A False Confession Made by a German POW under Torture?

[Roberto]

There was a trial in Leningrad in January 1946 at which nine German soldiers were found guilty of participation in the killing of Polish POWs at Katyn. Apparently the convicted men were publicly hanged in Leningrad on 30 January.

I do not know whether their trial only concerned Katyn, or whether the charge relating to Katyn was tacked on to other charges. I would imagine that the driving force behind the trial was the desire to make a demonstration to the citizens of Lenoingrad who had suffered through the siege, rather than the Katyn issue itself.

No doubt Roberto will say that this was one of the "five-minute" post-war trials, and quite possibly it was. But on what grounds does Roberto claim that the trial of Alois Heterich was unusually fair, and not one of the post-war "five-minute wonders"?

If Roberto looks at footnote 413 on page 852, he will see references to interrogations of Heterich on 15 and 28 December 1945 and 7 January 1946, ie AFTER the end of the war. That strongly suggests that Heterich's trial was indeed was one of the post-war "five-minute" trials which Roberto has admitted were not in any sense fair.

Here we go again. The so-called “five-minutes trials” occurred in 1949/50, according to Streit – i.e. neither during nor shortly after the war. As Kokampf pointed out, they were motivated by the need to gain additional forced labour. It may be that after the war the Soviets tried to bolster their attempt to blame Katyn on the Germans at Nuremberg by having a German defendant confess to the Katyn killings at one of their own trials, reverting for this purpose to the practice of Stalin’s show trials in the late 1930s. Is this enough to draw the conclusion that they applied similar procedures at other trials that were not guided by either the need to cover up a crime of their own or the need to gain additional forced labour, trials where, according to Streit and other German scholars, a minimum of formal principles was adhered to? Hardly so. Why would the Soviets, contrary to their procedure in other cases, stick to this minimum of formal principles? Because those trials were to a certain extent exposed to world public opinion and/or because the crimes were so real that they could afford to be fair, are the most likely explanations. Another indication that most of the trials conducted during the war or in the immediate post war period came far closer to the standards of a constitutional state (although they didn’t quite live up to them, as Streit points out) than other Soviet trials is the amazingly low number of death sentences – “wohl weit weniger”, i.e. “presumably considerably less” than 1,000, according to Hilbiger as quoted in Streit’s article. Wouldn’t trials where no attention was paid to the defendants’ rights have resulted in a much higher number of death sentences? The “five minutes trials” of 1949/50 dispatched 20,000 prisoners of war to the Gulag, according to Streit.

Roberto makes much of the fact that Heterich got off with a prison sentence, and escaped execution.

Do I make all that much out it, Mills? Cut out the crap.

But Gerlach does not tell us what the length of sentence was. Perhaps Heterich was sentenced to the standard 25-year stretch which most German "war criminals" received (only a few were executed), and was released by Khrushchev in 1955 along with most of the remaining German prisoners in Soviet hands.

Perhaps this, perhaps that. There’s nothing like asking Gerlach himself, which I will do. In the meantime, Mills is invited to tell us more about the “standard 25-year stretch” and the number of German prisoners of war convicted as war criminals to which it was applied (sure you’re not mixing up convictions during the war or in the immediate post-war period with the “five minutes trials” of 1949/50, Mills?). None of the sentences seems to have been executed beyond 1955, anyway.

Now to the wartime Soviet warcrimes trials, the first at which Germans were arraigned, which Roberto considers to have been relative models of fairness. Of the Khar'kov Trial, Martin Gilbert writes ("Second World War", page 480):

As the Russian forces moved forward, they uncovered more and more German atrocities, and on December 14, at Kharkov, four SS-men were brought to trial, accused of using gas vans to murder Soviet civilians. One of the accused was a twenty-four year old SS lieutenant, Hans Ritz. On first having heard the words "gas van" mentioned in Kharkov, Ritz told the prosecutor, 'I remebered the vehicle from my stay in Warsaw, when I witnessed the evacuation in it of the unreliable sections of the Warsaw population'. While in Warsaw, Ritz added, "I got to know that part of the Warsaw population were evacuated by railway and another part were loaded into the "gas vans" and exterminated'.

