülowius with their staffs.

While Stiller was looking for a solution, the prisoners did not let their guards prevent them from walking to Niederdorf. The South Tyrolean population showed sympathy and helpfulness. The prisoners were housed partly in inns and in the parsonage, and partly on temporarily piled up straw in the municipal office.

Particularly prominent prisoners

Among the internees were the former Austrian Federal Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg with his wife and daughter, the former Mayor of Vienna Richard Schmitz , the former French Prime Minister Léon Blum with his wife, the French Bishop of Clermont-Ferrand, Gabriel Piguet , the former Hungarian Prime Minister Miklós Kállay , the Commander-in-Chief of the Greek Army, General Alexandros Papagos with his staff, the British secret service agents Sigismund Payne Best and Richard Henry Stevens kidnapped in the Venlo incident , the theologians Johannes Neuhäusler and Martin Niemöller , the former Chief of Staff of the German Army, Colonel-General Franz Halder with his wife, the generals of the infantry Alexander Freiherr von Falkenhausen and Georg Thomas , the Colonel General Bogislaw von Bonin , Philipp Prince of Hesse , the resistance fighter and officer Fabian von Schlabrendorff , the industrialist Fritz Thyssen with his wife, the f Former Reichsbank President and Reich Economics Minister Hjalmar Schacht , the cabaret artist and later sister Isa Vermehren, as well as eight family members of Colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg (including his brother Alexander von Stauffenberg ) and seven from the " clan prisoners " arrested after the assassination attempt on July 20, 1944 Family of the former mayor of Leipzig, Carl Goerdeler .

  • Kurt Schuschnigg, former Chancellor of Austria (1936)

  • Léon Blum, former Prime Minister of France (1936)

  • Miklós Kállay, former Prime Minister of Hungary (1942)

  • Sigismund Payne Best, British Secret Service (1939)

  • Richard Henry Stevens, British Secret Service (1939)

  • Martin Niemöller, Protestant theologian (1952)

  • Franz Halder, former Chief of Staff of the German Army (1939)

  • Alexander von Falkenhausen, Chief of the Military Administration of Belgium and Northern France (1940)

  • Fritz Thyssen, industrialist (1928)

  • Hjalmar Schacht, former Reich Minister of Economics (around 1935)

Liberation from the custody of the SS by the Wehrmacht

Wichard-Tankow.jpg
Captain Wichard von Alvensleben (around 1960)
Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1969-171-29, Karl Wolff.jpg
Obergruppenführer Karl Wolff (1937)


On the Von-Kurz-Platz in Niederdorf in the left half of the picture, Alvensleben had the municipal office rearranged
Municipal office of Niederdorf
Hotel "Pragser Wildsee"

On April 29, 1945, one of the special prisoners, Colonel Bogislaw von Bonin , managed to secretly telephone the high command of Army Group C in Bolzano . He asked General Hans Röttiger , the chief of staff of the Commander in Chief Southwest, Colonel General Heinrich von Vietinghoff , for help. After a service in the Niederdorf parish church, SS leader Stiller declared at a meeting that he wanted to hand over control to a previously established prisoner committee headed by the British secret service agent Sigismund Payne Best and the Wehrmacht alerted by Bonin. The SS prisoners, however, continued to face danger from SS-Untersturmführer Bader, described as unscrupulous, and his SD troop.

In response to Bonin's phone call with General Röttiger, Captain Wichard von Alvensleben from Moos near Sexten in Niederdorf arrived shortly before midnight to get an initial picture of the situation.

On April 30th, Alvensleben came back to Niederdorf in the morning, where SS-Untersturmführer Bader told him that his job would be “done when the prisoners died”. Alvensleben relieved Bader of his position and called his company in Sexten to call fifteen NCOs armed with submachine guns, who shortly afterwards surrounded the municipal office where the SS had set up their quarters. After an additional one hundred and fifty grenadiers had arrived from Dobbiaco and had surrounded the area in front of the municipal office, Alvensleben was able to get SS-Untersturmführer Bader and his SD troop to withdraw from Bolzano by telephone reassurance from SS-Obergruppenführer Karl Wolff .

