[Above: This still image is taken from Ernst Zundel's television show called 'Another Voice of Freedom' which had an interview with the enigmatic Carla von Keltner. She appeared on show #218 entitled 'The Truth About the Odessa File'.]
Interview with Carla von Keltner, author and historian. Phone interviews, USA, 1993-1999.
Can you tell me how this all started and how you became involved with helping SS veterans?
Carla: Yes, I will, I was just a young girl who yearned to be a teacher. I could speak English, Portuguese, and Spanish. I knew a little German as well. I grew up during the war years, being somewhat indifferent to war and politics. For me the war was an inconvenience as I dreamed of traveling and had family in South America. I did very well in school and graduated with an opportunity to go to Brazil to teach English. I ended up being courted by a Polish Count, and we wed soon after. You could say it was more a marriage of expectations since we both had family history. I was left largely on my own and became bored. This went on for a few years and I think we knew this was not what we wanted. I was becoming a successful figure in Rio [Rio de Janeiro, Brazil], and it took a lot of my time.
How did I fall into the SS? Well, it was pride and stupidity. I was at the beach one fine day and the water looked inviting, plus there were many young men I was wanting to get attention from. Even though there were red flags warning not to go into the water, I didn't care. I went out up to my waist in my new bathing suit and pulled water over me when all of a sudden, a big wave hit me, and the back flow pulled me out into deep water. I panicked as I was in an undertow and had about given up when a hand reached out and grabbed me. A handsome man had swum out to save me. He had a buoy, so I was able to hang on and have him bring me to shore. I was exhausted, but his charm made me smile as he asked if he should give me mouth-to-mouth in very bad Spanish.
I could tell he was German so I asked if he could bring me water which he promptly did. We hit it off and we started to see each other. I learned he was a former soldier in the SS who fled Germany. I felt my soul needed to know more, there was some kind of insane attraction that took hold. I was now divorced and not at all really looking for love, but I fell onto its lap in a literal sense. I wanted to know everything about what they fought for. I had read bad things about the Germans but seeing one in the flesh piqued my curiosity if the stories were true. Kurt was his name, and I learned he was in Hitler's bodyguard division and then went into the Hitler Youth Panzer Division as an NCO and became an officer. He fought in Normandy, the Ardennes and Romania. Since he was an officer in the division, he knew Fritz Witt, Panzer Meyer and Hubert Meyer, whom I still speak with and will give him your information. I learned that many soldiers in the SS had fled Europe after the war due to the extreme persecution they were enduring.
They had to leave lands their families had lived on for hundreds of years. Many of these people lost all their families and had no one. They were invited to many areas of South America, namely Argentina and Brazil. These nations offered them refuge and help, and more importantly did not allow the Allies to track them down. We worked with ODESSA to help settle, educate, and integrate these refugees into a new life. Communities were set up far away from prying eyes so they could refresh and rebuild their sanity. Doctors were brought in to help with war stress, we even allowed some of the red-light girls from the cities to help the men's confidence.
In the late 50s many started to yearn for home and under new identities they were sent on to live in peace. The more important ones were protected, but some were careless and believed the hatred had died down. Eichmann was one of those who thought it was safe to be out and about. The Israelites had very good spy networks, however. We tried to take them out as we could. But when we exposed one and the government shut it down, another popped up to take its place. They did assassinations, poisonings, accidents and kidnappings to try to end us, but we were well-hidden. They did get Kurt finally and that's when I fled back home.
I have to ask, did Hitler flee to South America with Bormann?
Carla: Ha, the Führer indeed died in Berlin befitting of a leader and like a Spartan, took his life to avoid capture. He saw what the communists did to Mussolini so many of them wanted to avoid that at all costs. Bormann escaped the bunker for sure and there was a town I know of that supposedly housed a few very high profile people. So, who knows? I was told the Blutfahne ['Blood Flag' said to have blood of the Putsch martyrs staining it], and ring box [SS Honor Rings of deceased SS men] were spirited away to the town for safe keeping but I never saw them. They supposedly are back in Europe in a safe in Switzerland. The town was abandoned in the 70s since most all had either died or moved on.
Can I ask why some of these nations aided these people, knowing all the crimes they were accused of?
