The Nuremberg Interviews (56 page)

Have you ever had any difficulties sexually? “None. Such things were always very good. As a young man they were always very good, too. When I was seventeen I had my first sexual experience with a nurse in a hospital in Damascus. She was in her twenties, slightly older than myself. Everything went fine.” Have you had any sexual experience since May 1945? “No.” Any sexual desires? “Well, no, first of all there was the hard work on the farm, and further the knowledge that I was sought after by the police.”

Have you ever had any nervousness at any time? “Yes, for example, in
Auschwitz during my last year there, 1942, 1943, I had much to do. The exterminations were just a small part of my work. Every night the telephone would ring and I would be summoned somewhere. I was run-down not only because of the exterminations but because of the other work, too. My wife often complained that I spent too little time with my family and that I lived completely for my job. Only in 1943, after I went to Berlin, my doctors reported to my superiors that I had worked too hard and that I was run-down. I then had a six-week vacation toward the end of 1943. I spent that time alone in a hunting lodge in the mountains. My wife did not come along because she was in her last months of pregnancy with our last child and so she remained in our house in Auschwitz.”

How did your nervousness manifest itself? “I don’t know, except that my efficiency suffered a little and I found that I was a little jumpy and more irritable than usual. Usually I am very calm and self-possessed.” How do you feel at the present time — nervous, or self-composed? Hoess seems to think for quite a while, stares at the floor, looks at me and then at the wall with his unblinking, wide, flat eyes. “I feel less nervous now than I did then.”

What kind of house did you have in Auschwitz? “I had a house which was located just before the gates of the camp. It originally belonged to the administrator of the Polish artillery. When I arrived in Auschwitz, the house was not quite finished. I had it fixed up, put in a garden around it. I had ten rooms, not considering the baths and kitchens. But they were small rooms, nothing very large or fancy.”

I asked him whether he subscribed to any religious belief. “I left the church in 1922 and my wife left it in 1935.” Why did you leave the church? “During my experiences at the front in Iraq and Palestine I thought that there was a lot of humbug connected with the so-called holy places and that things were not done right, especially by the Catholic Church, of which I was a member. And that diverted me from my formerly rigid, strict Catholicism.” Just what humbug did you see and what in particular was wrong with the Catholic religion as you found it in Palestine and Iraq? “I don’t know, it is a long time ago and I was so busy since then I have had no time for thinking about religion, but all of this money that went to the church, well, it seemed to me that it was humbug.” Has there been any change in your religious attitude since your arrest? “I wouldn’t say a change, but for the first time I desire to see
a Bible because I want to see what religion teaches a person. When I left home and was no longer under religious influence I was too young and inexperienced to really understand it.”

Do you attend the Catholic services here? “No.” Have you any desire to do so? You know that you can if you want to. “That would be saying too much that I have a desire for religion. But now since I know that my life is over, I want to find an inner peace. Now I should like to find out whether what I have done in my life, not only at Auschwitz but before that, was not wrong. Maybe what I did and what I always considered to be the right thing was wrong, because I see, since the defeat in Germany in May 1945, that in the eyes of the church and in the eyes of the world culture and ideology these things were wrong.” What do you think of your activities yourself? You mentioned you wanted to find inner peace. Do you feel some emotional disturbance? “Just that my feet ache and that I am more concerned with my family’s welfare than with my own.”

Does the fact that you put the phenomenal number of 2.5 million men, women, and children to death, not to mention your supervision of exterminations and excursions in all of the other camps that you supervised since 1943 — does that fact not upset you a little at times? “I thought I was doing the right thing, I was obeying orders, and now, of course, I see that it was unnecessary and wrong. But I don’t know what you mean by being upset about these things because I didn’t personally murder anybody. I was just the director of the extermination program in Auschwitz. It was Hitler who ordered it through Himmler and it was Eichmann who gave me the order regarding transports.” Do you ever have any thoughts of these executions, gassings, or burning of corpses — in other words, do such thoughts come upon you at times and in any way haunt you? “No. I have no such fantasies.”

What newspapers did you read during the last ten years? “There were only the party papers, for instance,
Das Reich
, the weekly political paper published by Goebbels. I also read information circulars and magazines given out by the SS.” Did you ever read
Der Stürmer
? “Occasionally I got hold of one, but I myself disapproved of it because it was too superficial, pornographic, and had too much propaganda in it. I don’t think it was completely truthful, either.” That is an interesting observation: you murdered 2.5 million Jews but you disapprove of
Der Stürmer
. “Oh yes, all people with any sense disapproved of
Der Stürmer
.” Did you ever read the
Völkischer Beobachter?
“Yes, I got it too, but I paid less attention
to it than to the other periodicals. I don’t care much for daily newspapers.”

Do you have any dreams of any sort? “No, once in a while I dream but I can never remember the next morning what they are.” Do you ever have any nightmares? “Never.”

Is your wife a good cook? Do you have any preference in regard to the different types of food? “No, I paid little attention to food — to the sorrow of my wife, who is a good cook. Food always played a minor role in my life.”

Was your wife ever a party member? “No, she was a member of the Women’s Organization but was never active, had too much work to do in the home, bringing up the children.”

Did you ever have any secretaries? “No, in concentration camps we had no secretaries, only adjutants and military clerks.” What was the highest rank in the SS you ever achieved? “Lieutenant colonel.”

Do you have any favorite sports or hobbies? “Riding and hunting, to a certain extent, but I had little time for the latter because I was always so busy and tired out from my work.”

