Stille Hilfe
Encyclopedia
Die Stille Hilfe für Kriegsgefangene und Internierte (German for "Silent assistance for prisoners of war and interned persons") abbreviated Stille Hilfe is a relief organization for arrested, condemned and fugitive SS members, similar to the veterans' association, set up by Helene Elizabeth Princess von Isenburg (1900–1974) in 1951. The organization has garnered a reputation for being shrouded in secrecy and thus remains a source of speculation.

History

Operating covertly from 1946, the organization which later became publicly active as "Stille Hilfe", aided the escape of hunted Nazi fugitives over Allied lines via escape routes particularly to South America. Thus Adolf Eichmann
Adolf Eichmann
Adolf Otto Eichmann was a German Nazi and SS-Obersturmbannführer and one of the major organizers of the Holocaust...

, Johann von Leers
Johann von Leers
Dr. Johann von Leers, alias Omar Amin , was an Alter Kämpfer and an honorary Sturmbannführer in the Waffen SS in Nazi Germany, where he was also a professor known for his anti-Jewish polemics. He was one of the most important ideologues of the Third Reich, serving as a high-ranking propaganda...

, Walter Rauff
Walter Rauff
Walter Rauff , was an SS officer in Nazi Germany, attaining the grade of Colonel in June 1944...

 and Josef Mengele
Josef Mengele
Josef Rudolf Mengele , also known as the Angel of Death was a German SS officer and a physician in the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. He earned doctorates in anthropology from Munich University and in medicine from Frankfurt University...

 could escape to Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

. In 1949 Catholic
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...

 Bishop Johannes Neuhäusler (who himself had suffered from the Nazi regime in Dachau concentration camp) and Evangelical Lutheran Bishop Theophil Worm founded "the Christian prisoner assistance". Neuhäusler said he wanted to break the cycle of hatred and revenge by reconciling even with those who sided with his persecutors.

Establishment

After the main exponents of the later association had already long formed an active network, it was decided a non-profit association should be formed primarily to facilitate a donations campaign. On 7 October 1951 the founders' meeting was held in Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

 and on 15 November 1951 the organization was entered in the register of associations in the Upper Bavarian city Wolfratshausen
Wolfratshausen
Wolfratshausen is a town of the district of Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen, located in Bavaria, Germany. The town had a population of 17,118 as of 31 December 2003.-History:...

. The first president, Helene Elizabeth, Princess von Isenburg was chosen because of her good contacts in the aristocracy and conservative upper middle-class circles as well as the Catholic Church. Founding members of the committee included church representatives Theophil Worm and Johannes Neuhäusler, as well as high-ranking former functionaries of the Nazi state such as the former SS-Standartenführer and head of department in the Central Reich Security Office (RSHA
RSHA
The RSHA, or Reichssicherheitshauptamt was an organization subordinate to Heinrich Himmler in his dual capacities as Chef der Deutschen Polizei and Reichsführer-SS...

), Wilhelm Spengler, and SS-Obersturmbannführer Heinrich Malz, who was the personal adviser of Ernst Kaltenbrunner
Ernst Kaltenbrunner
Ernst Kaltenbrunner was an Austrian-born senior official of Nazi Germany during World War II. Between January 1943 and May 1945, he held the offices of Chief of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt , President of Interpol and, as a Obergruppenführer und General der Polizei und Waffen-SS, he was the...

.

Objectives and activity in the mid 1950s

Helene Elizabeth, Princess von Isenburg explained its objectives in such a way: "From the start of its efforts‚ the Stille Hilfe sought to take care of, above all, the serious needs of the prisoners of war and those interned completely without rights. Later their welfare service was active for those accused and arrested as a result of the war trials, whether in the prisons of the victors or in German penal institutions".

From the beginning of the Nuremberg Trials
Nuremberg Trials
The Nuremberg Trials were a series of military tribunals, held by the victorious Allied forces of World War II, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of the defeated Nazi Germany....

, the group sought to influence public opinion to prevent the execution of the death penalty. In press campaigns, personal and open letters and petitions, the war criminals were usually represented as innocent victims–pure command-receivers, irreproachable and often also having a blind faith in the Führer–who would have to suffer bitter injustice by victor's justice
Victor's justice
The label "victor's justice" is a situation in which an entity partakes in carrying out "justice" on its own basis of applying different rules to judge what is right or wrong for their own forces and for those of the enemy. Advocates generally charge that the difference in rules amounts to...

