JUSTICE FOR THE GERMAN S.S:
A MATTER OF PRIORITIES (1983)

Reflections on reading Alexander Donat's
"The Death Camp Treblinka"

In 1951, Josef Hirtreiter, known as "Sepp," was tried in Frankfurt am Main and sentenced to life imprisonment for what he did to the Jews at the Treblinka death camp. Among the crimes of which he was found guilty was "killing many young children ages one-and-half to two, during the unloading of the transports, by seizing them by the feet and smashing their heads against the boxcars."

Now this Sepp fellow is the same SS man that Yankiel Wiernik reported would "frequently" tear children "in half," particularly if the kid was "one and one-half to two years old." While I agree that Sepp should have been nailed on the smashing-babies- heads-against-walls charge, I feel very strongly he should been prosecuted on the tearing-babies-in-half charge as well, particularly since he did it "frequently," according to the Holocaust survivor eyewitness Yankiel Wiernik. Why would he not be?

It's possible that the Court suspected that Yankiel Wiernik exaggerated a little, that while Sepp, this "vile and savage beast," did smash babies heads against walls and "boxcars," he did not actually tear any babies "in half." But if Sepp did not tear any babies in half, why did Yankiel say he did? And if Yankiel is not truthful on the "tearing-babies-in-half" charge, how can we really trust him on the smashing-babies-heads-on-the-wall charge?

Confidence begins to waiver.

Would Holocaust survivor eyewitness Yankiel fib a little about the gas chambers themselves? The 10,000 to 30,000 people exterminated daily, day after day, month after month? Who counted? Yankiel himself was working from sunup to sundown to improve the death camp watchtowers, blockhouses and birch wood menagerie fences for the SS and counting up to 30,000 gassed and exterminated Jews at the same time? I know, some of us can do two things at once, but still. . . . And that marvelously psychotic image where pregnant Jewish ladies were being burned and their bellies were splitting open so that Yankiel could see the little Jewish fetuses flaming inside the exploded wombs? Do we want to trust Yankiel about all this, or trust those Holocaust cultists who themselves trust Yankiel, when nobody can even get the easy-to-believe tearing-children-in-half story believed?

And what is it about this Sepp fellow anyhow, that when he decided to smash some baby-heads against walls or boxcars, he specialized in kids that were rather precisely one-and-one-half to two years old? What did Sepp see wrong in smashing a kid's head against a wall or boxcar that was only twelve months old, say, or a few who were maybe three or even four years old? What kind of schizophrenic behavior does that suggest in Sepp?

I've been trying to imagine how I would go about tearing a two-year-old infant in half. It wouldn't do to start at the top. Where would you begin? I think I'd turn the tot upside down and go from there, if that was my sort of thing. Still, I don't see the kid splitting down (up?) the middle. I tend to see one of the legs tearing off, which would leave me with more than half a kid in one hand, but only a little bit of a kid in the other.

Maybe when Yankiel Wiernik was writing his autobiographical document he meant to indicate that Sepp tore the kids in half sideways rather than up and down. Between the pelvis, say, and the rib cage (if I have the image right.) I don't believe I could do that myself.-I don't think I'm strong enough, but maybe it wasn't much of a trick for Sepp the SS-man.

One point I do feel confidant about is that if you are at the train tracks where the Jews who are going to be exterminated are being offloaded, and you are going to tear a kid in half in front of his mother and father, his brothers and sisters and uncles and aunts, in front of his neighbors and his racial, ethnic, and religious kinsmen, you'd better make a job of it. If you try that trick, in that milieu, and you don't get it right, there's going to egg all over your face.

Well, in 1964 ex-Lieutenant Kurt Franz, "The Doll" as the Treblinka death camp inmates called him, and nine other Nazi SS who had served at Treblinka, were put on trial. That was nineteen years after the war. I was in Hollywood then, writing and drinking, and paying no attention to what was going on in Europe . There, Arthur Matthes, who was in charge of the death camp at Treblinka and the gas chambers as well, along with his assistant Willy Mentz, were sentenced to life imprisonment. Fair enough I think in a legal system that has no death penalty.

