ALLIES HAVE 8,500,000 INDEX CARD “WHO'S WHO” OF NAZI PARTY

Chronicle (Levin), 6 September 1947, Page 6

ALLIES HAVE 8,500,000 INDEX CARD “WHO'S WHO” OF NAZI PARTY

- - Wlien the Allies were making plans for occupying a clefeated Germany as early as 1942-43 the problem of how the wheat of the German population was going to he sorted from its chalf must have appeared almost insoluhle. Who, after all, was to know, once the war machines of the Allied countries had done their work, and also after the Nazis had — as was to he expected — destroyed most of their documents, what German had and what German had not heen a member of the Nazi Party? And how, without knowing this, .was a military government going to carry out the necessary cleansing of the German administrative system, of the press and wireless and all other • important organisations which had to take place before a German administration could again he trusted with the task of rebuilding the country? CARDB SENT TO BE ^ULPED This problem seemed to defy even the most ingeniously devised questionnaires and interrogation systems. Por after all, if a man lied, how, if his lies were consistent and he did not give way under the strain of interrogation, was one to prove that he had heen a member of the Nazi Party? Of course, witnesses who had seen him wear the party hadge or the party uniform would he coming forward, but there cpuld he little doubt that witnesses prepared to testify that he had never heen a member of the party would also be produced by the defence. No one could then guess the important part the owner of a paper mill in Bavaria would play in settling these problems, and how, due to his efforts, nearly the whole central membership card index of the Nazi Party would fall into American hands. As the war°drew towards its inevitable end, that is to say, when even the Nazis realised that an Allied victory was inevitable, they d'ecided that the cards of the central index cailed the " fteichskartei " should be pulped. These cards were put in bags and sent to that paper mill, with explicit orders that pulping was to commence immediately. , AMEEICANS WERE ASTONISHED The owner of the mill, however, procrastinated. He said he had no coal and therefore could not get his work going, claimed that a machine had suddenly hroken down, or that some component part was missing, and nothing could be done till a repiacement had been produced. This went on and on until one day a lot of astonished American *soldiers gaped in amazement as sack after sack of index cards was emptied before their eyes, disclosing the details of eight and'a half million members of the most vicious political organisation the world has ever known. Today this central card index of the party forms the nucleus round whicn 7771 Document Centre United States Army has been created. Recently I had occasion to take a party of German journalists round the centre, as Lieutenant-G'olpnel Helm, the American commandant, had agreed that a certain amount of publicity given to the centre in the German press would he of mutual advantage. Rumours regarding the existence of the centre had been circulating for quite a while, but very few people had any true idea of what 7771 Document Centre was. Germans expelled from the now Polish-occupied parts of the former Reich, Sudeten-Germans, and refugees from East Prussia, thought that all records regarding their past political activities had heen lost or destroyed during the fighting. Many of the Ortsgruppen and Gau card indexes have indeed disappeared, but due to the fact that the Nazi Party was organised with true Germanic thoroughness, a second index card for every member was kept in the "Reichskartei," no mat'ter whether that member was a resident of Silesia or had been domiciled in Canada, the United States or even the U.S.S.R. for the past 20 years. CELLARS UNDER COUNTRY HOUSE If he were a member of the party, then ' his index card was carefully kept in the ''Reichskartei," and provided the Document Centre can he ' given his Christian name and surname, with date and place of birth, £e will be found with almost 100 per cent. certainty. v At a first glance the 7771 United States Document Centre seems a fairly small place; a kind of country house with rather extensive garages. The only unusual note about it is strack by barbed wire fences, searchlight towers and armed sentries, who scrutinise carefully the credentials of every person seeking admittance. No one would guess the size of the ceilars constructed beneath the surface.

