The Nuremberg Interviews (65 page)

Seen today, he was red-eyed, had a pleading facial expression, said he had always been healthy, liked sports, and could not understand his present symptoms. Asked if he thought they might be the result of some emotional disturbance, he agreed. He also attributed it to the interrogation, which he said was brief but seemed aimed only at getting him to state the dates and numbers of persons executed and not the reasons, not the circumstances.

He was born July 10, 1902, in Silesia. He lived there until the age of fourteen years. As far as he knows his birth was normal; he walked, talked, and so forth at appropriate ages. The only childhood illnesses he recalls are measles and an occasional cold. His appetite up to a day ago was excellent. During his childhood the family financial conditions were always satisfactory and he had a good home and enough food, clothing, and the like. He never had any food fads or similar difficulties.

He attended elementary school until nine years of age. He wanted to become a physician but read
Robinson Crusoe
at about that age and decided to become a sailor. In 1914, when he was twelve, the First World War began and he wanted to enlist in the navy at once. Actually he enlisted in the Austrian navy when he was fourteen years old, and served until November 1, 1918, when the war ended, a period of two years. He was stationed in the Adriatic and did not participate in any battles, because the Adriatic was mainly occupied by German and Austrian submarines. The usual age was seventeen for enlistment in the navy, “but I was big and tall, and appeared older.” He was accepted though it was known he was but fourteen.

He attended a school for noncommissioned officers for a short while (Austrian navy), but in 1918, when the war ended, he abandoned his original plans, which were to stay for ten years in the Austrian navy and then to go to the Austrian Lloyd Lines and take an examination as a seaman.

In 1918 he went to Hamburg and Bremen to seek employment. However, there were at that time over sixty thousand unemployed seamen in those cities, and he found no job. He joined some friends and enlisted in a German infantry regiment until July 19, 1919. In August 1919 he went to Berlin, met some friends, and went to Latvia. There were anti-Bolshevik armies stationed in Latvia — German, Russian, and Latvian. He became a member of a Russian anti-Bolshevik army. “We were supposed to settle down and each man get sixty acres of land. We wore part Russian and part German uniforms, but the insignia were Russian.” He remained until December 1919. There were no battles, little to do other than regimental training.

“All Russian and German troops were required to leave Latvia and go back to Germany at that time.” In 1920 he held several short-time jobs in Czechoslovakia. He took private tutoring lessons in English and French and other high school subjects while working as a laborer or factory hand.

He then went back to Germany and joined up to go to sea again, because by then Germany had a small merchant fleet. He signed on a boat as a fisherman until September 1921, then signed as a seaman and went to Norway and South America, Valparaiso, and so forth. He was never seasick, enjoyed the work.

He went from Norfolk, Virginia, to Antwerp on an 8,500-ton steamer, and the trip took nineteen days. “On that trip all the other seamen were seasick but not me. I was never airsick either and I’ve traveled a lot by air.

“In 1922 I saw clearly that I could never become an officer because I would have to go on a three-masted training sailboat for twelve months, and Germany had only two such boats. On these sailboats only sons or nephews of captains went — or other people who had influence — not the average person like myself.

“I therefore went to Salzburg, where I had relatives, and on July 1, 1923, I joined the Austrian police force.” He spent two years in police school in Salzburg and Vienna, after eight months’ practical work. He says he studied penal law, criminal law, state law, history of the Austrian constitution, all trade and traffic laws. After these two years he was hired as a regular employee for life, and stationed in Salzburg until 1935. He spent short periods, too, in Vienna.

“Meanwhile I took a nine-month course for higher police officials. I
had private lessons in high school subjects, and in 1927 I studied most of the things one gets in a gymnasium.” In 1930 he graduated high school by examination, and proceeded to study law at the University of Innsbruck. In 1934 he graduated with the degree of doctor of jurisprudence. He became an instructor in the police force. He worked hard, at night, during the day. He took no time off, learned easily, slept little, but ate well, and lost no weight.