But Gustave Munzberger-now there's an evil German name for you-who personally "operated the gas chambers," got off with twelve years. Twelve years! What kind of sentence is that for a guy who personally operated the machinery that knocked over a million Jews, more or less? Twelve years? Some poor sap like Sepp who kills babies one by one, by hand as it were, gets life in prison, while a smart-ass Gustav Munzberger personally offs a million Jews and is dusted with only twelve years.

What does that say for German justice? What does it say about anything?

And then one wonders what sort of trade Gustave Munzberger took up after his release (was there time off for good behavior?) from prison. The kind of machinery he knew best was outmoded and no longer being used. And what does one really want to do after exterminating a million or so Jews? One gets the sense that even a German robot named Gustav Munzberger would risk feeling that he had already "done it all."

Franz Suchomel was the SS-man "in charge of collecting and processing gold and valuables of Jewish prisoners. Sentenced to seven years in prison . . ." This sentence was at least proportional to that received by Gustav Munzberger. It is right and just to penalize less harshly a man like Suchomel, who is only responsible for collecting Jewish valuables, than the man Munzberger who put his hand to personally exterminating a million Jewish souls.

Twelve years in prison for personally offing a million Jews, five years for picking up their valuables. What are we talking about here?

Otto Stadie was ". Chief in charge of the Ukrainian guards. Received incoming transports . . ."-that is, trainloads of Jews to be exterminated. He killed many Jews with his pistol right there on the platform, and he also allowed Olaf the Ukrainian to "slice off" the breasts of Jewish women with his saber ( saber ?) while they were being rushed to the gas chambers. It is not made precisely certain what Otto Stadie was sentenced to six years in prison for, but the way he allowed Olaf the Ukrainian to muck around with his bloody saber was a tacky business no matter how you look at it and I'm glad they put Stadie away for something, whatever it was.

Hermann Lambert seems not to have been an SS-man; but he was given four years anyway for helping ". . . in the construction of the gas chambers." This one bothers me. Hermann the German gets four years for helping build the gas chambers where a million Jews were exterminated, while Yankiel the Jew, who pitched in with everything he had-"I myself took them to the execution site. I built their death chambers for them"-becomes a hero in the eyes of Holocaust cultists the world over, and his autobiographical narrative becomes recommended reading in the books of other famous Jewish authors.

I hate to suggest this, but it looks from the evidence of this book that there is a double standard here. Germans who participated in building gas chambers to exterminate a million Jews go to prison for four years. Jews who participated in building gas chambers to exterminate a million Jews write books about it and are celebrated as folk heroes. Do I have this one right?

One of SS-man Albert Rum's jobs was to ". . . chase the prisoners with whips to the gas chambers." That was a rum job (I can't help myself) if ever I've heard of one. Five thousand, 6,000, 10,000, up to 30,000 Jews a day to be gassed and there was the mighty Rum, whipping away, while the Jews ". . . run and leap over one another, just to experience the moment of death a little faster" until a million of these cooperative Eastern European folk have given themselves and their brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers and their children over to extermination by gas.

Rum got three years in the pen for that whipping business. That was one year for each 333,333 whipped and exterminated Jews, more of less. Three years is a long time to spend in the jug, but to my mind Rum deserved all three. Did he think he was going to get away with that whipping business?

SS-man August Miete was known as the "Angel of Death," described by reliable Jewish eyewitnesses as a "Jew killer," but he seems to have gotten off without receiving a prison term. I'll have to look into this. I believe Jew killers should be punished for their crimes just like ordinary killers are.

Otto Richard Horn was the SS beast who worked "at the incinerator" where the corpses of the million exterminated Jews were cremated. He was released.

Released?