The Wehrmacht now took over the protection of the freed SS prisoners. As Alvensleben later explained, the non-fighting withdrawal of Bader's SD troop was "the sole and clear merit of Karl Wolff," who sanctioned Alvensleben's "unauthorized company and authorized it against the SS".

Since the three Wehrmacht generals and their staffs had meanwhile been relocated on the instructions of Colonel General Vietinghoff and the “Pragser Wildsee” hotel was available, the liberated prisoners were taken there on the evening of April 30th. There they organized the most necessary things under the direction of the hotel owner Emma Heiss-Hellensteiner. Wehrmacht soldiers secured the hotel area with five machine guns. SS-Obersturmführer Stiller, who wanted to stay in the hotel with thirty of his men, was turned away.

Kaltenbrunner continued to try to bring the hostages back under his control. Hans Philipp, Gestapo chief von Sillian , is said to have received a written order from the Secret State Police in Klagenfurt on May 1st to murder the prisoners or to bring them across the border into the German Reich. While Niederdorf is in South Tyrol, Italy, Sillian is twenty kilometers east of it across the Italian border in what was then the Greater German Empire . Philipp did not do this and, according to his death register, took his own life on May 4, 1945 using sleeping pills.

Takeover by US troops

Martin Niemöller with Kurt Schuschnigg's daughter in her arms, next to her mother Vera Schuschnigg on May 5, 1945 in front of the “Pragser Wildsee” hotel

Two days after the surrender of the Wehrmacht in Caserta , which had already been signed by Colonel General Vietinghoff and SS-Obergruppenführer Wolff on April 29, 1945 , but only officially entered into force on May 2 , American troops arrived at Lake Braies on May 4 and took over the prisoners.

A day later, journalists and press photographers from the Allies appeared and the events made headlines outside of Germany. However, this did not take into account the contribution of Alvensleben.

In two transports that set off on May 8 and 10, the former hostages reached Verona and Naples under American guard . The Germans were interned in a hotel in Capri , where the odyssey finally ended for all prisoners considered to be “unencumbered”. Most of them were not flown back to their homeland until June 1945.

Hjalmar Schacht in an Allied internment camp (1945)

For some of the Germans, the takeover by the Americans led to a new and usually several years imprisonment, for example for Colonel von Bonin , the generals von Falkenhausen and Halder , the industrialists Fritz Thyssen and Philipp von Hessen . Hjalmar Schacht was charged as a major war criminal at the Nuremberg Trial , but was acquitted in 1946.

List of 141 prisoners from 17 countries liberated in Niederdorf

(States within the borders of 1938 before the annexation of Austria , in alphabetical order)

Special inmates

DenmarkDenmark Denmark (6)

  • Hans Frederik Hansen, marine engineer, Special Operations Executive (SOE), code name "Frederiksen"
  • Adolf Theodor Larsen, SOE, code name "Andy"
  • Hans Mathiesen Lunding , Rittmeister, head of the Danish secret service
  • Max Johannes Mikkelsen, Captain, SOE
  • Jørgen Lønborg Friis Mogensen, former Vice Consul in Gdansk
  • Knud Erik Pedersen, Captain, SOE

GermanyGermany Germany (28)

FranceFrance France (7)

GreeceGreece Greece (7)

  • Konstantinos Bakopoulos, Lieutenant General, Commander of the Metaxas Line
  • Panagiotis Dedes, Lieutenant General
  • Vassilis Dimitrion, soldier
  • Nikolaos Grivas, sergeant
  • Georgios Kosmas, Lieutenant General
  • Alexandros Papagos , Field Marshal
  • Ioannis Pitsikas, Lieutenant General, Mayor of Athens