I have never seen any references in any reliable book

Note the incidental leak on Martin Gilbert, obviously one of Mills' black beasts. Gilbert’s non-reliable book seems to be nevertheless reliable enough when it comes to making a fuss. Very instructive.

to the use of gas vans at Warsaw. Obviously, Ritz's claim that part of the Warsaw population was exterminated in gas vans was simply false, and must have been something dictated to him by his Soviet prosecutors rather than something he invented himself.

The false statement by Ritz reflects the Soviet obsession with gas vans, which they viewed as the prime German killing machine, until they discovered Majdanek. The Soviets saw "gas vans" at work everywhere (if vehicles were actually present they may have been the mysterious "LC-Koffer" that I have referred to in other threads), and tended to place them at the site of almost every claimed German atrocity, perhaps sometimes correctly, but most likely more often falsely, as with with Ritz's statement about the "gas van" at Warsaw.

Is that so, Mills? Or is this supposed Soviet "obsession" another of those things that Mills would badly like to believe in? If, as Mills contends, "LC-Koffer" were occasionally mistaken for gas vans, then it is entirely possible (one of Mills’ favourite terms) that Ritz erroneously linked such "LC-Koffer" he had seen at Warsaw to the gas vans he had himself been involved with at Kharkov, even though on the former occasion they had probably been used as a complement to the railway for "evacuation" of the "unreliable segments of the Warsaw population" (e.g. for transporting "unreliable elements" to execution sites like Palmiry) rather than as gassing devices. What special interest should Soviet prosecutors in 1943 have had in what the Germans had done in Warsaw, when they were dealing with German crimes committed on their own territory?

It is noteworthy that, according to Gerlach, the gas van also made its appearance at the alleged massacre of Soviet POWs at Minsk, for which Heterich was charged ("Angeblich fanden in den Folgetagen noch Massentoetungen durch Gaswagen statt"). If Soviet interrogators were able to get Ritz to admit to a non-existent gas wagon at Warsaw, they would no doubt have been able to get Heterich to admit to a possibly non-existent gas wagon at Minsk, and possibly to a non-existent massacre by German troops.

Which - assuming Ritz' statement was influenced, see above - wouldn't necessarily mean they did so, unless you apply the "Revisionist" logic that "they" (Soviet courts were not exactly as homogeneous as Mills would like them to be) applied illegal procedures "here" because "they" also had applied them "there". Gerlach doesn’t say whether the victims of the "alleged" gas van killings were Soviet prisoners of war. It is also entirely possible (Mills' beaten phrase) that the victims were partisans, "partisan suspects" or Jews. The use of gas vans at Warsaw may not be not documented, but the use of such devices in the Minsk region is. It was also the object of trials before West German courts, the English summaries of all but two of which can be viewed under

http://www1.jur.uva.nl/junsv/brd/brdeng ... eng298.htm

http://www1.jur.uva.nl/junsv/brd/brdeng ... eng552.htm

http://www1.jur.uva.nl/junsv/brd/brdeng ... eng601.htm

http://www1.jur.uva.nl/junsv/brd/brdeng ... eng658.htm

and

http://www1.jur.uva.nl/junsv/brd/brdeng ... eng662.htm

Thus it is not unlikely that gas vans were used in the days after the massacre and Heterich merely exaggerated the dimensions of these killings (something eyewitnesses often do, even without coercion), to which there was not the corroborating documentary and physical evidence that led Gerlach to challenge Streim’s conclusion about the Urechie massacre.

Of course, I do not suggest that every accusation in Soviet trials of German prisoners was falsified. Given the scale of the atrocities committed by German forces on occupied Soviet territory, it would be surprising if the Soviets had not got something right.

