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david irving Secretly Overheard:
1933 I was taken by the High School S.A. people, and pushed into
the S.A. just like all the other young assistants I know. For instance
Wirtz – I don’t know about von Weizsäcker – and [H. P.] Dürr, they
were all in the S.A. It was compulsory and one could do nothing
about it.”
Professor Gerlach disagreed. “I didn’t join the [N.S.-] Lehrerbund.”
“In our Institute all the assistants had to join the [N.S.-] Dozentenbund,”
persisted Bagge.
“They tried to force us,” laughed Gerlach, “and we got letters
and they made difficulties. We just threw everything into the wastepaper
basket and didn’t answer.”
“That’s one way of doing it. . . In the autumn of 1936 my mother
wrote to me to Leipzig asking whether I wanted to join the Party.
Someone had asked. My mother thought it was a good thing and
had sent my name in. A few months later I received my Party book
which stated that I had been in the Party since 1 May, 1935. It had
been backdated 12 months. It also said that I had sworn an oath to
the Führer in May 1935. Not one word of it was true.”
“Taking the line of least resistance,” apologised Diebner, a Party
member, “as so many did, was of course not the right course.”
“I had a half Jew as assistant until the autumn of 1944,” said
Gerlach. “I kept saying, ’It’s impossible to remove the man as so
much depends on him.’ . . . I had no picture of Hitler in my institute.
They kept on coming and saying we should buy a picture of
Hitler. I always said: ’No, I already have one.’ I had a very small picture
I had bought for 5 pfennig,” he added, and left the room.
Bagge watched him go. “They could do nothing against him,”
he explained to the others. “He knew Göring personally. His brother
was in the S.S., and that’s how he managed to stay on.”
Later that day Diebner explained to Otto Hahn how being a
freemason since 1933 had disadvantaged him. “I never voted for
Hitler. . . Wirtz knows my views. I told him, ’I am a Party member.
We’ll see what happens: if the Nazis win, I shall still be a Party
member and that will help us; and if things go the other way, you
will have to help me.’ That’s what we arranged at the time. Now I
this is a copyright manuscript © david irving 2007