Gustave Munzberger got twelve big ones for "operating" the gas chambers in which a million Jews were exterminated. Albert Rum got three years for whipping a million Jews toward the "front door" of the gas chamber building-which was obscured by a "black curtain." Of course. A black curtain. Wouldn't want anyone to learn what was going on as a million Jews are being exterminated. Go to any lengths imaginable to keep it secret. But now Otto Horn incinerates the corpses of a million exterminated Jews and gets off scott free? As if he were not an accomplice in exterminating a million Jews because all he did was burn their exterminated bodies?

Is this what the historians mean when they condemn revisionists for "moral equivalence?"

But it's time to turn to the fate of Kurt Hubert Franz (The Doll) and his man-eating hound, "Barry." Franz was nicknamed The Doll because of his physical beauty. According to Alexander Donat, editor of The Death Camp Treblinka , Franz ". . . became a byword for sadism and moral turpitude. . . . He came to Treblinka with his dog Barry, who had been trained to attack the Jewish prisoners, particularly to maul the genitals of men."

Yankiel Wiernik writes that Kurt Franz was ". . . the vilest of them all. Human life meant nothing to him, and to inflict death and untold torture was his supreme delight." Viler than them all? Viler than Gustave Munzberger? Viler than Albert Rum? Than Otto Stadie? Than Josef Hirtreiter? How could this be? How can you be more vile that those German beasts? And then this is the same Lieutenant Franz who occasionally asked that Yankiel "remove his cap" when speaking to him, but whom the brave Yankiel defied.

Shlomo Hellman reports: "Whenever the Doll came to camp we knew there would be at least two dead." Two? Big deal! On the other side of the camp the German maniacal beasts are exterminating a million Jews in gas chambers and this Shlomo guy is worried about an odd two or three Jews? Where's his sense of proportion?

Jacob Jakubowicz reports that The Doll ". . . couldn't sit down to breakfast or dinner without having knocked off at least two Jews." Two here. A million there. Who's counting? Henry Poswolski tells how "One day SS-man Kuttner threw a baby into the air and Franz killed it with two shots from his gun."

Ho hum.

Yet another Treblinka death camp hero, Mr. Jacob Eisner, tells this tale: "Franz said to one of the inmates: 'Let's have a boxing match.' So the boxing gloves were put on the prisoner's hands. Franz had only one glove, on his right hand. A little gun was concealed in that glove. 'Start,' the SS-man commanded. He moved toward the young prisoner, pretending that he was about to start the match, and fired straight into his face. The poor fellow collapsed and died on the spot."

So then, Kurt Franz was a "sadist of exquisite cruelty" who derived intense pleasure from "special refinements" in the torture and murder of Jews. Nevertheless, after the war Franz returned to his native Düsseldorf where ". . . he lived under his own name until his arrest" fourteen years later.

Returned to his home town after the war and lived under his own name? For fourteen years? Until his arrest? Dumb and dumber? What was this guy thinking? That he hadn't done anything particularly out of the ordinary? I guess it takes all kinds.

After the Treblinka death camp (where a million Jews were exterminated) was evacuated and he had stayed behind to "liquidate" it, didn't it occur to him that some, if not all, of the survivors of the Treblinka death camp and its extermination chambers, might be annoyed with him? Didn't it occur to him that there was something a little wrong in playing a significant role in exterminating a million Jews, more or less? Or, if not the million Jews that he helped exterminate in gas chambers, how about those he had shot over breakfast? There could have been another couple dozen there. And then there was that pistol-in-the-boxing-glove bit: Franz might have thought he was being funny with that one, but did he really think that all the reliable eyewitnesses standing around waist-deep in exterminated Jews would view the incident from the same perspective as he viewed it?

I find these questions difficult to answer.

"When Franz was arrested, a search of his apartment turned up an album containing numerous photographs from his days in Treblinka. The album was captioned: "The Best Years of My Life."

What can be said about such an album? About such a man? That he had a penchant for positive thinking? That he had no talent for feeling guilt? That he looked back at the Treblinka death camp days as a good job well done? Let it be observed that the people who have given us the complete "autobiographical document" of Yankiel Wiernik have given us only a few sentences from the Kurt Franz documents.