IrelandIreland Ireland (5)

  • Thomas J. Cushing, Staff Sergeant (Sergeant)
  • John McGrath, Lieutenant Colonel (Lieutenant Colonel)
  • Patrick O'Brian, soldier
  • John Spence, soldier (Gunner)
  • Andrew Walsh, soldier, aircraft mechanic

ItalyItaly Italy (7)

  • Amechi
  • Eugenio Apollonio, Deputy Police Chief of the Italian Social Republic in Salò
  • Mario Badoglio, captain of the Regia Aeronautica , son of Marshal Pietro Badoglio
  • Burtoli
  • Enrico Ferrero, called "Capitano Davide", leader of a partisan unit fighting on the German side against the communist partisans
  • Sante Garibaldi, officer, nephew of Giuseppe Garibaldi
  • Tullio Tamburini, Police Chief of the Italian Social Republic in Salò

Yugoslavia Socialist Federal RepublicYugoslavia Yugoslavia (3)

  • Hinko Dragic, Colonel
  • Novak D. Popovic, Postmaster General
  • Dimitrije Tomalevsky, journalist

LatviaLatvia Latvia (1)

NetherlandsNetherlands Netherlands (1)

  • Johannes JC van Dijk, former Minister of Defense

NorwayNorway Norway (1)

  • Arne Simenson Daehli, captain of the navy, chief of the whaling department, resistance fighter

AustriaAustria Austria (5)

  • Konrad Praxmarer, writer, brief head of the study library in Linz, Wehrmacht interpreter
  • Richard Schmitz , former mayor of Vienna
  • Kurt Schuschnigg , alias Auster, former Federal Chancellor
  • Vera Schuschnigg, Kurt's wife, had voluntarily been with her husband in concentration camp custody with their daughter Vera since December 1941 and was therefore not officially recorded as a prisoner
  • Maria Dolores Elisabeth Schuschnigg, daughter of Kurt and Vera

PolandPoland Poland (3)

  • Jan Izycki, Brigadier General of the Polish Air Force, later Vice Air Marshal
  • Stanislaw Jensen, Royal Air Force bomber pilot
  • Count Aleksander Leszek Zamoyski, captain of the cavalry

SwedenSweden Sweden (1)

  • Carl S. Edquist, SS-Obersturmführer, employee of the SD, double agent

Soviet UnionSoviet Union Soviet Union (6)

  • Ivan Georgievich Bessonov, NKVD , brigade commander
  • Viktor Viktorovich Brodnikov, Colonel
  • Fyodor Ceredilin, soldier
  • Vassily Vassilyevich Kokorin, nephew of Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov
  • Pyotr Privalov, major general, commander of the 192nd Mountain Division
  • Nikolai Rutschenko, first lieutenant, historian

CzechoslovakiaCzechoslovakia Czechoslovakia (4)

  • Josef Burda, businessman
  • Imrich Karvaš, Governor of the Slovak National Bank
  • Josef Rys-Rozsévač, journalist
  • Jan Stanek, Major in the General Staff

HungaryHungary Hungary (10)

  • Aleksander von Ginzery, Colonel of the Artillery
  • Josef Hatz (Hattszegi), major, military attaché in Sofia
  • Samuel Hatz, teacher, father of Josef
  • Andreas von Hlatky, State Secretary in the Prime Minister's Office
  • Miklós Horthy jr., Diplomat, son of Miklós Horthy
  • Géza Igmándy-Hegyessy, Lieutenant General ret. D., member of the House of Lords
  • Miklós Kállay , former Prime Minister
  • Julius Király, Colonel of the Gendarmerie, Section Head in the Ministry of the Interior
  • Desiderius Ónody, Secretary to Horthy Jr.
  • Baron Péter Schell , former Minister of the Interior

United KingdomUnited Kingdom United Kingdom (9)