.

Because Princess von Isenburg was particularly devoted to the war criminals condemned to death in Landsberg prison, she was affectionately known as "Mother of the Landsbergers" in order to let "Stille Hilfe" be seen primarily as a charitable organization.

The legal assistance for arrested war criminals was first organized by the attorney Rudolf Aschenauer (1913–1983), who also formulated and submitted requests for grace and revisions. The organization paid vacation, dismissal and Christmas benefit to the prisoners and also supported their families. They were not only limited to humanitarian activities but also pursued a past-ideological and revisionist objective.

Princess Isenburg, a strict Catholic, tirelessly pleaded the victims' cause in conservative circles and with high-ranking church representatives (even up to the Pope). Johannes Neuhäusler (1888–1973) in particular, who not only had suffered detention/imprisonment by the Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...

, but also had been held by the Nazis in the Dachau concentration camp as a special prisoner, was most effective in public opinion, even among western Allied officials. The motives of the bishops lay probably less in a conscious ideological identification with the war criminals, but rather in the effort regarding reconciliation with the German past and the start of the new post-war society in West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....

. Neuhäusler explained the he wanted to repay "the bad with good". The further connections of Princess Isenburg and Aschenauer led particularly to former SS organizations such as Gauleiterkreis under Werner Naumann
Werner Naumann
Werner Naumann was a State Secretary in Joseph Goebbels' Propagandaministerium during the Third Reich. He was appointed head of the Propaganda Ministry by Führer Adolf Hitler in his political testament after Dr. Goebbels was promoted to Reichskanzler.-Early life and political career:Naumann was...

, which was already partly formed in Allied prisoner-of-war camps. Princess Isenburg initiated a whole series of organizations as "The working group for the rescue of the Landsberger prisoners", who were essentially financed by the churches.

Activity up to today

The churches to a large extent withdrew support with the end of the main Nuremberg Trials and the release of the time-serving Nazi war criminals from Landsberg prison in 1958.

In the following decades Stille Hilfe worked somewhat in secret with revisionist
Holocaust denial
Holocaust denial is the act of denying the genocide of Jews in World War II, usually referred to as the Holocaust. The key claims of Holocaust denial are: the German Nazi government had no official policy or intention of exterminating Jews, Nazi authorities did not use extermination camps and gas...

 organizations and prominent protagonists of the "Auschwitzlüge" (Auschwitz lie) like Thies Christophersen
Thies Christophersen
Thies Christophersen , a farmer by upbringing, was a prominent German Holocaust denier.-Christophersen and the "Auschwitz Lie":...

 and Manfred Roeder
Manfred Roeder
Manfred Roeder is a former lawyer and Wehrmacht soldier, and a prominent Holocaust denier.- Life :Roeder attended a National Political Institute of Education in Plön. After the Second World War he was for a time a member of Germany's CDU party...

 and co-operated with relevant foreign organizations and personalities e.g. (Florentine Rost van Tonningen
Florentine Rost van Tonningen
Florentine Rost van Tonningen was the wife of Meinoud Rost van Tonningen, 2nd leader of the National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands and President of the National Bank during the German occupation...

, Leon Degrelle
Léon Degrelle
Léon Joseph Marie Ignace Degrelle was a Walloon Belgian politician, who founded Rexism and later joined the Waffen SS which were front-line troops in the fight against the Soviet Union...

). At the same time Stille Hilfe maintained contacts with conservative politicians such as Franz Josef Strauß
Franz Josef Strauß
Franz Josef Strauss was a German politician. He was the leader of the Christian Social Union, member of the federal cabinet in different positions and long-time minister-president of the state of Bavaria....

, Theodor Oberländer
Theodor Oberländer
Theodor Oberländer was an Ostforschung scientist, Nazi officer and German politician. Before Second World War he devised plans aimed against Jewish and Polish population in territories that were to be conquered by Nazi Germany...