Carla: Well, it's quite simple, they felt a debt of gratitude to Germans for all the innovations that were brought to these countries. These made them wealthy and important on the world trading stage. There also was a large German population in many nations here so it made it easy to hide those fleeing. Kurt took me under his wing and soon we were sleeping together and traveling the world. He had family money that was made available once the situation was stabilized in Germany. We traveled to Germany in 1954 and met many former SS men in hiding. There was a vast network of underground stations. I was introduced to many widows of Party and SS men. Here began my awakening to what the idea of National Socialism was all about. Later on, we went to Spain to meet Skorzeny, Degrelle and Rudel. I learned that many former Luftwaffe pilots had gone to Syria, Egypt and Lebanon so they could train new pilots.
You see, many nations who had opposed the Allies knew they were lying about Germany and Hitler. They knew there was no organized killing of Jews, or mass war crimes. They did all they could to house, shelter, and protect anyone who fought the Allies. They may not have agreed with all the National Socialist beliefs, but there was enough common ground to make good friends. I also can tell you there were many National Socialists in Arab, African and Asian nations. The Allies did all they could to make sure the Marxists were funded to help bring them down. This at times made it necessary to always move and run. This was hard on everyone, Kurt said some of his boys had taken their lives due to this vagabond life. Life on the run is no fun, but it was something that had to be done. Luckily for us we had a network of allies all over the world who knew Hitler and Germany had been on the right side in that war. They believed that even though there was no reward for aiding and hiding these people, they understood it was the right thing to do. Even here in the US they took in many who helped with weapons and space innovation [Operation Paperclip].
How did you get to know Gudrun, and work with HIAG [Mutual Aid Association of Former Waffen-SS Members] and ODESSA?
Carla: It was when we went back to Germany in the 50s. Many SS men had been released from custody, but had nothing. I was introduced to Skorzeny who mentioned running an organization that was getting these men away from prying eyes and nosy investigators. It started when Israel sanctioned revenge killings by Jews. They roved all over Europe killing anyone who was vocal in opposing world Jewry. I met many widows whose men had been murdered by these kill squads that the Allies protected. They targeted anyone who had been involved with exposing them, rounding them up, and taking their wealth. It was an organized, sanctioned mass killing and they likely murdered several thousand men and women. Planted bombs even killed innocent families from England, Spain, Italy, and Poland. It was with this backdrop and Allied vengeance that ODESSA was formed to offer help to people being targeted and needing to flee. Gudrun was so devoted to her father and had such a love for the SS that she started helping at a young age. She was part of West German intelligence and was able to ensure key SS men were protected.
They were able to get the Americans to help since the Cold War was in full swing. The SS provided files to the CIA regarding Soviet agents and contacts within the USSR. It is just coming out now how deep the US went to help them. HIAG was not like ODESSA, it was a charity for former Waffen-SS men and families. Remember that the government did not give them pensions. Gudrun was brought in as it was her wish to make sure the men who were loyal to her father were afforded protection, compensation, and safe passage to a better life. There was nothing sinister or evil as the book tries to tell. We only wanted to offer help for people who were being wrongfully accused of and hunted for crimes that were invented or not crimes under old laws. I met Inge as she was part of HIAG and helped raise money for veterans in the 60s and 70s. Once the tides of revenge calmed down a more normal life could be lived, and the cloak and dagger were no longer necessary.
Before Kurt died, he told me he looked in the mirror and felt this had all aged him far beyond his time. He was right, it was very stressful times for those trying to hide from the victor's 'justice'. They made him pay for all he did to expose them. It was hard to get food, employment, see families and have normal lives. Some even took their lives as it was just too much to bear. Others had children who became part of the new system and hated their fathers, not wanting to hear the truth. I always thought this was the saddest, that children would believe their enemies more than their flesh and blood.
[Above: HIAG had a magazine printed from 1956 until 2014.]
You know I am very interested in the German side in regard to the claims of German war crimes. Did Kurt or anyone else ever speak about the war crime claims and deny or defend them?
Carla: My granddaughter has asked me before, you are about the same age, I think. My view of these fantastic claims by the victors will never change. They are just made-up fictitious stories. Anyone who has been in the files at College Park or read the IMT transcripts will see a lot of work went into researching the claims. Anytime a town or person claimed they witnessed a German do something that was against the law, or rules of war, teams went out to interview them and investigate. They had teams of coroners to dig up bodies and do autopsies on them to determine a cause of death. They never differentiated if the person was a partisan dressed as a German or a foreign volunteer. The Germans investigated crimes as well, Katyn is a good example of one of many. To the Allies' credit many of these cases that were investigated were dismissed as civilians who were killed in the crossfire of war. To their embarrassment many of the civilians were shown to have died by bomb shrapnel or Allied bullets.