Clan prisoners

GermanyGermany Germany (37)

  • Fey von Hassell Pirzio Biroli, daughter of Ulrich von Hassell
  • Annelise Gisevius, sister of Hans Bernd Gisevius
  • Anneliese Goerdeler, wife of Carl Goerdeler
  • Benigna Goerdeler, daughter of Goerdeler
  • Gustav Goerdeler, brother of Carl
  • Marianne Goerdeler, daughter of Carl
  • Ulrich Goerdeler, son of Carl
  • Irma Goerdeler, wife of Ulrich Goerdeler, daughter-in-law of Carl Goerdeler
  • Jutta Goerdeler, cousin of Benigna Goerdeler
  • Kate Gudzent, NKFD family prisoner
  • Hildur von Hammerstein-Equord, sister of Kunrat von Hammerstein-Equord and Ludwig von Hammerstein-Equord
  • Maria von Hammerstein-Equord, mother of Kunrat von Hammerstein-Equord and Ludwig von Hammerstein-Equord
  • Ilse Lotte von Hofacker, wife of Caesar von Hofacker
  • Anna-Luise von Hofacker, daughter of Caesar
  • Eberhard von Hofacker, son of Caesar
  • Therese Kaiser, wife of Jakob Kaiser
  • Elisabeth Kaiser, daughter of Therese
  • Arthur Kuhn, lawyer
  • Lini Lindemann, wife of General Fritz Lindemann
  • Josef Mohr, brother of Therese Kaiser
  • Käthe Mohr, wife of Josef Mohr
  • Gisela Countess von Plettenberg-Lenhausen , daughter of Walther Graf von Plettenberg-Lenhausen
  • Walther Graf von Plettenberg-Lenhausen, dealer
  • Alexander Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg , brother of Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg
  • Markwart Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg (senior), Colonel
  • Alexandra Schenk Countess von Stauffenberg, daughter of the Markwart
  • Klemens Jr. Gift of Count von Stauffenberg, son of Markwart
  • Elisabeth Schenk Countess von Stauffenberg, wife of Clement
  • Inèz Schenk Countess von Stauffenberg, daughter of Markwart
  • Maria Schenk Countess von Stauffenberg, wife of Berthold
  • Marie-Gabriele Schenk Countess von Stauffenberg, daughter of Clement
  • Otto Philipp Schenk Count von Stauffenberg , son of Klemens senior
  • Ingeborg Schröder, wife of the pastor Johannes Schröder
  • Hans-Dietrich Schröder, son of Ingeborg
  • Harring Schröder, son of Ingeborg
  • Sybille-Maria Schröder, daughter of Ingeborg
  • Isa Vermehren , cabaret artist, sister of Erich Vermehren

Received documents

"Express letter" from Gestapo chief Heinrich Müller

On May 2 or 3, 1945, an SS man from Stiller's guards came to Sigismund Payne Best , who was head of the prisoner committee, with a wad of papers and told him that SS-Obersturmführer Stiller was burning all the papers he had with him. He put some in his pocket when Stiller wasn't paying attention. When Best examined the papers, he found that most of them were mere routine commands. However, there was an envelope with an "express letter" that the head of the Gestapo , SS-Gruppenführer Heinrich Müller , had sent on April 5, 1945 to the head of the Dachau concentration camp , SS-Obersturmbannführer Eduard Weiter .

In this "express letter", Müller announced the transfer of ten special prisoners to the Dachau concentration camp, who actually arrived there a little later and had meanwhile all been liberated in Niederdorf. These were Colonel General Franz Halder , General Georg Thomas , Hjalmar Schacht , Kurt Schuschnigg with his wife and child, General Alexander von Falkenhausen , Sigismund Payne Best , the Molotov nephew Kokorin and Colonel Bogislaw von Bonin .

