The Gestapo and German Society: Enforcing Racial Policy 1933-1945 (27 page)

Huttenberger's quantitative analysis of the Munich special Court led him to conclude that once the absence of the upper class and the educated bourgeoisie is accounted for, the gossipers and those who turned them in ranged across the remainder of the social spectrum. He believes that a good number of those charged in these years had supported the Nazis at the polls before 1933, so that an 'attitude of disappointment' may have played a role in loosening their tongues.67
While not all such gossip was reported and prosecuted, in so far as it was picked up the regime relied upon denunciations.

Martin Broszat writes of three specific cases in Bavaria in which statements made in public led to charges of 'injury to the state'; one, made by a highly respected local doctor, was more or less overlooked, while those from two members of the rural lower class were followed up."
Some people in such positions got a 'slap on the wrist' for 'crimes' for which others were sent to concentration camps. Certainly, a denunciation of someone in a vulnerable group, such as the Jews or other social outcasts, was taken by local officials as an opportunity to 'discipline and punish', regardless of the social class of the victim. When it came to the reporting and handling of complaints, the relevant factor was often 'the social prejudices of the denouncers, the police, the public prosecutors and the judges'.`'`'
Reck's diary, referred to above, noted how an old lady lived in 'seclusion in her two-room apartment on Munich's Maximilianstrasse. A well-known actor who had managed to win great popularity with the Nazis decided that he wanted these two rooms. He found it unheard of for an old Jewish woman to be inhabiting them and denounced the old lady to get the apartment.' Coming in late 1938, this was as good as a death sentence, and, too weak to face the 'bitter path' that lay ahead, she committed suicide.70

Martin Broszat, on the other hand, was struck by the above-average degree
of willingness to denounce within the ranks of the `Mittelstand', which he believed had arisen in good part because older concepts of honour and class had disintegrated during the crises of the Weimar Republic. Where these concepts tended to persist-in the nobility, certain professions, the civil service, the organized working class, and within religious bodies, there were relatively few denouncers."
There is some point to what Broszat says, but it needs to be recalled that even the legendary solidarity of the organized working class was no protection. The Left itself seems to have consistently exaggerated the degree to which infiltration of its ranks was dependent on agents planted by the Gestapo. Although there were spectacular examples of agents working for the Gestapo who contributed to the destruction of underground activities, the Left underestimated the number of denunciations made by comrades in the movement
.7' The trade-unionist Franz Vogt was correct to claim that the denouncers represented the most serious impediment to systematic illegal activity', but his figures for planted Gestapo spies are almost certainly too high.71

Detlev Peukert's study of the Gestapo Dusseldorf s actions against the KPD confirms that estimates of the numbers of Gestapo operatives were excessively high. He suggests that the Communists (not unlike the Socialists) regarded National Socialism primarily as an instrument of large capitalist interests, and only secondarily as a popular mass movement. They thus 'underestimated in their conception of resistance the role of spontaneous, massive denunciation out of agreement with Nazism or from personal vindictiveness'.74
Perhaps they found it difficult to admit that some workers had made their peace with the new regime. Though working-class areas were relatively resistant to Nazification, denunciations were not rare. 'Neighbours who for years were inconspicuous and apolitical now revealed themselves as fanatical Nazis, while others, through particularly keen engagement, sought to have their late conversion to the NSDAP-as so-called "March converts"-forgotten."'

One should not be over-hasty in assuming that voluntary and occasional informers were motivated by `higher' (though misguided) concerns.76
Reinhard Mann concluded that out of the total of 213 denunciations `from the population' a remarkable 37 per cent were used to resolve private conflicts, no motive could be discovered in a further 39 per cent of the cases, while only 24 per cent were motivated by loyalty to the regime as such.77
Once again, these statistics suggest that the important ingredient in the terror system-denunciation-was usually determined by private interests and employed for instrumental reasons never intended by the regime. The more important point is that all denunciations functioned in a 'system-loyal' fashion, in so far as they gave practical effect to the regime's intentions to monitor and modify social behaviour.