In the fall of 1934 he became a member of the Criminal Police. Then he became a member of “the higher administration of law.” What is that? “The Austrian police had several departments — State Police, Criminal Police, et cetera. I was in the Department of Traffic and Administrative Law.”

He had a good friend whose career followed his closely. Both were in Department 6 of the police force. They wanted Department 8 to take over Department 6. The police director promised to have 6 taken over by 8. It seems that Department 6 was a “plain police officers group” whereas Department 8 was “an academic group.” Both Mildner and his friend would have studied medicine, he says, if they had not been promised positions in Department 8. When he had broached the subject of studying medicine years before to the police chiefs, the chiefs said that he should stay with the police — that it was cheaper and besides he would be given a permanent place in Department 8. By the time he and his friend were to be transferred to Department 8, the political life in Austria had changed. Until 1933, said Mildner, Austria was a free democratic country. After 1933 the National Socialists and Communists were banned and the dictatorship of the Christian Socialist Party under Dollfuss took place.
²
In February 1934 there was a home guard uprising. In June or July 1934 there was a Nazi insurrection.

People who had promised Mildner and his friend that they would be taken into Department 8 had by then been retired or transferred. “In Salzburg the police director hated us and wanted nothing to do with part-time students like my friend and myself.”

After an exceptionally disagreeable quarrel, Mildner and his friend quit the police force and went to Bavaria. “I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I intended either to start a business or go to my brother-in-law in Potsdam. But in Bavaria we were both arrested on suspicion of being espionage agents of Schuschnigg.”
³

After three days of arrest they were released on the approval of Heydrich,
who was chief of the Security Police in Berlin. The friends proceeded to Munich. At the time there were forty-five thousand Austrians in Germany — Nazi refugees from Austria. There was a special department in Munich to handle these people. Most of them, said Mildner, were really murderers and thieves who stayed in Germany under the guise of being Nazi refugees. Heydrich ordered that Mildner and his friend be hired as employees of this agency in Munich for the sorting out of these Austrians. Were you a member of the Nazi Party at the time? “Not yet. My friend and I were members of the Austrian home guard. That was June 21, 1935.”

Their duties were to screen all Austrian refugees and check whether they had criminal records. The criminals were to be arrested and turned over to the courts. “My friend [Pifrader]
⁴
went to Berlin in 1936 to take over a similar department. I stayed on in Munich until March 13, 1938.” Mildner was assigned to Vienna by Heydrich at the time of Austria’s occupation. In May, Mildner received a document that stated that as of January 1938, he was administrative adviser of internal administration.

In March 1939 he was sent to Prague. He received the orders while he was vacationing at an Austrian-Swiss border resort. He did not like the idea of having to serve on the Security Police there, because he knew Prague and liked the city.

“While I was in Munich I tried to get away from the police job. I tried to take an examination as an assessor. I didn’t want to stay with the police. I appealed to the Ministry of Justice in Berlin but I was refused. I wanted to become a legal adviser to industries. But according to German law, I would have had to pass an assessor examination before I could do that.”

He learned later that his petitions to Heydrich for release had been refused and he was ordered to remain with the State Police. He stayed only two days in Prague. He knew the Czech people from his navy experiences. He knew there would be terrible battles because the Czechs were a freedom-loving people. He managed to get reassigned to Linz.

“On August 1, 1939, my wife was ill after bearing our second child. I took my other child, my daughter, who was twenty-six months old then, and went by car and canoe for a vacation. We spent four weeks together while my wife was in a hospital. On August 25 I was called to Salzburg as representative of the chief of State Police.”

He remained in Salzburg until December 10, when he became chief of the State Police in Chemnitz, Saxony. At the outbreak of the war, he says, he wrote two petitions to Heydrich asking that he be allowed to join the navy. He says he hoped Heydrich would release him. He never met Heydrich personally, and had never requested assignment to the State Police but was “forced into it.” Heydrich refused to allow him to leave. In Chemnitz he was supposed to get a detachment of Security Police, for Schleswig-Holstein. He learned of that “just in time to get out of it.” Once he was supposed to go to Oslo, Norway, as commander of the Security Police there. That he could prevent through friends in Berlin. Later he was slated to go to northern Norway, but he thwarted that, too.

