Friedrich Jeckeln's Daughter

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J. Duncan
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Friedrich Jeckeln's Daughter

#1

Post by J. Duncan » 02 Jun 2015, 21:26

Found this interesting documentary film from 1992 titled "A Child For Hitler" which is about the daughter of
SS General [SS-Obergruppenführer und General der Waffen-SS und der Polizei] Friedrich Jeckeln and her life coping with it. Film shows the place where Jeckeln was tried (looks like a theater or an opera house).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDiOYLbiyp8

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Ivan Ž.
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Re: Friedrich Jeckeln's Daughter

#2

Post by Ivan Ž. » 03 Jun 2015, 01:42

Thank you very much for the link to this well made documentary, haven't seen it before. Poor woman. Spitting image of her father though.

Cheers,
Ivan


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Annelie
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Re: Friedrich Jeckeln's Daughter

#3

Post by Annelie » 03 Jun 2015, 15:40

Interesting that I got a news feed on youtube to watch this and I have.

Now its 2015, twenty 23 years later I wonder if his daughter would have anything else to add?

I did notice however that Jeckeln was married twice and had a total
I believe 6 or 9 children? Does anyone know if they are still alive
and if any had to serve during WWII?

Have any others come forward publicly with their opinions on
their father and the times?

trespasser07
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Re: Friedrich Jeckeln's Daughter

#4

Post by trespasser07 » 03 Jun 2015, 22:01

Thanks JD been hoping to view this doc for ages.

Regards.
"We believe in what we do!" - written in Friedrich Rainer's Guestbook by Odilo Globocnik in April 1943.

Oberhessin
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Re: Friedrich Jeckeln's Daughter

#5

Post by Oberhessin » 05 Jun 2015, 07:04

Is it about Renate Jeckeln? Unfortunately this Youtube Video does not work in Germany because of copyright problems.

J. Duncan
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Re: Friedrich Jeckeln's Daughter

#6

Post by J. Duncan » 05 Jun 2015, 11:03

That is correct - Renate. A sad story chronicling her efforts to come to terms with who her father was and her own sense of self identity.

Oberhessin
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Re: Friedrich Jeckeln's Daughter

#7

Post by Oberhessin » 06 Jun 2015, 22:29

Would it be possible to get some more details? I have a little bit of her Lebensborn file somewhere.

J. Duncan
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Re: Friedrich Jeckeln's Daughter

#8

Post by J. Duncan » 07 Jun 2015, 12:10

Per your request, I watched this film through and took notes ( I admit I often skim through these things because it's hard to sit and watch for a whole hour on a computer screen).

Renate was born in Steinhorning, one of the show Lebensborn homes for unwed mothers. I'm not sure what year exactly she was born but her mothers letters from Jeckeln date their relations from 1941. I think she was born late in the war.
She visits Steinhorning and she and her friend Sylvia find a Thorak type statue in a wood, covered by moss and overgrowth. She does research on Lebensborn and discusses the Himmler published pamphlet where he says on the leaf
"Holy is the child born to a German mother". She meets with a man who knew the priest who gave up the residence so the SS could use it, which they expanded over the years, even adding an artificial lake. Steinhorning was the last home to be overrun by the Americans so it was full to capacity. The SS had fled, taking much food with them so they were pretty much destitute when the Americans got there.