Comparing their findings to the posterior ones of historians and West German courts actually suggests that they got a lot more right than people like Mills would like to admit. In regard to the Urechie killings of which the 327th German Infantry Division was found guilty, on the other hand, I haven’t so far seen a convincing demonstration that they got it wrong, even though West German criminal justice concluded on this. All we have is Heterich’s retraction that stands a good chance of having been just an understandable manoeuvre to avoid prosecution, coupled with Mills' rather dubious theory that the Soviet court before which Heterich was tried dictated confessions because other Soviet courts had done so as well under entirely different circumstances. Besides, as Kokampf pointed out, the most that can be questioned is the responsibility of that particular unit, the 327th Infantry Division, for the Urechie massacre. That is was a Soviet and not a German massacre, as Mills would like to believe, is beyond probability for the reasons explained in my previous posts.

As for the analysis of the wartime Soviet trials by Ueberschaer and Hilbiger, I would be interested in seeing it, as I am sure would many other members of the forum.

So would I, which is why I will obtain these authors' studies as soon as possible.

[Roberto]

I find it distinctly odd that Roberto should object so vociferously to the statement that he regards Hitler and National Socialist Germany as "absolute evil".

I am well aware that Roberto has often condemned the atrocities committed by Stalin and Mao Zidong, for example; I have read his posts on those subjects myself.

But it is quite obvious that he does not regard the "evil" of those two characters as absolute,. in the way that he regards the "evil" of Hitler and National Socialism. It is obvious that he regards their "evil" as relative, that is, mitigated by some good points, which he denies to Hitler and National Socialism.

Well, if it is "obvious", then Mills should have some statements of mine to show for it. Not just blah-blah-blah.

I asked for quotes, Mills. Where are they?

The difference in Roberto's attitude to Hitler and National Socialism on the one hand and other perpetrators of atrocities on the other is well illustrated by his treatment of various posters on this forum who seek to relativise the crimes of, for example, Stalin. (For the record, I will say that I have no objection to anyone seeking to relativise the crimes of Stalin; they should no more be exaggerated than those of Hitler, or anyone else).

If someone seeks to relativise, modify or reduce the "evil" of Stalin, Roberto will either ignore it or, if he does disagree on a particular point, will express that disagreement in a normal, polite and civilised way. How different from the vehemence, the aggressiveness, the personalised abuse with which he attacks anyone who tries to relativise the "evil" of Hitler and national Socialism, even in the most minor degree! I have said before that I believe that that violence on the part of Roberto stems from a need to continually distance himself from his own background of "playfully romancing" National Socialism, a need that does not exist in relation to any manifestation of "evil".

I’d say Mills has again brilliantly illustrated the reasons for my supposed difference in approach, to the extent that they exist at all (which I would like Mills to demonstrate on hand of a few examples, instead of just making glib assertions). One of the main reasons for such “aggressiveness” towards apologists of the Nazi system is their obvious intellectual dishonesty and the disgusting, rodent-like character of some of them. Mills stands out as the classic example. Now where are the equally disgusting apologists of Stalin towards whom I have shown myself so “polite and civilised”, Mills?

Roberto also attributes to me a belief in the "absolute evil" of Jews.

I dare say that the one of us who believes in "absolute evil" is Michael Mills, who obviously sees the big bad Bolsheviks and especially their supposed Jewish overlords as cardboard cutouts of evil and, paranoid maniac that he is, feels constantly persecuted by "judeocentric" and/or "leftist" opponents who in actual fact are nothing other than reasonable people too critical to fall for the crap he tries to sell.

Is that what you’re referring to, Mills?

I have previously expressed my position that all the peoples of Eastern Europe, including the Jews, have been at various times victims and victimisers. Although the Jews suffered the greatest degree of victimisation during the 20th century in comparison with any other European people, various Jewish establishments have been victimisers in the recent past, and are so today.

Yeah, and Mills has taken it upon himself to demonstrate that “various Jewish establishments have been victimisers in the recent past”, blowing up the role of Jews as authors or supposed instigators of crimes or criminal regimes in the same way that he tries to play down the victimisation of Jews, especially at the hands of the Nazi regime. Is it not legitimate to assume that a person obsessed with such concerns has a genuine problem with Jews, and also some degree of sympathy towards their victimisers?

