SS serving in the NVA

[vacollector]

Did any of the SS serve in the NVA? Did they have to go through a special investigation before entering service?

[ehrentitle]

Yes, a very few for a short period of time in the early 1950s when East German was rebuilding it's civil political and military organizations. Most were volunteers in Soviet POW camps that were recruited and vetted by the National Committee for Free Germany and were re-educated while still POWs. They served for a short period of time in the NVA and the Stasi

I have a booklet titled, "Ex-Nazis in the Service of the German Democratic Republic, that was published in West Germany in the 1950s that identifies former Nazi Party, SS and SA members.

Almost all of the examples of former SS members are of those who were in high positions in the civil government or political parties, however there is one entry for the Stasi:

Kurt Lange

Member of the Staff of the Ministry of State Security, after 1945 played an important role in the construction of the State security service in the Soviet Zone.

Before 1945: Lieutenant Colonel of the SS and officer in the criminal investigation department

Member of the staff of the Reich SS security dept. in Berlin (Dept. IV and V)
After 20th July 1944 (attempt on Hitler's life) a leading member of the special commission "20th July", in which capacity he personally interrogated accused persons.

[Jan Klaassen]

This is a very intersting topic already!

Currently, I'm reading the book 'Ohne die Mauer hätte es Krieg gegeben' (without the Wall, we would have had war) by former NVA-generals Kessler and Streletz, in which they (again, just like during the DDR-period) named the West-Germans partly fascist, just because they 'used' former nazi's.
Now that booklet shows they were as bad ^^

[Ralph P]

Hello all - I have a book in my collaction titled "Ehemalige Nationalsozialisten in Pankows Diensten" (Former National Socialists in Pankow's services) dated 1960. The booklet gives names when they were in the NSDAP what position they held and any east German award presented to them.

[KevinH]

Neither side (east or west) ever completed what could be called complete "De-nazification" of German society or military. The task was simply too immense and vague and even though many were tried or ostracized, the state finally had to give up. Whether more former SS and other Nazi party members served in the NVA or the Bundeswehr is a pointless question in my opinion. The West would claim that the East had more Nazis in positions of power while the East claimed that the West was governed by Nazis. The world keeps turning at the end of the day.

Germans are clearly still divided over the subject though. After I wrote about some of the Fascist overtones in the NVA, one of my professors, who is from the DDR, passionately brought to my attention that Adenauer's right hand man, Hans Globke, was instrumental in writing the Nazi parties race laws prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Globke He also mentioned that the BND was full of former Nazi party members and SS.

Anyway, "Denazification in Soviet-occupied Germany" by Timothy Vogt is another book that might be worth looking into.

[Dennis S]

Yes, a very few for a short period of time in the early 1950s when East German was rebuilding it's civil political and military organizations. Most were volunteers in Soviet POW camps that were recruited and vetted by the National Committee for Free Germany and were re-educated while still POWs. They served for a short period of time in the NVA and the Stasi

I have a booklet titled, "Ex-Nazis in the Service of the German Democratic Republic, that was published in West Germany in the 1950s that identifies former Nazi Party, SS and SA members.

Almost all of the examples of former SS members are of those who were in high positions in the civil government or political parties, however there is one entry for the Stasi:

Kurt Lange

Member of the Staff of the Ministry of State Security, after 1945 played an important role in the construction of the State security service in the Soviet Zone.

Before 1945: Lieutenant Colonel of the SS and officer in the criminal investigation department

Member of the staff of the Reich SS security dept. in Berlin (Dept. IV and V)
After 20th July 1944 (attempt on Hitler's life) a leading member of the special commission "20th July", in which capacity he personally interrogated accused persons.

That's funny I have a book titled " The Brown Book" , it was published by the
German Democratic Republic and names ex Nazi's and SS working for or serving
West Germany.

[Ralph P]

Dennis - What year is the book?

That's funny I have a book titled " The Brown Book" , it was published by the
German Democratic Republic and names ex Nazi's and SS working for or serving
West Germany.

[speedytop]

Braunbuch
Kriegs- und Naziverbrecher in der Bundesrepublik
Staat Wirtschaft Verwaltung Armee Justiz Wissenschaft
Staatsverlag der DDR, Berlin 1965, Zweite überarbeitete Auflage
Hrsg. Nationalrat der Nationalen Front der DDR, Dokumentationszentrum der staatlichen Archivverwaltung der DDR
388 pages


Searching for this book (you can find several, still in the USA) I found another very new book:

Kappelt, Olaf, Braunbuch DDR, Nazis in der DDR, 2009, 588 pages
Bhv Berlin historica
ISBN: 9783939929123

Uwe

[redjames2004]

Very interesting thread on former Nazis serving on both sides of Germany!!! Thanks for posting those interesting links on ex-Nazis working in West and East Germany during early days of the Cold War!

[Jan Klaassen]

I will look some more on the internet for those books, thanks for the tip(s)!

[Dennis S]

Dennis - What year is the book?

Ralph, The book is not dated but I suspect 1965 as there is a reference to that date in the intro

[Ralph P]

Dennis and all - thanks for your update to this thread...

[ehrentitle]

To talk about serendipity, I was at my local library yesterday. As I was getting ready to leave I passed by a shelf of books that were being given away by the library. I took home several cold war books from the 50s and 60s.

I'm reading one of them now. It's Our Love Affair with Germany written by Hans Habe in 1953. Habe served as a US Army officer in Berlin in the postwar occupation administration. Here is a quote from the book that relates to this thread:

"The Communists claim that we have associated ourselves with more Nazis than they did, but that is not true. To quote just a few examples: Nazi General Ruldof Bamler is not a prominent man in the East Zone's Sicherheitsministerium; the famous Nazi-flyer Franz Breithaupt is a general of the Volkspolizei in Sachsen-Anhalt; Dr. Otto Korfes, a former Nazi leader and general, is Chief of Section in the Eastern Ministry of interior; the former Hitler general, Hans Weizenberg, is now a Volkspolizei Tank-General in Mecklenburg, and Field Marshal Fredrich Paulus has been instrumental in building the anti-American Nationalarmee. The truth is that we are both working with the Nazis."

[vacollector]

In the book Stasi: the history of the East German secret police. It mentions that as early as 1946 US intillegence had assembled former Wehrmacht intelligence officers to work with the US examining political and military data from the Soviet zone.