The Gestapo and German Society: Enforcing Racial Policy 1933-1945 (43 page)

Frau von Calbitz, married, with a husband at the front, was described simply as a 'rural farm-worker'. She was questioned on the evening of i 9 September 1940 in -the presence of the Kreisleiter and a gendarme, and admitted that she had had small 'skirmishes' with a Polish prisoner of war. This case was handled mainly by the leader of the local Nazi Party-the Gestapo is not even mentioned here-which indicates a trend, remarked upon in the literature, whereby the NSDAP began to reclaim much of the influence and importance it had not really had since the 'seizure of power'.'"'
Kreisleiter Albrecht had von Calbitz taken into custody in the evening and intended to have a public display the next day.

Already in the early morning hours word spread that a German woman was supposedly going to be placed in a pillory. From 9.00 o'clock onwards the scene in the city was already changing, and until roughly i i.oo innumerable people gathered in front of the Oschatz town hall; they wanted to see this dishonourable German woman. At i r, on the stroke of the hour, von Calbitz appeared, with head shaven bald, greeted by spontaneous derisive calls from the assembled crowd of people, and was placed in the caged pillory. On the front of the pillory hung a sign which bore the following words:

I have been a dishonourable German woman in that I sought and had relations with Poles. By doing that I excluded myself from the community of the people.

Signature: Dora von Calbitz

Without interruption new crowds of Oschatz inhabitants, on foot and bicycle, streamed by the city hall so that from time to time police action was necessary to direct the crowd along an orderly path. The proper thing-I hope the others will learn: the dirty pig deserves nothing better.' These were the kinds of statements made by the populace in their comments on this filth.

By 2.00 p.m., when von Calbitz was released, no less than 9 5 per cent of the Oschatz population had appeared at the pillory... The success of this measure from the propaganda point of view was complete. The attitude of the entire town towards this defiling urge was one of unanimous rejection.
""

In broad outline, this was the method used nearly everywhere to deter sexual and social relations with the Poles. The reception, however, was not always as acclamatory. The SD reports from Wurzburg offer many interesting insights into the attitude of the Lower Franconian population to the Poles, and to the punishments inflicted on anyone breaking the strict codes. In general terms, according to a report of 27 June 1940, the native population does not maintain the necessary distance and often there exists false pity with the foreign workers. One has the impression that some national comrades express their rejection of the Party and state by way of a particularly loving treatment of the Poles.' Numerous examples are cited to show the absence of 'national pride' amongst Lower Franconians. The custom of treating the Poles better than required would appear to have been the norm in this area, and was attested by reports from all over the district.""
While there were individual farmers who wanted to get rid of their Poles once the crops were in, and to trick them out of what was legitimately owed to them, the population continued, for the most part, to be kindly towards the Poles.""
Popular sympathy was based in part on religious affiliations and social bonds, reinforced by living in close proximity on isolated farms.

The first public punishment was mentioned in the SD report on 2 7 June 1940, referred to above, and many more were to follow. There is brief reference to the rape of a young German (aged 16) from the village of Kleinrinderfeld, near Wurzburg, and to the intimidation and virtual rape of another (aged 17) by Polish prisoners of war. Despite being 'victims', the young women had their heads shaven-which was carried out by the SA with the permission of the local magistrate and Kreisleiter-and were paraded through the village. In a follow-up report of 7 September 1940 the unsurprising reaction of the townsfolk, at least the Catholic part, was said to be one of 'complete rejection' of this treatment. The injustice of shaving the heads of the two young women was established legally when a court subsequently ruled that they were innocent of all guilt.
"

At the end of 1940, the first full year of the programme of bringing Poles to Germany, the SD in Berlin wanted to learn about experiences to date. More
particularly, the survey was concerned with (i) the number of hangings of Polish men for forbidden sexual relations, and (2) the number of public defamations of German women. In answer to the survey, it was reported that in a small town near Wurzburg an i8-year-old woman who had returned from gaol in Wurzburg after being caught having relations with a Polish man was taken from her home, had her head shaved, and was paraded through the streets.""
From the Schweinfurt SD outpost came word that no hangings had been carried out, but that one woman had had her head shaved and had been led through the village of Brebersdorf. `Our experience of the local attitude is that while Party circles strenuously uphold the absolute importance of the regulations, the average village inhabitant feels more genuine sympathy for these people, particularly if the affected person is known to be industrious or has a decent appearance, judged from a racial point of view.'"''
SD reports from Ebern, Bad Bri ckenau, Karlstadt, Konigshofen, Bad Neustadt, Bad Kissingen, and Wurzburg also indicated no hangings.