Roberto's judeocentrism is demonstrated by the fact that he disallows any suggestion that Jews qua Jews have at times been perpetrators of "evil' rather than purely sufferers of it; he attacks any such suggestion with the imputation of "anti-Semitism".

Yeah, it’s "judeocentrism" to dismiss "but the Jews also this-and-that" - contentions in the context of discussion about the crimes of a given regime as absolute crap. The very view of an ethnic/religious community as a homogeneous and equally sinister body shows that the proponent has more than one screw loose. It’s not "the Germans" but "the Nazi regime", and not "the Russians" but "the Soviet regime", as far as I’m concerned. But it’s "the Jews" (not one or the other individual who happened to be of Jewish religion or ethnicity) as far as Mills is concerned. To dismiss such views as beyond discussion is nothing other than elementary common sense, in my opinion.

I well remember a case on this forum some time ago where a poster had referred to the "lizard-like" features of Sharon. Roberto immediately attacked, implying that the description was "anti-Semitic", even though it was applied to a particular Jewish individual who is definitely a perpetrator and in no sense a victim.

My memory must be failing me, which rarely happens. How about getting us the quote supporting your accusation in its proper context, Mills? Without backup, the above is nothing more than cheap slander.

Many of us will remember the occasion on which Roberto introduced onto this forum the curious theory that the mass-destruction of Jewish life by National Socialist Germany was actually an existential assault on all morality, the Jews supposedly being the inventors and guardians of all morality, with their disappearance signifying the end of all moral systems and a descent into primeval chaos.

Same as above, except that here I remember my message, which was about the theory of German history professor Gunnar Heinsohn, supported by certain statements from Hitler himself, that Hitler considered Jewish ethics and the Christian morality that had derived therefrom as a "bacillus" which kept the stronger peoples from ruthlessly fighting for their well-deserved supremacy against the weaker, and that could only be eradicated by eradicating its carrier. Mills conveniently distorted the statements of this theory, as he usually does.

I do not know whether Roberto actually believes that nonsense, and in a sense it does not matter whether or not he does. His judeocentrism is shown by the fact that he was prepared to peddle it.

Of course it is "judeocentrism" to accept that there is something such as Jewish ethics – an essential element of which is the prohibition of homicide introduced by the Ten Commandments - that Christian morality is to a certain extent a derivation thereof and that both were considered by Hitler to stand in the way of his design to create a social and political system built along the theses of the survival of the fittest and the right of the stronger to annihilate the weaker or claim its unconditional submission. Heinsohn’s theory, in my opinion, has enough support to be at least arguable. Which cannot be said of the fathomless nonsense that Mills keeps producing.

And there is one other thing. Although Roberto proclaims himself ready to condemn Stalin without reservation, and does so on many occasions, he never seems to apply that criticism to the Bolshevik regime before Stalin's assumption of power, although it was precisely during that initial period that the apparatus of tyranny, terror and oppression that Stalin later took to its logical conclusion was established.

Now that’s a very pertinent observation to make on a forum dealing with the Third Reich era, isn’t it?

It’s amazing how Mills can draw conclusions about my attitude towards pre-Stalin Bolshevism when the subject, off-topic on this forum, has hardly been discussed here.

One of my rare statements in this respect he obviously missed was when I told Kokampf that I considered National Socialism and Communism equivalents of each other ("the same junk", were the words I used, IIRC).

It was also during that pre-Stalin period that Jewish influence within the Bolshevik regime was most pronounced; it was then that one could really speak of "Jewish Bolshevism" without exaggeration. It was between 1918 and 1928 that the only political party that was allowed a legal existence apart from the Communist Party was the Poalei Zion, a socialist Zionist party.

Could the high level of Jewish involvement in the Bolshevik regime in Russia before Stalin's rise to absolute power, including involvement in the crimes of that regime, be the reason why Roberto is reluctant to criticise that period in the history of the Soviet Union, reserving his attacks for the Stalin period?