This happened in France a lot and made its way all across Western Europe. As you know there are many cases however that were not dismissed. Killing of Canadian soldiers in Normandy, shooting of British soldiers in France, Malmedy, Italians being shot and even Germans being executed by the SS. In speaking to the people I have met, I am convinced a proper picture looks like this. In war there are bad men who come to the colors. This is on all sides, and due to this fact, accusations and punishments should be kept in the context that all nations do these things. If, and I stress if, Germans did the things they are accused of, the Allies would have been better off admitting they also did the same. Sure, the guilty can be exposed and tried, but the amount of revenge that was poured out was wrong. The Allies shot prisoners, raped, beat and looted on a scale never seen before, yet accused only the Germans. I cannot even mention the East, since the Russians made such fantastic claims that to believe them and push them shows a Marxist leaning.
Let me share with you a story I was told by a friend of Kurt who was in the LAH [Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler] and was part of the first wave of Barbarossa. During the advance they saw the Soviets had destroyed granaries for animal food and wiped out farms. Feeding the civilians was made a priority so they could see the Germans came to free them. A call went out for chicks and seed to be sent from other areas so there could be lots of eggs. The soldiers helped establish chicken farms for Russians to raise and grow future food for themselves. They also made available the medical staff to help civilians, which made a great impression on them. The labor service came in and helped repair destroyed water plants and wells, rebuilt bridges and roads. They understood that in this fight they needed people to stand with them. [Erich] Koch and other leaders made sure that the welfare of the Russian people was a priority and that they were well fed.
If you are occupying a nation, the last thing you want is a hostile population. You want to go out of your way to avoid people rising against your armies and making life hard. Why in the world would the Germans have used an iron fist, as is claimed? They were not dumb people. Stalin knew this and allowed the creation of partisan forces led by commissars to punish people for being accepting of Germans. It was effective, as by 1944 people were afraid to help Germans as the tide shifted. Also, reprisals were hard but necessary to stop more attacks. Germans knew this mentality drives the people you need to count on into the arms of your enemies, but what could they do? This is why I do not believe any of the claims that are leveled against the Germans. From all accounts I have heard from these men, the same attitude was practiced on all fronts. I know there was no organized or sanctioned events unless it was a legal reprisal against terrorists. I have said that every army has its bad apples, and the SS was no different. Were there some isolated examples where a rogue, angry soldier did something bad?
Yes, we know the Germans had military courts and shot some soldiers for rape and murder. During a terrorist attack could a soldier have snapped and shot down innocent civilians who were rounded up and not really guilty? Yes, indeed that very likely happened. We saw this in Vietnam with Calley, and sadly the truth was mired by Jews like Hersch, Levin, Berg, and Haeberle, who perhaps encouraged it to get award-winning photos. They presented the story that there was torture, rape, necrophilia and mass killings. I believe the truth is that a bunch of war weary soldiers were pushed to the mental limits by Viet Cong traps and ambushes, where it was men, women, and children doing it. They saw them all as enemies and shot them down without thinking. Soldiers are taught to think fast to save their lives. I feel there is a connection to the German side where the same likelihood occurred. Stressed soldiers overreacted to a situation, and their enemies made it look much worse than reality, while covering up their own examples. My conclusion is yes, some Germans did commit battlefield atrocities, but the actions of a very tiny group can not define an entire organization.
As I think of the enormous stress that German soldiers were under, especially at the end when the communists were pouring in resources to fight illegally behind the lines, their actions can be forgiven. That may seem hypocritical to say, but the way the Allies allowed the partisan war to flourish, I think they hoped the Germans would take revenge. This would be excellent press so to speak, and they could use it to encourage more people to rise up. They played on the ethnic division in Europe and tried to divide where the Germans were trying to unite. The Balkans were a good example, along with the East. They would fund and train certain groups to fight the Germans and other groups who allied with Germany. The anger and frustration that the occupation forces had to endure would break many men. This is why Himmler spoke to the police units, to tell them it was hard to execute these enemies, but the blood of the innocent victims called out for justice. There were cases of poison given to wounded soldiers, ambushes of soldiers on leave, nurses attacked and leaders and their families attacked.
This would push many to the edge and some took their lives or took out frustration on illegal fighters and those helping them. I can excuse that. The Allies committed acts solely based on what Stars and Stripes, or Soviet papers told them. They were driven by a man-made hate, based on what others told them to think. The Germans lived real life terror attacks against them. The Allied claims were all war propaganda that were made up to inspire hate.
[Above: The Ukraine, like all of the other countries freed from Soviet occupation, was grateful to the Germans.]