This "express letter" is an important historical document because on its second page the inconspicuous liquidation of the prisoner "Eller" ( Georg Elser ) is ordered. Elser, who carried out an unsuccessful attack on the Nazi leadership in Munich's Bürgerbräukeller in 1939, was shot in the Dachau concentration camp shortly after this letter was received, without waiting for the next air raid, as ordered in the "express letter", and without the letter " after acknowledgment and execution ”.

Order to shoot the hostages

In the memories of some of the freed SS hostages, there is talk of an order which they claim to have seen in writing in person. On the basis of this order, Bader's SS troops were supposed to shoot the prisoners or at least some of them in any case, or at the latest when they threatened to fall into the hands of the Allies. However, no such written order has survived. Hans-Günter Richardi , who has conducted extensive research into the history of the liberation of the SS hostages , considers whether the prisoners would actually have been killed in the worst case .

Autobiographies

Some of the special prisoners and clan prisoners liberated in Niederdorf recorded their memories of the events in Niederdorf and published some of them in autobiographies . a. Sigismund Payne Best , Hugh Mallory Falconer, Fey von Hassell , Bertram Arthur "Jimmy" James, Josef Müller , Hermann Pünder , Fabian von Schlabrendorff , Kurt von Schuschnigg and Isa Vermehren .

Contemporary history archive Pragser Wildsee

Commemorative plaque for the liberation of the SS prisoners at the hotel "Pragser Wildsee"

The contemporary history archive Pragser Wildsee , which was founded in 2006 by Caroline M. Heiss and Hans-Günter Richardi in the hotel “Pragser Wildsee”, reminds of this event .

literature

  • Hans-Günter Richardi : SS hostages in the Alpine fortress. The deportation of prominent concentration camp prisoners from Germany to South Tyrol. Edition Raetia, Bozen 2005, ISBN 88-7283-229-2 .
  • Peter Koblank: The liberation of special prisoners and clan prisoners in South Tyrol. In: Online-Edition Mythos Elser 2006.
  • Hans-Günter Richardi: SS hostages on Lake Braies. The suffering of prominent concentration camp prisoners from 17 European countries to South Tyrol . Braies 2006.
  • Hans-Günter Richardi: The hotel on Lake Braies. History of a grand hotel in the Dolomites. Braies 2009.
  • Volker Koop : In Hitler's hands. Special prisoners and honorary prisoners of the SS. Cologne 2010.
  • Tom Wall: Dachau to the Dolomites: The Untold Story of the Irishmen, Himmler's Special Prisoners and the End of WWII. Merrion Press, Newbridge 2019, ISBN 978-1-78537-225-4 .

Memories of those involved:

  • Fabian von Schlabrendorff : Officers against Hitler . Zurich 1946.
  • Kurt von Schuschnigg : A Requiem in red-white-red. Records of inmate Dr. Oyster. Zurich 1946.
  • Isa Vermehren : Journey through the last act. Ravensbrück, Buchenwald, Dachau: a woman reports. Hamburg 1946.
  • Sigismund Payne Best : The Venlo Incident . London 1950.
  • Hermann Pünder : From Prussia to Europe. Life memories. Stuttgart 1968.
  • Bertram Arthur "Jimmy" James: Moonless Night: The Second World War Escape. London 1983. - German: Pitch Black Night: Life for Escape. Berlin 2008.
  • Josef Müller : Right up to the last consequence. A life for peace and freedom. Munich 1975.
  • Fey von Hassell : Hostage of the Third Reich. The Story of My Imprisonment and Rescue from the SS. Edited by David Forbes-Watt. New York 1989. - German: Never bend over. Memories of a special prisoner of the SS. Munich 1990
  • Hugh Mallory Falconer: The Gestapo's Most Improbable Hostage. Barnslay 2018.

Magazines:

Movie

  • Wir, Geiseln der SS , two-part docu-drama by the Beetz brothers film production, author and director: Christian Frey, scene director: Carsten Gutschmidt, ZDF / ARTE, Germany 2014.