Certainly so, Mills. Assuming, of course, that i) "the Bolshevik regime in Russia before Stalin's rise to absolute power" is one of this forum’s main discussion topics, ii) I am as familiar with it as I am with the Nazi regime or even Stalin’s regime and iii) I attribute as much influence as the poor paranoid does to "Jewish influence within the Bolshevik regime". Otherwise the above stands as a shining example of the rather bizarre thoughts that cross the mind of a mentally unbalanced fanatic.

[Roberto]

If someone seeks to relativise, modify or reduce the "evil" of Stalin, Roberto will either ignore it or, if he does disagree on a particular point, will express that disagreement in a normal, polite and civilised way. How different from the vehemence, the aggressiveness, the personalised abuse with which he attacks anyone who tries to relativise the "evil" of Hitler and national Socialism, even in the most minor degree! I have said before that I believe that that violence on the part of Roberto stems from a need to continually distance himself from his own background of "playfully romancing" National Socialism, a need that does not exist in relation to any manifestation of "evil".

And I have affectionately used the Üter-wurst paradigm, that of the young German foreigner who desperately needs to be seen by his peers not as "the German," i.e., through the mirror of the Nazis.

I see the class-clown is trying to ingratiate himself with his peer Mills by joining the dissident researcher's bull-shooting. What I'm not so sure of is whether Mills will welcome this uncalled-for assistance.

What statements of mine exactly make Smith think that I need, or ever needed, to be seen by anyone as anything?

What does he know about how Germans were/are seen where I grew up or where I live now?

What makes him think I would care about either?

Who told Smith that Germans are seen in Colombia or Portugal "through the mirror of the Nazis" rather than as hardworking and industrious people who have achieved great economic success, are on the vanguard of technology and - in the case of Colombia - contributed a lot to the country's development?

Such ill-informed opinions are typical of true believers whose world-view is based on little more than what their gurus shove down their willing throats.

This explains much of the mentality of the younger generation of Germans, I think. As Berlin historian Heinrich August Winkler puts it: "The meaning of this is that the Germans were chosen to commit the absolute crime and have therefore an obligation to defend this record."

The ongoing controversy over the French “Black Book of Communism” is another issue. On a get-together at a University in Berlin, the historian Wolfgang Wippermann said the book is an attempt to relativize the Holocaust and to discredit the left. Anti-fascism as unifier of the left, Auschwitz as party emblem. No matter what Stalin or Mao did, we don’t compare. But it is only a small step from real atonement to arrogance. (Finkelstein wrote much the same. Wilf) Wippermann’s credo: “We have to remain focused on the Holocaust” has an religious sound, wrote Stefan Reinecke in the “taz” “Thou shalt have no Holocaust beside this one.” The meaning of this is that the Germans were chosen to commit the absolute crime and have therefore an obligation to defend this record. But this kind of Holocaust fixation is no different than the pseudo religious national pride. It is unlikely that a new German ideology will come from the scarifying of the Holocaust. Even the German left should know that separate excursions have been disastrous for Germany”.

From Der Spiegel, August 23, 1998 by Heinrich August Winkler; translated by Wilf. (Emphasis mine ~Scott.)

Wow, now poor Smith is trying to become philosophical.

As far as I am concerned, Mr. Winkler has a screw loose, just like Mr. Finkelstein.

There's no such thing as an "absolute crime", except maybe in the minds of the Winklers and Finkelsteins and of "exclusivist" Jewish scholars like Lipstadt and Goldhagen. A nation's preparedness to face up to the dark sides of its past and try to understand them is one thing - in this respect other nations where genocide has happened could learn from Germany. Trying to make such a praiseworthy attitude into a fixation with a supposed "absolute crime" reveals a rather meager talent for observation coupled with a liking for provocative sensationalism. The only thing that makes the crimes of the Nazi regime different for Germans from e.g. the crimes of Communism is that the former are a part of German history to a much larger degree than the latter. Fussing about German concern with Nazi crimes is as silly as fussing about Russian concern with the crimes of Lenin and Stalin, Turkish concern with the Armenian genocide or Cambodian concern with Pol Pot's killing fields.