Something I have wanted to ask you is regarding the SS and the concept of race. What is it with the claims that blue-eyed and blond people are somehow the top of the race hierarchy? Why were SS men taught to have healthy babies and defective people were sterilized? What about Lebensborn?
Carla: That is a fair question Brian, and as I have said I knew many of the racial thinkers of the time, many who went on to teach in other parts of the world. So, I know you said you have brown hair and brown eyes, to hear someone say that blue eyes and blond hair are a goal may make you feel uncomfortable. There were great arguments among National Socialists on who is an Aryan and who is not. Many of the leaders of National Socialism were not blond and blue-eyed, so what is this all about? This is a study that predates Hitler and even the Reichsführer-SS Himmler. Many Europeans felt that the pure form of Germanic man is a strong, upright build, with square face, blond hair with blue eyes. But not all Aryans have all these features. Just because someone does not have all of them does not mean they are less of a person. Some in the Christian Identity movement will say this was the true form of Adam and Eve, and that God commanded that this pure race be kept pure and to not mix with any other racial blood. Anyone with other features is mixed to some degree. Whether this is true or can be proven is another topic. However, we have a Germanic race that it seems is set above all others, as all inventions come from this people. We come in all forms of hair and eye color. When the dark races claim they are diverse, I look at their same black eyes, and contrast that with the many shades whites have and chuckle.
Nearly all European peoples can trace ancestry back to the Germanic blood lines from the tribes that settled into Europe. I know you said they came from what we call the Middle East, and maybe that is so. The Barnes Review has some good examples of this being a possibility. I know it certainly caught the attention of Himmler who believed the Aryan race to be the bearers of all empires. I have spoken to Gudrun many times about his ideas on race, so I have a good understanding of what they were trying to achieve. To try to understand this one has to understand some history. After WW1 Germany was decimated, a whole generation of military men was almost wiped out. To add insult to injury, the flu pandemic wiped out another portion so that populations were decimated, racial scientists and experts agreed that a population collapse of European stock could well happen. Himmler understood that the proven best of this racial stock had to be promoted and encouraged. Every nation in Europe has Aryan blood inside of it, although some of it tainted.
This was his dream, to rehabilitate original creation by promoting the birthrate of healthy, pure Aryan babies. In this way it would replenish the population with this racial stock. Doing this, it was believed, would keep the race of innovators, creators, explorers, and artists moving forward and expanding. In regard to who should be allowed to have children is not originally a National Socialist idea. The idea of genetics is older than that and has been practiced in every nation, even though it hurts some feelings. It only benefits the people to bring healthy babies into the world. If we only had babies that had problems the nation would go bankrupt caring for them all. This is why [Margaret] Sanger created her organization [Planned Parenthood], which was to promote healthy white breeding and abort any unhealthy or unwanted pregnancy. True to form the Jews took over her agency and turned it against white women. On one hand promoting promiscuity and being immoral, while encouraging a mother to kill the baby, seeing it as a burden. Sanger only wanted to discourage the breeding of inferior people so that they did not pollute society with bad genes whose children would grow up to become criminals, drug addicts, lazy welfare dependents, and drains on taxpayers. She may have said things to the contrary, but I believe that was her core belief in why she created what she did.
The idea of the Lebensborn homes were a great example of National Socialist thought and welfare in action. These homes were created with the goal of encouraging and aiding in the healthy birthing of Aryan children. SS officers paid into the society, so it had funds. Any German woman who was pregnant with the baby of a SS man could go to give birth. This included wives and of course girls who were unwed. One of the rumors Jews and communists threw around after the war was that they were stud farms. This is simply not true, these were simple homes where a woman who found herself pregnant by a member of the SS, married or not, could stay in peace. She did have to show she was racially healthy, like the father. Most of the women in the homes were the wives of SS men and went to the homes to avoid the war. They were always in the country and set in serene backdrops. An example of an unwed mother I know of is where a young girl of 17 was dating a new SS man slated for the Wachregiment [Guard Regiment] in Munich. He was 18 and just admitted on probation.
Her father was furious since he refused to marry her right away. He involved the police and the SS court got involved since she was under 18. They ruled since it was consensual and a result of a relationship that the probationary member should be allowed to complete his time in training and the girl sent to a home. She was allowed into the Hochland home in Steinhoring to have the child. I met them in 1955 and heard their story, they ended up marrying in 1941. They had 3 children, and all had wonderful blue eyes and light hair. He survived the war since his specialty was pharmacy, he was kept in Munich to work in the SS barracks medical department. Her pregnancy was a difficult one being so young, but she received care from some of the best doctors in Germany. The child was born with an infection that would have killed most babies, but it was detected quickly and treated. In this example it was fortuitous that she was sent to a home, it saved the child's life. The original plan was to just have it at her parents' home before SS intervention.