Web links

Commons : Liberation of the SS hostages in South Tyrol  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l Peter Koblank: The Liberation of Special Prisoners and Kinship Prisoners in South Tyrol , online edition Mythos Elser 2006.
  2. ^ A b Wichard von Alvensleben : Relates to the takeover of the Dachau concentration camp.Insassen in Niederdorf South Tyrol in April 1945. Nörten-Hardenberg 1945. Online .
  3. ^ Wichard von Alvensleben: Report on the liberation of prominent concentration camp prisoners on April 29, 1945 in Niederdorf / South Tyrol with the decisive contribution of the former SS General Karl Wolff. Ascheberg October 20, 1968. Online .
  4. ↑ Dulles / Schulze-Gaevernitz pp. 249-251.
  5. ^ Niels-Birger Danielsen: Modstand 1933–1942: Frihedskampens rødder . 1st edition. Politics Forlag, 2015, ISBN 978-87-400-2821-8 (Danish, limited preview in Google book search).
  6. ↑ Thorkild Nielsen, Egon Jensen: Optrevlingen af ​​Aarsgruppen February 1944. Vesthimmerlands Museum , 2013, p. 5 , accessed on February 14, 2016 (Danish).
  7. ↑ Jørgen Kieler: North lænkehunde: group Den første Holger Danske . Copenhagen 2017, p. 189 .
  8. ^ Nigel West: The A to Z of British Intelligence. Lanham 2009, p. 132 .
  9. ↑ For information on Heidel Nowakowski, see Item No. 16 on The Liberation of Special Prisoners and Kinship Prisoners in South Tyrol on mythoselser.de, accessed on April 14, 2018.
  10. ↑ Hans-Günter Richardi (2005) p. 24 (Cushing, O'Brien and Walsh) and p. 132 (McGrath).
  11. ↑ Tom Wall (2019) pp. 33, 42–43, 53 and 190–192.
  12. ↑ a b For information on Amechi and Burtoli, see Item No. 19 on The Liberation of Special Prisoners and Kinship Prisoners in South Tyrol on mythoselser.de, accessed on December 30, 2019.
  13. ↑ Roberto Gremmo: I parti giani alleati dei nazisti. Il Battaglione Davide dalla Resistenza astigiana alla Risiera di Trieste . Storia ribelle, Biella 2015.
  14. ↑ Åke Svenson, Bent Vandberg: De hvite bussene . Gyldendal, Oslo 1945, p. 74–76 , urn : nbn: no-nb_digibok_2014052308054 (Norwegian, 181 pp.).
  15. ^ Monika Eichinger: The Linz Study Library during the Nazi era . Vienna 2009, p. 22ff on wienbibliothek.at (PDF).
  16. ↑ Magyar Életrjzi Lexicon 1000–1990: mek.oszk.hu
  17. ↑ Peter Koblank: The discovery of the order to liquidate Elser , online edition Mythos Elser 2006.
  18. ↑ Facsimile of page 1 of the express letter from April 5, 1945 on mythoselser.de.
  19. ↑ Facsimile of page 2 of the express letter from April 5, 1945 on mythoselser.de.
  20. ↑ The word 'tötlich', incorrectly spelled twice with 't' instead of 'd', served journalist Günter Peis in 1995 as one of several arguments to wrongly classify this express letter of April 5, 1945 as a forgery. More on this from Peter Koblank: Order to liquidate Georg Elser a forgery? Online edition Myth Elser 2007.
  21. ↑ Interview with Hans-Günter Richardi . In: Dorfablattl - information from the community of Niederdorf. No. 32, March 2015, pp. 6–7 (PDF).
  22. ↑ Liberation on Lake Braies. Tyrolean archive commemorates the deportation of prominent SS hostages to the Dolomites. In: Sonntagsblatt No. 31, July 30, 2006, p. 25 (PDF).