[michael mills]

David,

Thank you for the background information on the Leningrad Trial, on the basis of which my original statement will have to be corrected.

It appears that the German officers were convicted of other crimes, that may have had more substance than the Katyn charge, and that Duere's "confession" was added into the trial proceedings, perhaps as preparation for the introduction of the Katyn charge into the Trial of the Major War Criminals, which occurred a few weeks later. That is, the Soviet prosecutors probably wanted to have a "confession" by a German to back up the falsified 1944 forensic report by a Soviet commission.

Duere's "confession" was obviously false, since it did not correspond to reality, and he was probably regurgitating a script that had been fed to him by his interrogators. That is shown by the fact that the "confession", as reported in the press, repeated certain falsehoods included in the 1944 Soviet report, such as that some 10,000 persons were killed at Katyn, rather than the less than 5,000 bodies actually discovered there. The reason for that falsehood is clear; the Soviet authorities wanted to pretend that all the missing Polish officers had been concentrated near Katyn prior to the German invasion, andsubsequently killed there by the Germans.

Whatever were Duere's motives for "confessing", the fact that he did so demonstrates that the Soviet authorities were quite capable of perverting a trial for political or propaganda purposes, regardless of whatever justification other elements of the trial may have had.

Another snippet of information in relation to the Katyn issue. In 1945, just after the end of the war, Willi Brandt, then a member of the Norwegian resistance, wrote a pocket history of the war, published in Sweden by supporters of the resistance, in which he affirmed the Soviet claim that the Polish officers had been killed by the Germans.

[David Thompson]

Michael -- Thanks for your gracious acknowledgement. The Remlinger trial has been a source of frustration for a lot of people. Back when I was able to spend most of my time on the "Axis Biographical Research" part of the forum, I exchanged posts and private messages with other researchers who, like myself, were unable to locate any transcript of the trial.

My best guess is that the transcript is in the Central Archives of the Federal Security Services (Federalnaia sluzhba bezopasnosti Rossii -- the former KGB) of the Russian Federation records relating to war crime trials in the Soviet Union, 1939-1992. As I understand it, the archives are in Moscow.

The Central Archives of the Federal Security Services of the Russian Federation photocopied a number of records of war crimes trials and presented them as a gift to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives in 1996, but I couldn't find the Remlinger trial in the USHMM finding guides. Perhaps a Russian poster will have a look at the archives some day and let us know what he found.

[Roberto]

Another snippet of information in relation to the Katyn issue. In 1945, just after the end of the war, Willi Brandt, then a member of the Norwegian resistance, wrote a pocket history of the war, published in Sweden by supporters of the resistance, in which he affirmed the Soviet claim that the Polish officers had been killed by the Germans.

Well, in 1945 he may not have known better.

The comment, at any rate, reminds me of a joke that circulated in Germany around 1970, at the time when the then Federal Chancellor Brandt had entered into the highly unpopular Ostverträge, the agreements with the Soviet Union, Poland and Czechoslovakia for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize:

Willy Brandt is on a tour across rural Germany.

The car he drives in runs over and kills a swine.

Willy Brandt asks the chauffeur to go to the peasant owner of the swine, to identify himself as Willi Brandt’s chauffeur, tell the man that he killed the swine and assure him that the government will fully indemnify him.

The chauffeur goes to the farm where the swine had come from and takes very long to come back.

When he does, he is loaded with peasant bread, cheese, ham, sausages and other rural delicacies, so much thereof that he can barely carry all.

Willy Brandt expresses his surprise at his chauffeur’s having been given such a friendly reception, considering the circumstances.

Says the chauffeur: "I also don’t know what happened. All I did was go there and say, 'I am Willy Brandt’s chauffeur, and I ran over the swine with my car'."

[michael mills]

Our Roberto has a sense of humour! Good to see.

[Roberto]

Our Roberto has a sense of humour! Good to see.

Germans are often wrongly thought to be devoid of humor:

http://wwwlc.cias.osakafu-u.ac.jp/staff ... 0207e.html