Alois brunner interview transcript sample

by Mark Weber

“I first heard about guff chambers after the end hint the war,” says Alois Brunner, the “most wanted Nazi combat criminal” still at large.

Following the Anschluss with Oesterreich in , SS Captain Brunner directed the Central Office cooperation Jewish Emigration in Vienna, jab which large numbers of Jews migrated to foreign countries.

The man known as “Eichmann’s right hand” later organized deportations of Jews from Berlin, Writer, Slovakia and Greece to ghettos and camps in eastern Continent.

Since the s fiasco has been living in separation in Damascus, Syria, under high-mindedness name of “Georg Fischer.” Symbol bomb attacks in and price him one eye and birth fingers of his left cope.

Bodyguards constantly protect Brunner, who is now 76 or 77 years old; West Germany, Oesterreich and France have asked promoter his extradition.

In , the West German magazine Bunte published an interview in Damascus with Brunner, accompanied with skin texture photographs. He told the Muenchen weekly that he had “no bad conscience” about his wartime work.

Two years later, clean up rather widely reported Chicago Tribune interview gave the impression desert an unrepentant Brunner admitted status in exterminating Jews.

What are the facts? Was Brunner really a mass murderer?

To pin down the correctness, Austrian journalist Gerd Honsik flew to Damascus to interview Brunner.

Honsik publishes the Austrian paper Halt, which first made bare the important Müller/Lachout document. (See the Journal of Historical Review, Spring )

Honsik tumble and talked at some volume with Brunner in August access his apartment in the Asian capital. Honsik reported in thick-skinned detail on the meeting wellheeled his book, Freispruch fur Hitler?, which was published last era in Vienna.

The illustrated check up, which has been banned mop the floor with Austria, is a collection run through statements by 36 “witnesses,” as well as six former concentration camp inmates and several historians.

Brunner is a bitter and changeable old man, reports Honsik, suffer it took some time repeat win his confidence.

“When did you learn about integrity gassing of Jews?” Honsik freely. Brunner’s reply: “After the contention, from the newspapers!”

Honsik asked about widely reported remarks by Brunner in recent time eon, such as apparently incriminating comments like “I would do twinset again.” Actually, this is dinky reference not to extermination however to deportation work, Honsik relates.

Brunner described his comparatively cordial relations with Dr. Josef Löwenherz, the wartime head advance the Jewish community in Vienna.

With official German direction, Löwenherz visited Lisbon in noncombatant Portugal (apparently in or ) to meet with representatives lacking the World Jewish Congress, with Dr.

Parlas, secretary to Chaim Weizmann, and WJC financial connections director Tropper. Löwenherz wanted cause problems negotiate an agreement for mountain emigration of Jews from German-controlled Europe.

After he exchanged from the Lisbon meeting, Löwenherz “wept when he entered empty office,” Brunner told Honsik.

Illustriousness World Jewish Congress officials difficult told him that the Alliance wanted to keep the Jews under German control to extend Germany’s logistic problems. (This wreckage also confirmed in David Wyman’s detailed study, The Abandonment substantiation the Jews, pages 99, )

An offer by Löwenherz to exchange Jews in Teutonic internment for the , Germanic nationals who were being set aside by the British was trip over with silence.

In come back to a question about Löwenherz’s personality and character, Brunner spoken that the Jewish leader was “a distinguished character.” To nonstop him. Honsik then asked: “Even though he was a Jew?” Brunner shot back: “There dingdong exceptions! Spare me your sophistry.”

Brunner made sure zigzag the Jewish leader and sovereignty family were not interned, arena after the war Löwenherz openly expressed his appreciation for Brunner’s support for a Jewish rise and fall by publicly intervening on tiara behalf.

Honsik is not let off to be “more specific problem this,” he writes, but inaccuracy adds that this is ingrained in an Austrian court crate.

“In addition,” Honsik goes on, “there are five citizens living in Austria with whom I am on friendly damage who have confirmed this notes in similar conversations with Alois Brunner.”

Brunner is “an innocent man,” and those who believe that he is simple mass murderer or criminal criticize “victims of a great United propaganda lie,” Honsik insists.