The SS had a vision to bring into the world children that would go on to be represented in a world that had an enemy trying to wipe them out. In so doing this they were ensuring the race of the ancestors would keep going on. Keeping the genetic lines healthy was a goal of many nations, even here in the US. If say a mentally retarded person was made pregnant, it is understood that child will suffer due to having the same or worse conditions. Laws were put in place to prevent and stop this from happening. It sounds harsh and cruel, but the intention was not to have an innocent child suffer due to irresponsible breeding. This was the case all over Europe, and even today the laws are still in place, although quietly. I notice there is a growing trend among the parents who have children like this to push for the normalization of their child's condition. We are seeing more and more children with issues, and I believe this is intentional.
It is all part of the war on our race, to damage our children and to encourage the damaged to reproduce so that the creative spark is killed off. It truly is a shame and sad when parents hear their child is not normal and has conditions that make them unable to fit into society. The parents who get mad at this and demand we all adapt so their child can fit in, actually hold the others back since they have to teach down to the disability. I saw this as a teacher where even in the 60s parents were wanting to force schools to allow severely mentally challenged children in. It caused so many issues in class and kept good students from learning what they potentially could have learned. We had to take time to explain more, and deal with interruptions. It was later decided that they needed their own schools so that they fit in better. It proved the point that they were not normal and should never be in normal schools. It does damage to both sides. The whole idea is that if you are a defective person, maybe don't pass on your genes as it causes more of the same problem. They seem incapable of understanding the concept of helping your community be better. Our enemies have had a great time making us look like uncaring, elitist, hateful fools for not wanting to see children suffer.
We know this can't always be something prevented, but science has shown that when two healthy people produce children, nearly all of the time the results are healthy. When one defective person breeds, even with a healthy partner, many times the offspring has the same or more problems. Is it morally wrong to oppose this, so that we discourage bringing a soul into the world that will not live a full and fruitful life, as intended? Too many people say "yes" it is wrong. For me that is an example of a declining society. Racial purity issue aside, parents should want to have children that look like them and can do the same things as them. Our enemy knows well how to bring down civilization, and one tool they use is uncontrolled breeding that allows and encourages everyone to pump out as many children as they can, except for smart intelligent couples. They are required to work two jobs, have stressful careers, and therefore limit children. Or the women are told to strive to be a boss and dedicate herself to the career field instead of the home.
[Above: Lebensborn - what the lying media says it was, and the truth.]
What war crimes do you know of that were committed against German forces?
Carla: Well as you know there are many examples. The photo I sent to you showing the young soldier in Normandy that had his head bashed in comes to mind. There is never a case where one can justify mutilating a fallen enemy. Yet we have seen and heard of many examples. From the very early days in Poland German soldiers that were captured had incredible abuse done to them. This is why some Poles were hung and shot right after the surrender; they were implicated in these actions. Leni Riefenstahl famously says she lost faith in Hitler due to seeing this. She didn't understand that these people had committed war crimes against wounded and surrendered soldiers. Then there were the attacks on German civilians. We know that in Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, France, the Balkans and Russia civilians of German descent were murdered before any conflict had started. Anytime Hitler brought up a desire to reunite lands lost the militias in the host land at times took out frustration on Germans.
Some of the time it was Jews who led mobs to do these things, other times it was communists and their allies. Most of the time it was just people harboring those old hatreds Europeans hold against each other. They must have thought attacking former Germans would make them be quiet and stop any push for reunification. We have even seen this with the collapse of the Soviet Union, in-fighting to keep one territory under the control of a certain ethnic group. The Balkans also have a bad problem with this as well with minorities facing backlash from former rulers and vice versa. It was the treatment of ethnic minorities in former German lands that drove Hitler to act in many of the cases. Czechoslovakia and Poland being the two main ones. What was done to Germans both before and after the war will some day go down as one of the biggest war crimes in all of history. Right now, history is controlled so what you read and watch is heavily misrepresented or never mentions these crimes.