She talks about her post-war pains as a child, waiting and waiting for this father of hers to come home. He never did.
When she became older, she confronted her mother about him. Her mother is shown discussing Jeckeln with her, saying how handsome he was and how good he was to her. He was charming, such a gentleman. She was much younger than he (she was born in 1907, and I think Jeckeln was born in 1892 - that's 15 years). They look at baby photos of her. Her mom says she is so much like him not only in looks but in mannerisms, interests, and expressions. Renate reads the letters her father wrote to her mother from Latvia. They are full of a sense of duty and very ideological in tone. He is doing a hard task to give her, Renate, and the fatherland a future. He's a big man burdened by a great undertaking which the Reichsfuehrer has given him. (Himmler rated Jeckeln very highly amongst his leadership corps). He loves the child and says nothing will be overlooked in their care...the SS "have thought of everything". Renate says she knows her father never loved her mother as she knows that he had other children with 2 other marriages. Her mother had met Jeckeln in the mountains when she was on holiday and he swept her off her feet. Films of Jeckeln show him smoking cigars, smiling, getting out of his command trailer, visiting a hospital for the wounded.
She never married. I don't think Renate did either and I get the feeling in the film she may be a lesbian. Renate feels his evil is in her blood...doesn't understand her own identity. Confused, sad. She speaks very good English in the film by the way.
Renate became a teacher of handicapped children.
She goes to Riga with Sylvia and they meet an imprisoned Communist auto-mechanic who Jeckeln got to fix his command vehicle. He says Jeckeln was very nice to him, even giving him a handful of Cuban Havanna cigars. He says she reminds him of her father. Renate is uncomfortable with this for reasons as stated above.
She visits a Jewish man who lived in the Riga ghetto. Jeckeln mostly used Latvian anti-Semitic elements in the population to do his dirty work for him. He gave them alcohol so they could be drunk when they did it. When his troops had to do the shooting as Einsatz troops, he was always present to show an example. Jeckeln was a prize-winner in the shooting department - his reports to Himmler show this as well as his bragging on making Latvia
"Juden-frei" - 145,000 down to 150. Renate and Sylvia also visit the site of the KZ in Jeckeln's jurisdiction, "Salaspils" (I'm not familiar with it).
They visit the place where Jeckeln was put on trial, They talk with the German-Russian interpreter for that trial which was handled by the Soviets. She's horrified by the photos of her father from the trial with the dark, hard, cold eyes. (Jeckeln at this time was underweight and looked pale. The Soviets were not too gentle with these characters). The man says about Jeckeln that he knew he would receive the death penalty. "When one commits one or two murders, one knows he might face death, but several thousand murders makes it a foregone conclusion." Jeckeln showed no emotion at all through the trial. He was intelligent. His answers were clear and precise and he admitted everything put to him. The interpreter also sensed that he could be charming as well. When the verdict was read, the whole place cheered and clapped. Jeckeln showed no emotion. He was taken on a truck and hanged in a public execution. The film wraps it up by Renate telling us she is at peace, that she has come to terms with her father for what he was, and that she isn't anything like him. The more people talk about this past, the better it won't happen again.

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Re: Friedrich Jeckeln's Daughter

#9

Post by Oberhessin » 07 Jun 2015, 15:56

Thank you so much!

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Re: Friedrich Jeckeln's Daughter

#10

Post by J. Duncan » 07 Jun 2015, 18:00

Your welcome. I found myself really liking this person Renate as the film rolled on. It's one of those "we are all human" type of films that touch the heart. I'm glad you asked for more details....there was much more depth to this film than skimming to the parts that show the photos and films of Friedrich Jeckeln.

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Diotima
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Re: Friedrich Jeckeln's Daughter

#11

Post by Diotima » 08 Oct 2019, 19:57

It's an old thread but the documentary is still up on Youtube and well worth watching. Many Germans have to deal with the fact that their grand- or greatgrandparents thought or did horrible things, but Renate's case is really tough because she never even knew her father. As a child, she relied on her mother's accounts and idealized her father, waited for him, loved him. Then gradually she found out who her father was.

The mother btw was really spooky to watch. Absolutely no sign of any doubts concerning the man who fathered her child and then sent her to the Lebensborn to give birth. What Renate read from the father's letters sounds formal and distant to me, no sign of "embarrassing love letters" as the mother claimed. She must have deluded herself all her life about his character and his "great love" for her. She talks about him with a loving smile and when she says, "oh Renate looks sooo much like him, in her movements, her smile, her reactions... completely Father's girl", she doesn't even stop to think whether that's the right message to give to her daughter.

I wonder how Renate is now, the documentary is nearly 30 years old and I hope she is happy.

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Gorque
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Re: Friedrich Jeckeln's Daughter

#12

Post by Gorque » 09 Oct 2019, 03:23

Wow. Thanx to Diotima for reanimating this thread and to J Duncan for the YouTube video. I can't imagine being Renate.

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