Once we are finished reading Donat on Kurt Franz, we are treated to the story of Barry, Kurt's S.S. man-eating hound. While Kurt played a powerful role in the extermination of about a million Jews in gas chambers, Barry only chewed on the testicles of a few dozen (I'm guessing) Jewish inmates. We don't learn very much about mass murderer Kurt Franz, but with regard to Barry, there is considerable information, to the point were he becomes more interesting that his S.S. master. Barry almost comes alive in his story, and that's what makes the cur live".

The following consists of "verbatim excerpts" from the trial of Kurt Franz in German Court of Assizes at Düsseldorf, as Alexander Donat, survivor of the Warsaw ghetto, has decided to reveal it. If only we could have the entire story.

"The dog Barry was . . . the size of a calf, with a black and white spotted coat, a mixed breed but with the physical characteristics of a Saint Bernard predominating. At Treblinka he attached himself to the defendant Franz and adopted him as his master .

"Mostly, when Franz made the rounds of the 'lower and upper' camps, Barry would accompany him. Depending on his mood, Franz would set the dog on inmates who for some reason had attracted his attention . . . The command to which the dog responded was: 'Man, go get that dog!' By 'man' Franz meant Barry; the 'dog' was the inmate whom Barry was supposed to attack . . .

"Barry was the size of a calf so that, unlike smaller dogs, his shoulders reached to the buttocks and abdomen of a man of average size. For this reason he frequently bit his victims in the buttocks, in the abdomen and often, in the case of male inmates, in the genitals, sometimes partially biting them off . . .

"But when the defendant Franz was not around, Barry was a different dog . . . he allowed himself to be petted and even teased, without harming anyone . . .

"The Court of Assizes was able to substantiate only three of the many cases in point described by the witnesses. Barry was thus accused specifically of biting the genitals off a man loading textiles into a freight car at night, of removing those of a man on his way to the gas chamber [rather gratuitously, it would seem to me], and on another occasion Barry, at the command of Franz, tore a piece of flesh from the body of an inmate near the Ukrainian kitchen . . .

"At the same time, the witnesses [there are eleven of them testifying here about the dog Barry,] testified that Barry was a different dog when he was not under the influence of Franz. When Franz was not around, Barry was good-natured and lazy . . . The Court of Assizes requested the internationally known scientist Professor Dr. L., director of the Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Research . . . to submit a sworn expert opinion on the question whether Barry could have been a ferocious beast one day, and a good-natured, playful house pet the next. The convincing expert opinion submitted by Dr. L. includes, among other items, the following statements . . ."

"According to the photographs of Barry [who was the size of a calf] . made available by the Court of Assizes, Barry, though he predominantly showed the physical characteristics of a Saint Bernard, was not a pure-bred Saint Bernard, but a mongrel. Mongrels are much more sensitive than pure-bred animals. If mongrels attach themselves to a human and enter into a dog-master relationship with him, they are literally able to sense [emphasis supplied] .the wishes of their master. A dog's behavior is a 'reflection of his master's subconscious mind,' and this is particularly true in the case of mongrels. Behavioral psychologists have accepted it as a fact that one and the same dog can be good and harmless on some occasions, but dangerous and vicious at other times. The latter can happen if the dog is set by his master at another person . A little later, that same dog may be playing quite innocently with children, without any need to fear for the children's safety.

"He will also be nice to grownups when he hears his master address them in a friendly manner. In other words, the dog is completely attuned to his master's moods and frame of mind. If the dog then enters into a new dog-master relationship, his personality can undergo a complete change. Hence, if Barry, under his new master, the witness Dr. St., no longer showed tendencies to bite, this in itself [would be] nothing unusual . . ."

Thus ends the expert opinion of the Director of the Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Research. The Survivors of the Treblinka death camp can thank their God that the good director was on their side rather that Barry's.