, Jörg Haider
Jörg Haider
Jörg Haider was an Austrian politician. He was Governor of Carinthia on two occasions, the long-time leader of the Austrian Freedom Party and later Chairman of the Alliance for the Future of Austria , a breakaway party from the FPÖ.Haider was controversial within Austria and abroad for comments...

 and probably also Alfred Dregger
Alfred Dregger
Alfred Dregger was a German politician and a leader of the Christian Democratic Union .Dregger was born in Münster. After graduating from a school in Werl, he entered the German Wehrmacht in 1939...

, though there is no clear proof. By a not insignificant number of inheritances and by regular donations, the organization controls considerable funds. Since Stille Hilfe does not publish end-of-year figures, one can only estimate the influx of capital; however, perhaps donations (not including inheritances) were annually circa €60000 to 80000, at least to the end of the 1990s.

Stille Hilfe supported the condemned in the Düsseldorfer Majdanek
Majdanek
Majdanek was a German Nazi concentration camp on the outskirts of Lublin, Poland, established during the German Nazi occupation of Poland. The camp operated from October 1, 1941 until July 22, 1944, when it was captured nearly intact by the advancing Soviet Red Army...

 trials, the former concentration camp guard
Female guards in Nazi concentration camps
Of the 55,000 guards who served in Nazi concentration camps, about 3,700 were women. In 1942, the first female guards arrived at Auschwitz and Majdanek from Ravensbrück...

 Hildegard Lächert
Hildegard Lachert
Hildegard Martha Lächert was a notorious female guard, Aufseherin, at several German World War II concentration camps. She became publicly known for her service at Ravensbrück, Majdanek and Auschwitz-Birkenau...

 ("bloody Brygida") and later Klaus Barbie
Klaus Barbie
Nikolaus 'Klaus' Barbie was an SS-Hauptsturmführer , Gestapo member and war criminal. He was known as the Butcher of Lyon.- Early life :...

, Erich Priebke
Erich Priebke
Erich Priebke is a former Hauptsturmführer in the Waffen SS. In 1996 he was convicted of war crimes in Italy, for participating in the massacre at the Ardeatine caves in Rome, on March 24, 1944...

 and Josef Schwammberger
Josef Schwammberger
Josef Franz Leo Schwammberger was a member of the SS during the Nazi era.During the Second World War, Schwammberger was a commander of various SS Arbeitslager in the...

, who from 1942 to 1944 was commander of German labour camps in occupied Poland, involved in the massacres of Przemyśl
Przemysl
Przemyśl is a city in south-eastern Poland with 66,756 inhabitants, as of June 2009. In 1999, it became part of the Podkarpackie Voivodeship; it was previously the capital of Przemyśl Voivodeship....

 and Rozwadów
Rozwadów
Rozwadów is a suburb of Stalowa Wola, Poland. Founded as a town in 1690, it was incorporated into Stalowa Wola in 1973. The Rozwadów suburb of Stalowa Wola included a thriving Jewish shtetl prior to World War II, closely associated with the Jewish communities of Tarnobrzeg and other nearby...

. Whether they were involved in the release of Herbert Kappler
Herbert Kappler
Herbert Kappler , was the head of German police and security services in Rome during World War II...

 from a prison in Rome in 1977 is not clarified. Chairmen after Princess Isenburg (until 1959) were to 1992 the former Bund Deutscher Mädel
League of German Girls
The League of German Girls or League of German Maidens , was the girl's wing of the overall Nazi party youth movement, the Hitler Youth. It was the only female youth organization in Nazi Germany....

 leaders Gertrude Herr and Adelheid Klug.

They have been led since 1992 by Horst Janzen. The organisation today has approximately 40 members with decreasing numbers. At the same time however contacts were reinforced with "Hilfsorganisation für nationale politische Gefangene und deren Angehörige" (relief organization for national political prisoners) (HNG), so continuity may be secured.

Based until 1976 in Bremen Osterholz, since 1989 in Rotenburg (Wümme), since 1992 in Wuppertal
Wuppertal
Wuppertal is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located in and around the Wupper river valley, and is situated east of the city of Düsseldorf and south of the Ruhr area. With a population of approximately 350,000, it is the largest city in the Bergisches Land...