The treatment of German POWs is another crime. Kurt and many of the boys I met later all told me of the mistreatment they endured. Skorzeny took a leading role in breaking out some of his boys from Schwäbische Hall and other sites. I wrote one of the stories about one such success. They beat them in their genitals, smashed their testicles, put them in ice baths, and the Jewish ones were allowed to use psychological warfare. One sadistic bastard would threaten the mothers, wives and girlfriends of the men with prison or death if they didn't do sexual favors. One in particular would have them pose nude and take photos which he then showed the prisoner. Telling them to confess or testify against whomever they were going after or worse would happen. This was so bad and prevalent that it took congress to get it stopped. The priests who were allowed to visit these "godless" SS men sounded the alarm as to what was happening.
This happened very often in many of the war crimes trials, and I believe this is why many Germans seem to have "confessed" to actions. They did so to stop the torture, or to save their loved ones. The victors of course wrote up the confessions for them and then had them sign. The worst case was the Rhein [Meadow] camps, where a great book came out to expose these. Millions of soldiers who surrendered to the "safe" Western Allies believed they had made it and survived, only to die of deliberate starvation. They were placed in dozens of camps along the Rhein areas and just left for weeks on end with no shelter or care. Some of the Polish guards would brag about shooting into the prisoners. It is said that a million died, and this was just in these American camps. Germans were put in camps all over Europe, from France, Italy, the Balkans, Poland, Russia, Denmark and Holland. It is estimated, based on loose Red Cross missing persons data, that 3 million people died after the war ended. This was not including those expelled from former German areas.
That winter of 44/45 was very cold and those fleeing west died by the tens of thousands on a conservative estimate. We are talking about large areas that had many millions of German descendants who decided to move west to get away from the Soviets. Many of these columns were ambushed by partisans, criminals, strafed, and attacked by the Soviets. GIs openly brag in interviews and TV shows about shooting German prisoners and looting items from them. I still can't process how people who claim to be WW2 historians will judge the Germans but not the Allies. This is why I say so many people are literally brainwashed. When the Germans bombed Poland and Britain it is viewed as a crime and examples of Nazi barbarity. When the Poles and British bombed Germany it is seen as necessary to shorten the war, just desserts so to speak. When Germans are accused of shooting prisoners it's paraded around as one of millions of examples of crimes. When the Allies do it, it's questioned if they actually deserved it or brushed off as excusable battle fatigue.
The Wehrmacht had a department that explored war crimes and documented what they found. They listed everything from civilians being tortured and executed, ambulances shot at and strafed, hospitals and ships bombed, in Russia a hospital was raided and all patients taken out and killed. The bombings of German cities can be classified as a war crimes I think, due to the fact they did the bombings with the sole intent to kill women and children. The language ["Bomber"] Harris used was to hurt morale and deprive the Reich of its workers. This was one reason that camp inmates were forced to work after 1943. Which if someone was really intelligent, they would maybe question why the Germans would have a policy to kill inmates that were so desperately needed to staff factories and cottage industries helping the war effort. I personally believe the Allies killed more inmates through bombing these camps, factories, and evacuation ships than the Germans did. In my opinion it was both the Soviets and Western Allies who committed real war crimes. In order to hide these crimes, they created teams to look into any and all claims against the Germans. They then made many of these claims into something they were not, a legal reprisal action is spun into wiping out a whole innocent village.
There is a case I have read about which I think explains my thinking. A small German town had many children staying in it to keep them safe from bombings [The organization 'Kinderlandverschickung (KLV),' or 'relocation of children to the countryside']. A US plane strafed children one day who were playing, killing four of them. Later on, a bomber crew was shot down and the towns people were vengeful. Civilians out hunting with guns (so much for the gun control myth) captured them (this is a real case I have since looked it up and verified). They were brought to the local leader and told they need to be marched to the next town to be collected. The men who took them (a father of one of the children) then shot them as an act of revenge. They were turned in after the war, tried, and hung. There was no mercy given yet contrast the attitude when Luftwaffe pilots were accused of strafing Poles. Poles captured German pilots and lynched them. The media and historians spin it as justified revenge for an evil act. Until an honest accounting is done and Allied crimes are brought to the forefront and adjudicated, German crimes can be understandable. Most of the time the German actions were a direct response to an action made against them.
I have never seen any evidence where German forces just did something to do it, there was always some action that preceded a German reprisal. Of course, when we have Jews controlling all forms of dialogue today it makes it hard to get these views out. They have people in Israel working non-stop to monitor chat rooms to gang up on anyone who questions the official narrative. I have seen many Jewish names in literature working hard to make sure all the goyim follow their teachings, that the Germans waged an evil war of extermination against everyone. The story they want told is under Hitler's direction, Germans looted, raped, burned, tortured and tried to genocide whole nations. They want you to believe there was nothing good about National Socialism; it was vile, evil, wrong, and harbored everything bad in the world. They want to keep painting the same picture in the mind of the reader or viewer that Germans were on a mission to destroy. They use these war crimes claims to bolster this message, while never bringing up the 'good' side did equal or worse in the quest to vanquish the enemy.