In February 1941 he and a friend had some business in Berlin. There he received the news that he was transferred to Kattowitz. “I didn’t know the region, but the East as a whole was unwelcome as an assignment.” Why? “Nobody wanted to go east. The nature of the duties, the paucity of culture, the coal dust, general conditions.” When he received the news he became “very excited, even my friends told me that they had never seen me so excited and upset before.” He immediately decided to go to Heydrich though his friends warned him against the idea. His friends said that Heydrich would imprison him if he refused Kattowitz. Mildner reported to Heinrich Mueller, who was his immediate chief, and told him of his dislike of the East. However, there was nothing to be done about it because Heydrich had signed the order.

“I was in Kattowitz from March 1941 until September 10, 1943. From there I went to Denmark as chief of SD and Security Police. I spent only three months in Denmark. After I left I believe conditions in Denmark became worse.” In December 1943 he left Denmark to become inspector of the SD and Security Police in Kassel. He was there for forty-eight hours when he received a written order from Berlin telling him that the chief of SD in Berlin had found another use for him and he should stop his inspection tour. His successor took a long time getting to Kassel, however, so that he remained there until March 1944. For the next three months he was in Berlin, in the RSHA. Then he went to Vienna as representative of the Security Police and SD. That was on December 1, 1944. His superior was Huber.
⁵

The difference between the Security Police and the SD, according to Mildner:

However, at the top, in Berlin, was Himmler, chief of all police, and Kaltenbrunner, who had succeeded Heydrich as chief of Security Police and SD. Mildner knew Kaltenbrunner from Linz. He does not know Kaltenbrunner well, but he knows that people thought highly of him in Austria. “I know that Kaltenbrunner was unhappy in Berlin because he is a typical Austrian. I’m sure Kaltenbrunner would not misuse the SD or Gestapo as Himmler and Heydrich did. Kaltenbrunner loves women, wine. He does not like police activity any more than I do.

“After the war Kaltenbrunner would have reorganized the Security Police, but not as a tool of Heydrich or Himmler. Eighty to eighty-five percent of the Gestapo people were not volunteers, but when Hitler came to power in 1933 he took the best experts from the Criminal Police and made them Gestapo agents. The same was true in Austria. Nobody could refuse.”

Mildner remained in Vienna until the Russians arrived. Hitler gave the order through Schirach, the party district administrator, to defend the city. This meant Mildner would have to stay in Vienna. He had six thousand people under his command, including nineteen hundred mail censors and customs officials. “I had responsibility for all these men — it was a difficult time.” About eight days before the encirclement of Vienna, Schirach left, so Mildner released his men. He stayed on until the bridges were blown across the Danube. Then he retreated to territory that was not occupied by the Russians.

“I would have taken all the police, put them together under my command, and prevented all the blowing up of bridges. I would have surrendered the city to the Americans. I went to Salzburg to Kaltenbrunner, who gave me permission to go to the mountains because he knew what we had to expect and I didn’t want to stay in Russian territory.”

From May 1 until May 28 he went skiing in upper Austria. He used his true name, and had his chauffeur with him. He was taken prisoner on May 28. When he returned to his hut that evening there were five Americans who took Mildner and his chauffeur prisoner. His captors were polite and courteous, he says.

Marital:
Married 1928, wife aged forty. He has known her since 1923. Three children, ages three, six, and eight years, all girls. Wife had diphtheria
in 1943 and it had a bad effect on her heart. His children are well. Two of them had mild attacks of scarlet fever. His married life has been a happy one except that the unrest caused by his numerous shifts in position and the war caused many separations that otherwise would not have occurred. He became tearful discussing his wife and children, and this subject was not stressed during the interview at this time.