Lieutenant-Colonel Helm led our party first into a room the shelves of which were filled with neatly-stacked file bundies. Each file contained evidence of some lawsuit decxded by the Supreme Court of the Nazi Party. Only through such a party Court a member could be. expelled; .no other m'ethod of dismissing a member existed. . ' *■. ; Lieutenant-Colonel- Helm was asked by one of the- German journalists whether a great number of Germans when wanting to he , "denazified" applied for a check to he made among those files, which would, of course, prove that at one time they were threatened with expulsion,. If they could prove that, they were pxpelled from the party, then their denazification appeared. to he assufed. . HUGE FILING CABINETS The colonel replied that mahy tried to do this, but usually received a severe shock when, on checking the files, evidence came to hand proving how very anxious they had heen to avoid expulsion from the party and how they had produced witness after witness to testify that they were the most profound and sincere Nazis in the world. Next we entered a big hall, the walls of which were entirely hidden behind huge filing cabinets. Piling cabinets to the right, to the left, more filing cabinets occupying the centre of the room. Here, * all the personnel files of the "Rasse und Siedlungshauptamt der S.S." (the central registry of the S.S.) are kept. Lieutenant-Colonel Helm opened a file at random and shov/ed us the detailed questionnaires which members of the S.S. had to fill in when wanting to get married. Apart from political information these questionnaires also contain a lot of intimate details, as, for instance, the following description of his body by an S.S. man who wanted to get married. . "Bfust mannlich, Bauch straff ' ' — ' 'manly chest, abdomen taut." There are more than half a million files' in that room, half a million being almost the total memhership of Allgemeine and Waffen S.S., which as an Elite corps always had a relatively small membership figure. In a corner of this particular room ' the index cards of the S.S. Madchen were neatly stacked, giving details of every female member of the S.S. from the insignificant little typist to such queens of brutality as Irma Grese and Carmen Mory, the hlack angel of death. The commandant' then led..us into the central hall, where the Nazi Party 's rnaster file. •'is kept. Filing cahinet after filing 'cabinet we passed, each containing the names of thousands who had at one time or other in their life succimibed to that mixture of mysticism, perversion and downright stupidity' that was national socialism. Eight- and a half million cards, eight and a half million, f ates •bxiried in tkose '^hea't '' little wooden filing cabinets. V'H. t-' - • ; Here is the ultiflhaite test of a person 's trustworthinfiss, for with a few movements, such as opening a drawer, running through these cards and picking 0ut- the rifeht • on^ the .most intricate web of iies woven with the greatest cunning can he immediately destroyed. •' * SIGNED AP^LICATIONS In an adjoinipg;. room. the index cards of affiliated, organisations are kept. N.S. Lehre^hund, N.S'. Dozentenbund, etc., hav^e all* left us their records complete, as did, for instance, the officer Corps pf the Waffen S.S. There were 50,000 'of these, one might say each dossier cbntaining the story of a war criminal; Next door are the flies of the Oberste S.A. Fuhrung, personnel files of the S.A. and of great value to . many Allied nations, application forms for German citizenship signed hy non-German nationals. In a special room other kinds of application forms are kept. The application form every member of the party had to sign with his own hand when asking for admission.' . * No one hecame a member of the Nazi Party without he himself signing such an application form. The man who tells you that he never applied for membership of the party and simply has no explanation for the fact that his membership card has been carefully kept in the master file is lying. He knew very well at the time when he put his name to the Application form that he did not sign a cheque. Don.'t believe the "I never knew" story; the Nazi Party was too efficient an organisation for such mistakes to happen. NAMES THAT WERE LOATHED No rogues' gallery, however, could he complete without its A1 Capone aud Jack Diamonds having their records kept in a special place of

honour. And in the United States Document Centre they, too, live on special shelves. Again and again the names of Heinrich Himmler, Rudolf Hess, Daluege, Seyss-Inquart, Speer, Heydrich, can be read on file covers. There they are, these names the bearers of which once held a world to ransom, names that were loathed and feared, names that were also, until the denouement in Nuremberg, loved and admired. ■ In a special safe the actual membership cards of Hitler and his suite are kept. Member No. 1, Adolf Hitler. This number dates from t!>j year 1925. In the original National Socialist workers' party, dissolved in 1923 after the abortive "putsch" in Munich, Hitler held membership , No. 7. ' AVAILABLE TO GERMANS j From -both the British and American and to a lesser degree also from the French zone inquiries arrive at the centre, which has only heen working to full capacity since autumn of last year. At present 3500 queries are answered daily, as many as 5000 questions arriving on an average day. And yet the ° staff of the centre welcomes more work. They know that the task of denazification can only be brought to a successful conclusion with their cooperation. Any Allied authority writing to 7771st ■ United States Document Centre Omgus A.P.O. 742A, United States Army, will be supplied with the re- , quired information, provided that surname and Christian names of the person to he checked are, given in conjunction with his or her place and date of bixth. This information is also given to- ' German authorities, such as Functional Panels, or Spruchkammern, provided their inquiry is passed on to Documents Centre via an Allied Military Government office.