[Above: The truth about Third Reich gun laws. Here they are in comparison to Weimar Germany's laws.]
How do you explain that there is so many Germans who came out after the war against Hitler and Natioanl Socialism? I have seen many memoirs and interviews where they have a genuine dislike for it all.
Carla: Yes, I think this one is easy to address as it is sort of common sense, no slight on you. When people read all these books about how terrible Germans had it under Hitler, they are not reasonable. Let me just tell you that of course there was genuine opposition to Hitler. We know this as German papers and documents attest that there were people who refused to accept Hitler and the NSDAP as the rightful leaders. Many of these people were underground and would meet in secret to discuss issues. However, these were small cliques and never amounted to much. We know there were attempts to kill Hitler, two major ones and perhaps a couple of others. Does this prove anything? I don't think so. Killing leaders has been common throughout history. Hitler and the NSDAP made it clear they opposed communism and unfair Jewish influence in German life. This made them many enemies. Just fighting the Red Front and their allies cost the SA almost two thousand dead in the Kampfzeit [Time of Struggle]. The amount of hate and violence poured out on Hitler's supporters is another hidden story. You have to read period books to understand the actions of the Red Front and their allies.
The state actually allowed more freedom of belief and expression than many may think. There were parts of the NSDAP programs that could be criticized, or policies could be debated and voted on. The only real act that was banned before the war was making threats against Hitler or any leaders. He was so popular however that only the most die hard communist or anti-Nazi would be doing this. Most all Germans found it very ignorant and uninformed to make any criticism though. When the war started this all changed, and this is what left some hurt feelings and bad impressions. Laws were passed to make life more regimented and restrictive and that affected most everyone. The war years are what many only choose to remember and lambaste. It was hard for many people to live under bombings and tight controls. When the Allies arrived in Germany and the war clearly lost, the Germans who survived knew they had to cooperate or face bad consequences. Many went overboard by crying wolf to get attention. A type of psychosis fell on the people, where they felt if they told all these stories of harassment and persecution that it would endear the Allies to them and remove any doubt of being a Nazi.
Indeed, many who came forward claiming the bad Nazis hurt them, were given better food, care, and housing. It happened like this, a person could say they were arrested for opposing the war or speaking about Hitler. They would then be made into victims of the National Socialist state, give a statement, and then got more aid. Many did this and others later learned they could make money by telling stories, whether they were true or not. This grew bigger and bigger in the 40s and 50s where it made Germans feel ashamed that so many of their own people suffered while they did not. I think this caused even very good people to start making up claims about how bad they had it, even when they did not, this is the psychosis. So, I would tell you to take any of these stories with a grain of salt, they likely are just made up or very overblown. It wasn't perfect for sure; no perfect society existed or will ever exist on earth. The German people fought to the bitter end so that says a lot for how much they believed in what they were doing.
What did people tell you about the concentration camps, did they rebuttal any of the claims made by Jews?
Carla: Yes, I had the pleasure of actually meeting men and women who worked in the camp complexes in many capacities. In South America many of them had fled to avoid unfair accusations and persecutions. The one that stood out to me the most was a Jewish man I met here in New York. He was an inmate at Auschwitz and later moved to Dachau. He was part of the administration in Auschwitz and worked in the complaints office. It was overseen by prisoners who would report monthly to the camp leadership. He told me he was angry at the Germans for uprooting him from his home and family, but he would not lie about them. To him, the truth was bigger than revenge. Any actions of the guards, or other staff that were seen as violating prisoners' rights were dealt with. They would take issues regarding food, treatment, health, and morale to the leaders to seek changes. He told me he was sent in early 1942, and helped organize morale building that included daycare, bands, sports events, free time, reading groups, religious services, and family areas.
