"Die Rückseite des Hakenkreuzes" Review

[jeffhan373]

Beatrice & Helmut Heiber (eds.), "Die Rückseite des Hakenkreuzes" (Wiesbaden; Marixverlag, 2005)

This book, which has been around for awhile - first pub. in 1993 - is quite fascinating. "The Flip Side of the Swastika" consists of excerpts from letters between various prominent NS figures. It is basically an anthology of backstage gossip: everyone seems to have been bitching about everyone else. There is a wealth of fascinating detail in it and you get a real sense of how these people interacted, or failed to interact, among themselves.

Random samples:

Kurt Wolff to Hans-Heinrich Lammers: I know you gave that signed portrait of yourself to X because you served together in the Great War. But X is a Jew. You need to get the portrait back ASAP.

Wilhelm Kube to Kurt Daluege (1933): Can you find out if my landlady is a Jew? Because if she is, we need to get her out of Germany fast. Daluege answers: If she is, we have to compensate her. (The woman was married to an Aryan).

Hans-Heinrich Lammers to Karl Fiehler: I've been talking to the Führer about renaming some streets in Munich. He is fine with changing "Habsburgstraße" to "Planettastraße". But under no circumstances is anything to be named after General Ludendorff.

Max Amann's wife tried to drown herself in the Tegernsee in 1944. She was saved by a Polish slave laborer. The tongues were wagging on this one...

There are tons of items like this, with adultery, corruption, alcoholism and homosexuality all showing up. It's a veritable TMZ for the Third Reich.

A few drawbacks, though: There is no English edition of it. The book does not contain any illustrations. And the book contains no index, which is really annoying. You have to keep flipping through it to find items you want to re-read...

Still, highly recommended. It's available on Amazon for very little money. Grab a German dictionary and have fun finding out what went on behind the scenes...

[jeffhan373]

Sample #1 should be Karl Wolff, of course. Mea culpa....

[krichter33]

Sounds really interesting!!! Too bad it's not translated into English...Any more "juicy" tidbits???

[jeffhan373]

The book is full of them, I'd clog this page if I kept listing them. Here's another sample:

Bormann to Dr. Goebbels (1936):

I was listening to some folkish music on the radio last Sunday morning. To my complete shock, the announcer then said "We have with us Herr Anton Drexler, the founder of our Movement. Perhaps Herr Drexler will give us some anecdotes about the early days of the Party." Drexler stuttered his way through some stories, and then the announcer said "we will now hear some folkish music done by Herr Drexler."

Comment on this is not necessary. The Fuehrer wants me to tell you that Drexler is never to be allowed near a radio station again.


Also lots of interesting factoids. There's a letter about Heydrich's funeral, which says that he was only to be buried in Berlin on an interim basis. Ultimately he would be re-interred in a (to be constructed) Hall of Heroes. The writer then goes on to say that Hitler had ordered a crypt to be dug for Frau Scheubner-Richter right outside the Honor Temple in Munich where her husband was. I don't know when she died (I presume it was post 1945, which meant no crypt for her)..

A real pity this isn't available in English.