Letters from Vienna #205
Letter to Horst von Wächter IX
The Anglo-American Empire and the Rise of Fascism VI
Dear Horst,
I’m not sure if you’ve been following my letters to my erstwhile colleague: Baron Bethell, but, instead of revolving around the philosophy of politics (Aristotle etc.), they’ve got bogged down in questions of responsibility and power, bureaucrats and politicians and (most recently) in the idiosyncrasies of Boris Johnson, of whose government he had the misfortune of being a part.
Just in case you haven’t been reading them, my conclusions are the following: bureaucrats usually run the show, power in a very few hands is never a good thing and absolute power corrupts absolutely. There is however an additional element, which is relevant to the time your father lived: the polarization of politics when everything was either/or.
Manès Sperber, who was born in Galicia in 1905, wrote in 1974:
„Es war damals, es ist immer die Herrschaft der falschen Alternative. Ich habe sie später einmal wie folgt gekennzeichnet: Seit fünfzig Jahren liefert die totalitäre Pseudo-Alternative der der bedrohlichsten Erpressung unserer Zeit ihre doppelt falsche Argumentation: Die Ermordung Rosa Luxemburgs und Karl Liebknechts, Kurt Eisners, Gustav Landauers und so vieler anderer Sozialisten und Kommunisten in Deutschland; die Ermordung Matteotis; der faschistische Terror in Italien; die Schandtaten des semifaschistischen Regimes der balkanischen und lateinamerikanischen Länder; und schließlich das permanente Verbrechen des Nazismus – dies Wüten der Gewalt begründeten alle Diktatoren und ihre Schergen, ihre Diplomaten und gefügigen Intellektuellen mit der Erpressung: „Wer gegen uns ist, hilft den Kommunisten und fördert ihren Aufstieg zur Diktatur. Vergeßt keinen einzigen Augenblick: Es gibt nur sie oder uns! Wählt!“[1]
“It was then, it is always, the rule of the false alternative. I later characterized it as follows: For fifty years, the totalitarian pseudo-alternative, the most menacing blackmail of our time, has been delivering its doubly false argument: the murder of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, Kurt Eisner, Gustav Landauer and so many other socialists and communists in Germany; the assassination of Matteoti; the fascist terror in Italy; the outrages of the semi-fascist regimes of the Balkan and Latin American countries; and finally the permanent crime of Nazism – all dictators and their henchmen, their diplomats and docile intellectuals justified this rampage of violence with the blackmail: “Anyone who is against us helps the communists and promotes their rise to dictatorship. Don’t forget for a single moment: it’s them or us! Choose!“
This, from an eyewitness of the time and place, is an important dimension which must be considered.
Manès Sperber was a disciple of Alfred Adler and applied the latter’s ideas to politics.
“Den Beziehungen des Menschen entspricht genau sein Bezugs-system (Adler). Dieses ist das Produkt aller Umstände, die auf den Menschen – etwa bis zu seinem dritten oder vierten Lebensjahr – eingewirkt haben. Einmal geformt, wird es fortab alle Beziehungen dieses Menschen formen, seine Erlebnisse zu ihm gemäßen Erfahrungen umprägen. Dieses Beziehungssystem ist die Achse des Bewusstseins, von dem wir ausgesagt haben, dass es alle Wahrnehmung dirigiert und deren Inhalte assimiliert und verzerrt.“
„Wollen wir wissen, was Herr X. ist, müssen wir sein Bezugssystem kennen. Um ihn zu verurteilen, genügt es vollkommen, dass wir ihn unserem Bezugssystem unterstellen.“[2]
“The relationships of people correspond exactly to their reference system (Adler). This is the product of all the circumstances that have had an effect on a human being – up to about the age of three or four. Once formed, it will henceforth form all of that person’s relationships, transforming his experiences into experiences that suit him. This relational system is the axis of consciousness that directs all perception, assimilating and distorting its contents.”
“If we want to know what Mr. X. is, we have to know his frame of reference. In order to condemn him, it’s quite sufficient that we subordinate him to our frame of reference.”
By reading the books by Sönke Neitzel such as “Abgehört” one arrives at a clear frame of reference for your father. One has no choice but to listen to the point of view of the actors involved if one wishes to understand (if not forgive) them.
From the documents you’ve showed me I think it perfectly plausible that your father, Otto von Wächter, tried to act both “efficiently” and “humanely” yet there are times when it’s quite impossible to balance these qualities; there are situations in which one has to choose between one or the other.
One book about the Ukrainian 14th Waffen SS Division is especially harsh on your father:
“Wächter and his colleagues stand accused by the United Nations War Criminal Commission (UNWCC) of “murder and massacre”, “torture of civilians”, and “internment of civilians under inhuman conditions” in relation to events at Auschwitz and Rajsko (Birkenau) from June 1940 to 1943. The United Nations committee describes these events in the following terms:
More than a million Polish citizens, Poles and Jews, were deported to these camps during the period 1939-1943. The internees were exposed to systematic extermination by means of mass executions, poisoning, injections and gas, and to physical torment by continuous flogging, kicking and all sorts of pestering. The main feature of the German occupation regime in Poland is sadistic terrorism exercised on a huge scale…The Jews are exposed to unimaginable persecution and pitiless extermination.
The UNWCC report holds Wächter and his crew directly responsible for these depredations “because they were chiefs of administration, or leaders or commanders of the SS-Police and Gestapo in occupied Poland, and in this leading capacity (they) not only ordered (but) carried out mass arrests as part of the systematic persecution of Polish citizens in the camps of Oswiciem and Rajsko (Birkenau).”[3]
Sol Littman not only failed to fact-check this faulty UN report (the UN can be extremely unreliable at times; apart from which: it’s frequently guilty of crimes against humanity itself) and failed to correct this erroneous picture but even admits that your father was powerless compared to Himmler:
“Kubijovic and his colleagues hoped that Wächter, more sympathetic to their cause than other officials, could arrange an amnesty for all OUN political prisoners, return control of the Ukrainian press to the nationalist Ukrainians and improve living and working conditions of the ostarbeiter (drafted eastern workers) in Germany. However, the Ukrainian leadership soon recognized that Wächter had no power to alter what Himmler had decreed and that bargaining through him was fruitless.”[4]
Either your father was a “leading capacity” or he wasn’t. One can’t have it both ways.
Perhaps more important still: Littman is fully cognizant of Himmler’s murderous intentions toward the Ukrainians but fails to ask why he wasn’t able to carry out his plans: “SS Chief Himmler and Higher SS and Police Leader Odilo Globocnik were eager to put into effect their plan to colonize the Ukraine with German landowners who would be served like medieval barons by land-bound Ukrainian peasants.”[5]
As the documents show beyond any reasonable doubt: it was your father who thwarted Himmler.
To fully show the Orwellian Double Think, double standards and downright hypocrisy regarding your father will need quite a few more letters…
Best,
Michael
[1] p.11 Zur Analyse der Tyrannis, Manès Sperber
[2] Ibid pp.29-30
[3] p.70 Pure Soldiers or Sinister Legion, Sol Littman
[4] p.183 Ibid
[5] p.75 Ibid