Earlier this year, I wrote the blog, Hitler’s Enablers – Part One – Wannsee Conference. Click here to read the blog. The blog primarily dealt with the first and second level of enablers ⏤ senior Nazi leaders setting policy and leaving the formation of details and final implementation to the second layer. An “enabler” is someone who enables another to achieve an end.
Today, we will examine the third level of enablers. These were the men and women who were responsible for the administration and ultimately, ensuring the end result met senior Nazi leaders’ expectations. In other words, these were the people who carried out the day-to-day activities that ultimately resulted in the murder of millions of men, women, and children. Beginning with arrests and ending with the wholesale exterminations in the gas chambers, Hitler would not have been able to carry out his perverse vision without the assistance of hundreds of thousands of third level enablers.
Execution of Stutthof concentration camp overseers at Biskupia Górka. From left to right: Jenny-Wanda Barkmann, Ewa Paradies, Elisabeth Becker, Wanda Klaff, and Gerda Steinhoff. Further in the background is the guard SS-Oberscharführer Johann Pauls and several Polish kapos. Photo by Polish authorities (4 July 1946). PD-Polish Public Domain.
As we will see, most of these people were sadistic thugs who had no compassion for other human beings. Many of the defendants could not comprehend why they were on trial after the war. The common defense position taken by Nazi war criminals was that they were only following orders ⏤ all fingers pointed to Adolf Hitler ⏤ and when that didn’t work, they boiled it down to “Victor’s Justice.” Read More Hitler’s Enablers – Part Two – The Camps
What is the “Fifth Column”? It is a term that originated during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) to describe a group of people who undermine ⏤ from within ⏤ another larger group. Fifth Column activities can be visible to all or covert and clandestine in nature and typically result in sabotage, disinformation, and espionage. In Britain, its Fifth Column problem, in the form of the British Union of Fascists, was well-known to Churchill and others. However, below the surface, ordinary British citizens were willing to sell out their country to Hitler and the Nazis. They shared a common admiration for Hitler and his anti-Semitic philosophy and thought Britain would be better off under German rule.
Eric Arthur Roberts. Photo by anonymous (anonymous). PD-Fair Use. Wikimedia Commons.
It wouldn’t be until an unassuming low-level London bank clerk took a leave of absence and resurfaced as a Gestapo agent that the intelligence agencies became fully aware of the magnitude of the underground Fifth Column trying to pass secret military intelligence to the Nazis.
Did You Know?
Did you know that John F. Kennedy was not the only United States president to have been saved at sea during World War II? After turning eighteen, George H.W. Bush enlisted in U.S. Navy and served as a pilot of a Grumman Avenger Torpedo aircraft. Two years later, Lt. Bush flew one of his fifty-eight missions alongside three other Avenger bombers. Each plane carried three aviators. Their mission was to bomb the radio station located on the small island of Chichijima.
Despite the intense flak and anti-aircraft fire, Lt. Bush and the other planes managed to take out the radio station. His plane was hit and falling at a speed of one hundred ninety miles per hour when Lt. Bush bailed out hitting his head on the plane’s tail. He ended up in the water and was able to inflate a small raft which he floated in for four hours before the USS Finback, a submarine, picked him up. This was the second time Lt. Bush had to be plucked out of the water during a mission.
Lt. Bush in the cockpit of the “Barbara III.” Photo by anonymous (date unknown).
Unfortunately, the two airmen flying in his plane did not survive. The other planes went down and seven airmen were captured by the Japanese. They were tortured, beheaded, and their livers were cut out for their captors to eat.
Lt. George H.W. Bush was the only survivor of the mission. He would be awarded the Navy’s Distinguished Flying Cross for this mission in addition to three Air Medals, and the Presidential Unit Citation for his service during World War II.
Watch Lt. Bush being rescued at sea by the USS Finback. Click here.
British Military Intelligence
There are two primary intelligence departments in Britain: Security Service or MI5 (Military Intelligence Section 5) and Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) or MI6. While MI6 is responsible for foreign intelligence, it is MI5 that provides domestic counterintelligence. It is similar to the American intelligence structure of the CIA (foreign) and FBI (domestic).
MI5 was founded in 1909 and is under the authority of the Home Secretary within the cabinet of the prime minister. It had its troubles during the inter-war period (between the two world wars) due to weak leadership. However, its greatest accomplishments during World War II were Operation Double-Cross (click here to read the blog The Double Cross System) and Operation Fifth Column. Both of these initiatives were headed by MI5 spymaster Maxwell Knight.
Maxwell Knight (1900-1968) is generally considered to have been Ian Fleming’s model for the character of “M” in the James Bond series. In the mid-1920s, Knight was working undercover for MI5 by infiltrating early British fascist groups as well as communist cells in England. Knight became MI5’s director of intelligence and eventually head of Section B5(b) which was responsible for infiltrating agents into subversive organizations. Read More Agent Jack, “M” and the Fifth Column
“Another outstanding, well-researched, and presented book by Stew Ross. It gives a detailed guided walking tour full of facts about the activities of the Gestapo during their occupation of Paris during World War II. I highly recommend this book to everyone who has an interest in what life was like during the Nazi occupation in France.”
Richard H.F. Neave, President Royal British Legion Paris branch, member Paris-based Libre Résistance SOE “F” Section and author of SOE: A Life in the Shadows
“Informative and entertaining, Stew Ross’ newest work evokes a difficult and frightening time in the history of the City of Light. The detailed descriptions of sites such as the Vél’ d’hiv’ or Gestapo headquarters reminds us of the choices people made during those years.”
Cynthia Bisson, PhD, Professor of History, Belmont University, French Resistant Expert