Everyday life became politicized in Nazi Germany, and, given the racial policy that was a paramount concern, the sphere of sexual and friendly relations came under special scrutiny. The regime deliberately politicized these relations, especially between Jews and non-Jews, and later between Poles and non-Poles. Medical and other authorities, in the course of physical examinations, were instructed to be on guard for possible transgressions of these and other laws and regulations. The importance of doctors for the regime's efforts to police intimate spheres of life was recognized very early. Within months a law was passed (July 1933) on the prevention of hereditary diseases, which declared that all doctors 'without regard to professional confidentiality' had a duty to report pertinent discoveries."

Some people saw opportunities for personal gain in the new laws and regulations. A few unscrupulous characters even thought of planning careers around them. A letter of early September 1938 from the Gestapo headquarters in Berlin instructed all its posts in the western parts of Germany to be on the look-out for a certain Herbert Neesemann, who was falsely claiming in Amsterdam to be in the employ of the Gestapo and the German military.79
However, for the most part ordinary citizens seized on the situation in specific circumstances and for specific purposes related to their private lives. This was a pattern that developed especially in cases involving the increasingly powerless Jews. Leonard Gross tells of the story of a young Berlin Jew, known as 'a ladies' man', who chanced to meet a Gentile woman, a former intimate friend, 'who had not taken their parting lightly'; she got her revenge in 1939 by turning him in to the nearest policeman.80
A simple quarrel between longtime friends in Wiirzburg reached such a pitch in August 1938 that a certain Arthur Winkler charged his friend Josef Weigand's wife with libel-the exact basis of which is not clear in the file-whereupon in retaliation Weigand denounced Winkler on the serious charge of 'malicious gossip', for having said that a local Nazi Party leader had associated with Jews before 1933. Even though the personal motive behind that allegation was obvious (and admitted under cross-examination), it was investigated; eventually it was Weigand who was charged for uttering malicious gossip.81

The willingness to accuse a spouse alarmed both the Gestapo and the Reich
Justice Ministry. In the war years, when the strain of separation and general conditions placed an increased burden on marriages, steps had to be taken. On 24 February 1941 Gestapo headquarters in Berlin sent a letter to all local Gestapo posts concerning the matter of relatives-particularly married couples. As a representative example, the letter cited the case of a man who had denounced his wife on suspicion of espionage and for other acts deemed injurious to the Reich. She had been arrested and gaoled while the charges were investigated, all of which `took some time', but it turned out that the accusations were utterly without foundation. The local police concluded that the man, who had not been living with his wife since 1929, had laid the charges in order to obtain a favourable divorce settlement. In response to Heydrich's warning about misuse of the system, orders were issued to the police to be more thorough in their investigation of the motives behind a denunciation, especially in the case of relatives. A married man should answer under oath whether divorce proceedings had already commenced or were contemplated.82

Yet denunciation of one spouse by another, and on dubious grounds, continued-as testified, for example, by a case in Wurzburg that began in April 1941, after Heydrich had issued stern warnings. An ex-policeman (born in 1898) went to Gestapo headquarters to charge that his wife was ill-disposed towards National Socialism, and had been even before 1933. He accused her of having said, among other things, that she had no intention of raising her children 'for the brown mob' and that it would have been better had Hitler been shot during the putsch attempt of 1923. The ex-policeman also incriminated a number of other family members, but all complaints were shown to have no foundation. Such a result should not have surprised the police, who knew that the informant had been dismissed from the police for misbehaviour (among other things, he had earlier been a member of both the Communist Party and the SS at the same time). The police backed up his wife's testimony that he was schizophrenic, and noted in their report that he had been twice committed for psychiatric investigation."
In another case, a man from Wurzburg, back from the front in 1942, had a quarrel with his wife and told her to leave, whereupon she went to the Gestapo with a charge. The Gestapo concluded that she sought revenge by attributing to him the 'treasonous' statement, 'I'm not going to raise any children to be shot dead for the Third Reich!'84