The summary of the year 1940 by the Wurzburg SD pointed to the injustice in the rape case of Kleinrinderfeld, but instead of taking that as a reason to suggest that 'popular justice' should cease, the SD officer Fellrath reached an opposite conclusion. He took the case as 'proof of the extraordinary moral effect' this kind of demonstration had. He was impressed that the parents and family of the young women had told the magistrate that it would have been better to have had the women punished by the courts than to have them suffer the 'shame' of being shaved and led through the village. The father of one had gone into a fit when he removed the hat covering his daughter's head. Such revulsion, according to Fellgrath, proved that whereas the ordinary system of justice had lost something of its deterrence, 'popular justice' carried far greater 'moral' impact. Moreover, 'for weeks' afterwards word of the events circulated throughout the district. 'The salutary effect' was the fear that such a thing could happen again, so that 'for the indefinite future' women would consider it prudent to avoid relationships with Poles.""

Obviously these reports from Wurzburg reflect the double standard current in Nazi Germany. German men caught having relations with Polish women were to be warned, while German women were put in the pillory.
"'9 One example of what happened to a German woman who had sexual relations with a Frenchman is worth looking at both in order to show the double standard in operation and to illustrate how others besides the Poles were subject to Nazi regulations on socializing between Germans and foreigners. A married woman from Bramberg, near Ebern, who had relations with a French prisoner had her head shaved and was marched through the town
with a sign which said, 'I have sullied the honour of the German woman.' Some of the women in town muttered about the double standard openly, and wondered if German men who had sexual relations with French women in France were treated this way. But while most women'-even those in the Party-criticized the punishment, 'a greater part of the population welcomed the measure, and some demanded that a beating be added.' The religious, especially the Catholic population, felt that these punishments were unacceptable, and someone was overheard to remark: 'Thumb-screw and torture chambers are all that is needed; then we shall be fully back in the Middle Ages.' No mention is made of the fate of the French prisoner, though in all likelihood he was sent for a time to a concentration camp; in contrast to the fate of a Pole in a similar situation, he was probably not executed.""

The Jena Supreme Court President noted somewhat earlier (March 1940) that the practice in Thuringia, even before a woman was charged with having prohibited sexual relations, was to parade her with shaved head and placards through the village: citizens there were no less divided on the issue, with some declaring it to be 'out of the Middle Ages', while others considered it appropriate."'
One memorandum (July 1941) by a propaganda leader to the Party Chancellery suggested that when public defamation failed to deter German women, the death penalty should be introduced for them as well, but nothing came of that.'
12

After the spate of early reports, all mention of the foreign workers (Poles and everyone else) falls off in the files of the Wurzburg SD. Most of the SD reports from the Wurzburg area (not, of course, the Gestapo case-files), like those elsewhere in the country, were destroyed during the fighting, or deliberately burnt by Nazi functionaries at the end of the war. The few that can now be consulted in the local archives were painstakingly reconstructed from the blackened remains of the fire and pieced together.

They are all singed around the outer perimeter, and are in places very difficult to read. In any case, the gaps in the documentation are likely to remain, and even the best efforts of the massive research project in Bavaria have been unable to come up with more. By chance, however, there are some relevant SD records (again with enormous gaps) from neighbouring Bavarian districts.

The SD in Bayreuth, responsible for the Bavarian 'Ostmark' (which included the Upper Palatinate, Lower Bavaria, and part of Upper Franconia), wrote several important reports in mid-1942 which deal with foreign workers and their relationships with Germans. The SD was most unhappy to note that even workers from the Soviet areas were received well in the countryside, because farmers regarded them as workers first, and not as 'racially foreign';
many were Catholic, so they were especially welcomed by Catholics because the religious factor 'served to erase the boundaries' between the peoples. Indeed, some of them were better regarded (in this area) than other foreigners, such as the Poles or even the French. It was a shock both to the SD and to most Germans that the Russians did not fit the picture painted of them by Nazi propaganda. For the SD this meant that much would have to be done to overcome these impressions gained from actual contact."'