Here Alexander Donat continues Barry's saga:

"According to these convincing explanations from Prof. Dr. L., then, there is no logical contradiction between the reports that, on the one hand, Barry was dangerous when Franz set him at Jews, while, on the other hand, he was lazy, good-natured and harmless on the camp grounds when Franz was away, and later, when he lived with Dr. St. in Ostrow . . . According to the witnesses [four in number] Barry attacked not only male genitals, but also other parts of the body . . . If it happened with relative frequency that Barry attacked the male genitals of his victims, this was attributable to his height, which was that of a calf . . . While smaller dogs preponderantly attack the lower parts of the leg, Barry, do to his height . . . [the height of a calf] . . . was able to reach the male genitals of his victims with his muzzle and hence also to injure them."

It would seem, reading between the lines a bit, that ex-SS Lieutenant Kurt Franz attempted to demure a little about the evidence being presented against him and Barry over this ball-biting business. Nevertheless, after Franz "liquidated" the Treblinka death camp where a million Jews were exterminated, he gave Barry (who was the size of a calf) to the "Doctor Sr." in Ostrow. Kurt had nothing against facilitating the extermination of about a million Jews, but didn't want to off his dog. Such an attitude seems to have been characteristic of many German mass murderers and assorted beasts.

Dr. Sr., for his part, had no problems with Barry. Dr. Sr. testified he was able to take Barry with him while he inspected "hundreds of naked soldiers" at a time, and Barry never once evinced any interest in the exposed genitals of the German military. He preferred Jewish genitals, and of course he could tell the difference. He might have been the size of a calf, but he could still discriminate. After all-he was a German dog.

One aspect of the testimony about the dog Barry, who was the size of a calf, that appears to have been accepted by all the sides in the court, was that Barry's muzzle reached the genitals of the Jewish prisoners while Barry was standing on all fours. There was no testimony that Barry ever ran and jumped. When Franz said to Barry: "Man, go get that dog," as he often did say, did the dog Barry just amble on over toward his victim until his muzzle was inside the guy's crotch? Was Barry so lazy he never once ran over, jumped up excitedly, and since he was the size of a calf, put his paws on the man's shoulders and eat his face?

Maybe that dog Barry was just one hell of a good-natured and lazy dog. But then, maybe Kurt Franz and Yankiel Wiernik were too. In any event, they made an interesting threesome.

NOTE: 04 May 2006

The directors of the Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Research are remarkably perspicacious. They understand the psychological motivation of dogs the size of calves, and they understand the psychological motives of their own students who use their Max Planck learning to try to investigate weapons of mass destruction in the interest of historical truth. Example: when Germar Rudolf, who was studying at the Max Planck Institute, decided to do a chemical analysis of some of the materials in the Auschwitz gas-chambers, the director of the Max Planck Institute understood that he hated Jews, just like the dog Barry fifty years earlier.

The difference is that the dog Barry was not condemned for the crimes he actually committed, chewing off the genitals of Jewish prisoners, because at the time he was under the influence of a German beast, Kurt Franz. The dog Barry could not help himself. Germar Rudolf, however, was acting on his own. There was no German beast overseeing his behavior. He used his training as a chemist at the Max Planck Institute to look into the question of German bestiality at Auschwitz . He didn't threaten to chew off anybody's genitals, not even those of the director of the Auschwitz Museum Dr. Franciszek Piper, whose Jewish genitals would have been just the thing for the dog Barry (who was the size of a calf). Nevertheless, Rudolf's computer and files were confiscated; he was prosecuted for thought crimes, convicted, and sentenced to 14 months in prison. Thinking has become more of a crime in Modern Germany than biting on the genitals of Jews was during the Third Reich.

Meanwhile, Rudolf didn't much care for the idea of being in prison for thinking about things, so he fled his homeland and after several years in America the U.S. Government cooperated with the German State in extraditing him back to Germany where he is in prison even as I write these words. He now faces about five more years in prison for thinking about what we are not supposed to think about. It makes me really angry to think about how the Max Planck Institute stood up for that bloody, genital-chewing, anti-Semitic dog Barry, who was the size of a calf, while it would do nothing whatever for my friend Germar Rudolf.

End

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