Such cases were not isolated ones, as is made clear by the circular letters sent to local judges by the Minister of Justice. Thierack wrote to the judges on i November 1944 about how they should react in five separate kinds of cases where either husband or wife denounced the spouse. The examples he gave show how denunciation was used by one or other for personal purposes, although in passing the informants might put the police on the trail of criminal deeds. One example drawn from his letter is indicative, and incidentally, suggests that to some extent the 'better' social classes were not entirely immune from denunciations. Two medical doctors were married, with one child; when the man passed on to his wife a venereal disease he had contracted during an illicit affair, she was angry but forgave him until she discovered that he was continuing the affair. In a moment of rage she telephoned the criminal police and alleged that her husband had conducted illegal abortions. This information eventually led to a trial at which her husband was found guilty and sent to gaol for eight months; his career was also ruined. Subsequently, he instituted divorce proceedings on the grounds that his wife's complaint to the police about her suspicions amounted to breaking her marriage vows of trust. The judge in the case granted the divorce and found the woman at fault. Such a verdict would probably have given her no grounds for claiming financial damages, and might have denied her custody of their child, although there is no mention of these matters.

For the Minister of justice this case, and similar ones he addressed in his discussion, entailed several important legal issues. He pointed out that there was no generalized duty to denounce whenever there was a suspicion of a crime and that the state did not demand breaches of the marriage trust as a matter of routine. On some occasions, such as in the event of milder crimes, the community had a 'fundamentally greater interest' in the 'continued maintenance of the mutual trust of the married couple'. While the citizen's duty to the community had to take precedence over marriage vows in cases of serious offences (such as high treason, undermining the morale of the military, murder, providing abortions), the minister explained, every denunciation of a spouse which eventually resulted in the discovery of a serious crime did not automatically provide grounds for winning in a divorce court. Nor were judges to conclude that the denunciation of one spouse by the other in itself constituted grounds for divorce. Pointing to the case of the physicians, Thierack emphasized the importance of having the right kind of motives. Both he and the divorce judge were of the view that the wife had informed on her husband 'merely out of hatred and revenge'. She was driven to act only when angered; she was not certain about the deeds in question, but brought the charges 'to make her husband's life miserable and to ruin his way of life'. For the minister, the correct decision had been reached in the divorce case, even though the investigation had shown the man to be guilty of the crime originally suspected by his wife."

Thierack reflected the deep concern of many Nazi leaders about the spread of denunciations and their implications for social life. For these leaders, the motives of the informer were extremely important, just as they were to the local judge if and when conflict between husband and wife reached court. Although some of the second thoughts of the Minister of justice and the judges were shared by the Gestapo, or at least the men who ran it in Berlin, nevertheless in daily practice, as in the case of the two physicians, once an accusation was brought to police attention it was relentlessly followed up.

The Wurzburg and Dusseldorf Gestapo case-files reveal that charges were investigated if there was a remote possibility that there might be something in them; the question of motives was taken into account only as a secondary matter. Thus, a case where both husband and wife laid dubious charges and counter-charges was investigated at great length because of a possible link to a Jewish person."
A further indication of the extent to which denunciations infiltrated marriage relationships can be gathered from a case that has attained a degree of notoriety because the trial that arose from it after 1945 was widely discussed in legal circles. On leave in 1944, a German soldier privately made derogatory remarks about Hitler and other leaders to his wife. Upon his return to the front the wife, 'who had turned to other men', denounced him and subsequently testified against him. He was sentenced to death under the law concerning malicious gossip, although in fact, after spending some time in gaol, he was sent back to the front. After 1945 the wife and the judge who had tried the case were brought to court under the law concerning unlawful deprivation of a person's freedom. While the judge was acquitted, she was found guilty (and the verdict was upheld on appeal) because, while she had acted on the basis of Nazi 'law', her deed was contrary 'to the sound conscience and sense of justice of all decent human beings'."
The decision formed an important topic in the post-war debate between the legal positivists (who objected to it) and the advocates of pragmatic natural law.