Albert Kesselring
1885–1960

Albert Kesselring was general field marshal of the air force and later supreme commander of the German armed forces in Italy. In 1947 he was tried by a British military court in Venice and sentenced to death, but the sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment. He was released from prison in 1952.

Interview this morning and afternoon with Albert Kesselring, a gray-haired, smiling man of sixty, whose erect posture and undecorated uniform are the only overt evidence of the former field marshal. He was pleasant and cooperative in a mild, restrained manner. His smile is broad, teeth somewhat discolored. There is a tortuous superficial temporal vein over the right temple.

He was asked if he had any physical or other complaints. He replied that his teeth were loose, but that he was being attended by the prison dentist. A year ago he had a fractured skull with paralysis of the left side of the face. Questioned about this paralysis (the word he used), it would appear that he suffered no motor impairment of the facial musculature, but that there was some dysesthesia (hyperesthesia possibly) of the left face and neck.

Since then he has had transitory periods of dizziness or “amnesia,” wherein his thinking becomes momentarily clouded. This occurs particularly when he is emotionally upset, and lasts for about thirty seconds. When he turns his head to the back or to the left or right sides, some dizziness, very slight, occurs. He can lie only on his right side; if he lies on
the left side the sensitivity of the facial skin causes him discomfort. The injury occurred in Italy near Bologna when he drove his car near a large gun. His head struck the barrel of the gun and he lost consciousness for twenty-four hours. There was a delay of eight hours before he reached a hospital. He recalls considerable vomiting thereafter and some bleeding orally. The only skin damage was a small laceration of the left eyelid. This accident occurred in late October 1944. By January 15, 1945, he was declared fit for active service again.

He was born in Marktsheft near Würzburg on November 20, 1885. He was a “normal” baby, a “sunny child,” of normal weight. His development regarding walking, talking, feeding himself is unknown to him but he assumes it was not remarkable. He is the sixth and youngest child of his parents.

Education:
He attended elementary school in Wunsiedel for four years, and the gymnasium in Bayreuth for nine years. He then attended the military academy in Munich for a year, after which he was enrolled in the artillery school at Munich for eighteen months. While in the military academy he took courses in mathematics, history, chemistry, and military history. During his artillery school period he attended lectures on history and national economy.

He said that the military schools he attended were not similar to the American West Point military academy. Almost every corps had its own military school. He believes that the military schools in Bavaria had a more extensive curriculum. There the military course was three years, whereas in Prussia it was only one year. One of the requirements of the Bavarian schools was graduation from the gymnasium. After the First World War the northern schools adopted the Bavarian pattern. There were schools in Dresden, Berlin, Munich, and other large cities, as well as aviation military schools after 1933.

Kesselring was originally an artillery officer, he said, then a general staff officer, commander of artillery, and pilot; he then assumed a major role in the air force, becoming a field marshal. At the war’s end he had been commander in the West for four weeks. Prior to that he had been commander of the German forces in Italy until March 1945. He had been in the Mediterranean theater until the end of November 1941, in Italy, Greece, and Africa at various times.

I asked him if he considered himself a Hitler general or more of the old school of generals. He replied that he did
not
consider himself a Hitler general. He mentioned various men whom he called “Hitler generals”
but did not include himself. He was noncommittal about Erhard Milch, saying he was a good technical administrator, and did not name Jodl or Keitel. Field Marshal Walther Model he said was a “Hitler general.” In 1919 Kesselring was a captain and in 1923 a major. He was never wounded in the First World War. He was never a member of the Nazi Party.

“The mixing of northern German and southern German characters make excellent results.” I asked him what the differences were between north and south Germans. The northern type has broader horizons, a bigger viewpoint, because the land is flatter and he can see greater distances. He is better at organizing things than the southern German. The Bavarian is more narrow-minded, tends to be melancholy; perhaps the mountains and isolation have something to do with it. The flatter the country, the wider the horizons. In Schwabia the people are inclined to be artistic and ambitious, and poetic.

Does he feel more a Prussian, or a Bavarian, general? I asked. He feels, he replied, a German general. He feels that Germany as a state is too small for Europe. He believes that, as in America, there can be a united Europe. “The time of the horse-drawn carriage is over.” Airplanes now substitute for the carriage. Does he feel that Germany must lead Europe? “Not at present. The time has passed.”

I pursued that by asking if he thought eventually, or philosophically speaking, that were so. “Well, geographically and mentally Germans are representative of a culture that originally represented Europe. But it is most important that these countries should get together.” Would you be in favor of a U.S. of Europe, a democracy? “Oh, yes. It might be better to call it the United People of Europe, rather than states. The character of the people is most important. It is very important that Bavarians remain Bavarians, Prussians Prussians.” No mixing at all? “No. I mean the character should be preserved. Rhineland is different from Pomerania.”

Do you think it possible to do away with war? “Yes. War is possible only if you have a lot of enemies. If all the enemies get together and form one front — if you cut down the number of enemies — there would be no war.”

I asked him to elaborate on this curious panacea for war. “Well, if England, France, Germany, Spain, and Italy and Greece make a united front, they would face only one front — the eastern front. That would make only one enemy.”

Do you feel, therefore, a war with Russia is inevitable? “I have been in
jail for months, but I have the conviction that Russia desires to dominate.” What, for instance — Europe, Germany, the world? “It is impossible to dominate the world, but Communism could spread through the world. I can imagine a domination of Europe by Russians who would gain a bloc of Europe and add it to the Asiatic bloc.”