I want to remind you that the historians say this was the premier camp that from 1941 to 1944 was killing Jews day and night. However, the camp even had a swimming pool that was built so that inmates who earned free time for good behavior or exceeding work quotas could relax and swim. It is not true this was just for the guards, it is within the confines of the camp complex, not outside. A woman who fled before the Americans arrived at Belsen settled in Argentina and told me all about what had happened in the camp. The Reichsführer-SS gave an order in late 1944 that all eastern camps be emptied and inmates moved west so they could be used in labor allocation. During that winter it was very snowy and cold. Many of the prisoners became sick and were diverted to Belsen that was designated a sick camp, or a convalescent camp. This means the prisoners would go there to get better and then be moved back to their assigned work camp. Anne Frank was the most famous, and this nurse knew her. Why Belsen became so bad was the area around the camp had been heavily bombed.
The railway and road bridges had been destroyed so it became very hard to bring any medicine to the camps. During the process of bringing the eastern prisoners, typhus broke out, and quickly exhausted the medical supplies and new prisoners were pouring in. Camp doctors became sick as well as the staff with several dying along with prisoners. Anne became sick in the first big wave and since the weeks-long trek from the east weakened her, she went fast, in spite of the staff doing all they could to save her. This nurse was shaken as they had never seen anything like this, the older ones remembered the flu pandemic of 1919, but they were powerless to stop it. The camp was too crowded, and they even moved prisoners out of the camp, but the locals protested and got the local leadership involved. They were afraid this would spread all over the countryside.
So, what the British walked into was an out-of-control mess brought on by the bombing of the area. It made getting key supplies impossible and something they don't tell you is that even a few soldiers died, and they enforced harsh measures to keep the prisoners there for a few months. It was so bad they ended up having to burn down the camp with all the lice and filth. Of course, modern historians lay the blame on Germany, but in truth it was the Allies that caused this. Another person of interest was a labor front officer who was assigned to work with the underground plants and to make sure workers were not overworked and abused. He reported directly to Speer's office and could have heads rolling. He fled to Sweden right before the end and then Bolivia. He said they had the same issues late in the war, eastern prisoners bringing disease with them and it was hard to keep under control. In the last weeks of the war many died, and production pretty much came to a standstill. All measures were taken to keep them alive as they knew what their enemies would say.
The smart ones knew to get away to avoid any wrath and retribution. The naive and humanitarians stayed behind, thinking the Allies would see they tried to help as best they could. What we see is nothing but hate and revenge, often on people who have nothing to do with handling prisoners. The Allies allowed the prisoners to accuse anyone they wanted, and there were some prisoners full of hate and rage. To them any German was worthy of death. The photos I found and sent you of the young Waffen-SS soldiers who surrendered to prisoners at Dachau were beaten to death. The nurses in the hospital that didn't get out were raped and beaten. Some of the prisoners were lifelong criminals and their behavior was allowed and then defended as just revenge. The boys they killed had nothing to do with the camp, they were conscripts at the training base. I spoke to so many eyewitnesses who would get very angry at what lies were being told about the camps. Before the war they were built to house anyone who was a criminal, political terrorists, asocial (bums and lazy people refusing to help themselves), any communists who continued to agitate after the forgiveness act, and sex offenders. Later on, Jews were sent more as a measure to control espionage, like the Japanese here, the Germans did not trust Jews.
They were treated very well, and the camps were nothing but very large and important labor pools. Any case of abuse or attacks on prisoners would be punished, and if by another prisoner they would be punished in the camp. Since many criminals were part of these facilities, this happened as I would expect. There was no program by the government or SS to kill anyone on a large scale. There was sad duty that had to be taken on, like reprisal executions of Soviet prisoners. Stalin had started ordering the killings of Germans due to his claim of executions by the Germans. For a short time, executions were carried out but quickly stopped as counterproductive. Remember the Germans were allowing all Soviet POWs to join them. I met an SS officer in Rio, a friend of Kurt who was part of the staff who recruited these people. They went all over the East and held huge meetings in the camps recruiting. As long as they were never political officers and fervent Marxists they would be taken. Millions of them. A big lie Stalin told was that the Germans killed most all Soviet prisoners. In truth most were allowed out to help the war effort.
There are even SD [Sicherheitsdienst, or Security Service of the SS and NSDAP] reports where Soviet prisoners were allowed to work on farms and a few committed crimes where they were shot. I say this as it is in contrast to what histories claim, of them being in mass camps with no shelter and dying in the millions. The Germans were very smart, they understood who better than to help rebuild and feed Russians than Russians. They worked within the framework of manpower and allowed prisoners to either join them in the fighting or help with labor and food. Much like the French prisoners, very few were held until the end of the war. I get angry knowing so many of the French prisoners released joined [Charles] De Gaulle in the fighting later and were very harsh to German civilians, forgetting how well they were treated, but that is the power of pride and propaganda.