A report of August 1942 showed not merely the continuation of forbidden sexual relations between German women and 'racially foreign' males, but a considerable increase. The SD recorded that fully twice as many cases would be registered in 1942 as in 1941. Some 257 German women were reported for forbidden relations with the 'racially foreign' prisoners of war in the Regensburg area alone in the first six months of 1942; another 39 women and girls were reported for having relations with civilian Poles. The SD felt that in more pronounced Catholic locations (such as around Landshut) the situation was probably worse. The report cited a combination of factors, including a failure to communicate 'to the simple classes of the people', feelings of pity for the foreigners forced from their homes to work in Germany, far from family and loved ones, close contacts at the workplace, and the influence of the Catholic Church.'
14 The report at the end of the month reiterated the view that it was particularly in Catholic areas that forbidden relations were prevalent, and that the rural population was most involved. As far as the SD was concerned, the main culprit was the Church itself, the institution that made so much of the 'brotherhood of man'. The priests, by dropping hints here and there, were doubtlessly sowing seeds of dissent."'

The Gestapo sometimes carried out the execution of Poles without due process, as is indicated already in July 1941 in a mildly phrased letter of complaint by the Nuremberg Supreme Court President to the Minister of Justice in Berlin. It seems that near Michelsneukirchen the Gestapo hanged Julian Majlca for having an affair with a German woman, who became pregnant (she was given ten months in gaol). After the execution all the Poles in the vicinity were marched past the body. The same letter mentioned a case where the Gestapo in Regensburg went to the court gaol, picked up a Pole who was being held for having forbidden relations, took him out, and executed him. In November this procedure was followed in the forest near Eschlbach, where the Pole Jarek was hanged for having relations with a 2o-year-old woman. Again, ioo or so Poles from the area were led past.I"
A report of mid-1942 suggests that the Gestapo wanted to handle all matters pertaining to the Poles, especially when the death penalty was to be applied. The justice
authorities were left in the dark.'
17 The report of 4 September 1942 said that `some Poles' had been hanged by the Gestapo, but that nothing more was known.'1s
In view of these actions, it seems likely that the preoccupation of the Gestapo with the foreign workers was greater than suggested by the statistics mentioned above, for almost certainly such executions were never reported.

That matters were not much different elsewhere is suggested by correspondence from other areas in Germany. Thus, a report from the Supreme Court President in Jena as early as 31 May 1940 noted that two courts had been supposed to deal with a Polish man who was accused of having sexual relations with a German woman; he was given seven years by one court, and there was a proposal to send him before a 'special court'. But before that could happen 'an official of the Secret State Police appeared, took the files, and declared that the Security Main Office in Berlin had issued orders to hang the Pole'."9
In a case from the same area in September 1940 the Gestapo hanged a Polish man at the side of the road between Horselgau and Frottstadt; the body remained there for twenty-four
A similar letter of complaint came from the Hessian Supreme Court President in March 1942. On 24 January, it stated, a Polish woman near Fulda killed her employer's child with a cleaver and injured another. She was hanged by the Gestapo on its own authority, and in the presence of 200 Poles brought to see the spectacle; there were no court proceedings. The Court President had no doubt that the Pole deserved what she got, and believed that the courts would have delivered the same verdict, but lamented that the Gestapo, with its 'lynch justice', was undermining what was left of the justice system. He was particularly disturbed that the Gestapo had permitted some 500 German citizens to witness the hanging, along with the 200 Poles brought to see it as a deterrent. The Gestapo was inclined to the view that an execution should take place as close as possible to the scene of the 'crime', but when local officials felt that the people of the area were not 'schooled' enough, or that they were too committed to religious faith, in which case a public execution could misfire by outraging their sensibility, the condemned person was sent to a concentration camp for 'special handling'.121