. In 1993/1994 it caused a political debate in the Bundestag over its non-profit status as a revisionistic right-wing extremist association and was submitted to an examination by the fiscal authorities. In the Bundesfinanzhof (Federal Finance Court) it was decided in November 1999 to deny Stille Hilfe non-profit, i.e. charitable, status.
For years they have had a prominent symbol: Gudrun Burwitz, the daughter of Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943, Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo...

. Known to her father as "Püppi", she is an idol to Stille Hilfe and their affiliates. At meetings such as Ulrichsbergtreffen in Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

 she appeared at the same time as a star and an authority. Burwitz has campaigned intensively in the last few years for accused Nazis. This particularly showed up in the case of Anton Malloth
Anton Malloth
Anton Malloth was a supervisor in the "Kleine Festung" part of the Theresienstadt concentration camp.-Life:...

, who had lived undisturbed for about 40 years in Meran. He was proven guilty for his acts as a supervisor in the Gestapo-prison "Kleine Festung Theresienstadt", which was part of the larger Theresienstadt concentration camp
Theresienstadt concentration camp
Theresienstadt concentration camp was a Nazi German ghetto during World War II. It was established by the Gestapo in the fortress and garrison city of Terezín , located in what is now the Czech Republic.-History:The fortress of Terezín was constructed between the years 1780 and 1790 by the orders...

. In 2001 Malloth was convicted by the district court of Munich for murder and attempted murder and sentenced to life imprisonment after the public prosecutor's office in Munich had taken over the procedure of the public prosecutor's office in Dortmund
Dortmund
Dortmund is a city in Germany. It is located in the Bundesland of North Rhine-Westphalia, in the Ruhr area. Its population of 585,045 makes it the 7th largest city in Germany and the 34th largest in the European Union....

, which for many years had hijacked the procedure. From 1988 to 2000, Malloth lived in Pullach
Pullach
Pullach, officially Pullach i. Isartal, is a municipality in the district of Munich in Bavaria in Germany. It is serviced by the S 7 line of the Munich S-Bahn, at the Großhesselohe Isartalbahnhof, Pullach and Höllriegelskreuth railway stations....

 near Munich. Gudrun Burwitz was instructed by Stille Hilfe to rent a comfortable room for him in a home for the aged, which was built on a lot formerly owned by Rudolf Hess
Rudolf Hess
Rudolf Walter Richard Hess was a prominent Nazi politician who was Adolf Hitler's deputy in the Nazi Party during the 1930s and early 1940s...

. In common with the secretive nature of the organisation, Burwitz does not give press interviews.

At the end of the 1990s it became public that the social welfare assistance administration (and thus the German taxpayers) had in large part taken over the considerable running costs of the home where Malloth was staying. This, along with the participation of Gudrun Burwitz, resulted in substantial public criticism.

Although firmly rooted in the neo-Nazi fringe, it developed amicable relations with conservative West German politicians, such as CDU Bundestag Parliamentary leader Alfred Dregger
Alfred Dregger
Alfred Dregger was a German politician and a leader of the Christian Democratic Union .Dregger was born in Münster. After graduating from a school in Werl, he entered the German Wehrmacht in 1939...

, who praised the efforts of Stille Hilfe in 1989.

In 1991, a Stille Hilfe representative attended the graveside ceremony in Kassel
Kassel
Kassel is a town located on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Kassel Regierungsbezirk and the Kreis of the same name and has approximately 195,000 inhabitants.- History :...


of Michael Kühnen
Michael Kühnen
Michael Kühnen was a leader in the German neo-Nazi movement. He was one of the first post-World War II Germans to openly embrace Nazism and call for the formation of a Fourth Reich. He enacted a policy of setting up several differently-named groups in an effort to confuse German authorities, who...

, the prominent Neo-Nazi leader who died of HIV
HIV
Human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...

-related complications. Stille Hilfe laid a wreath that bore the SS motto "Michael Kühnen - his honor is loyalty."

The organisation has come under criticism for its encouragement and support of neo-Nazis. This has included legal aid for those facing prosecution. It also supports a Protestant old people's home in Pullach
Pullach
Pullach, officially Pullach i. Isartal, is a municipality in the district of Munich in Bavaria in Germany. It is serviced by the S 7 line of the Munich S-Bahn, at the Großhesselohe Isartalbahnhof, Pullach and Höllriegelskreuth railway stations....

, near Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

.

External links

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