Previously we saw how Herbert Lange, an employee of the Gestapo offices in Stettin, Aachen and then Poznań killed patients in mental care homes in occupied Poland and Germany. He was the first person to develop a homicidal gas chamber which he did at Fort vII in Poznań in October 1939 and then the first person to use a homicidal gas van which was used for the first time at Gniezno in December 1939. Lange was responsible for the first mass killings of the Holocaust in Poland when he destroyed communities in the region of Konin during the summer of 1941 using mobile gas vans. Acting under orders from Berlin, he set up the death camp at Chełmno nad Nerem which was to take the lives of around 200,000 people, although he was commandant only for the first few weeks of its operation as from December 1941. In March 1942, Lange was replaced by Hans Bothmann as commandant of the camp, although Lange stayed another five weeks to assist him. Bothman was born in 1911 and had previously been with the Gestapo in Poznań - so they would have known each other. It was normal for SS officers to be moved around, for example we can see some that are moved between the Kripo - criminal police to Einsatzgruppe to Gestapo. I presume that Lange’s skills were requested by someone in Berlin and I suspect that that person might have been Arthur Nebe who himself had led an Einsatzgruppe.
Lange was transferred to the Reich Criminal Police Office under Arthur Nebe at the Reich Security Main Office in Berlin. His job now was investigating those opposed to Nazism.
Johanna Solf was born on 14 November 1887, her parents were landowners. In 1908 she married the then Imperial Governor of Samoa and later State Secretary in the Foreign Office and German Ambassador in Tokyo , Wilhelm Solf . Hanna Solf saw herself not only as his wife, but also as a comrade-in-arms in the fight for humanity, law and peace. The couple shared very progressive views reinforced by long stays abroad. The couple founded a group called the the Solf Circle to discuss matters related to cultural exchanges and progressive politics. Clearly neither regarded Hitler with any pleasure. After the Nazi seizure of power, she made contact with critics of the regime, such as General von Hammerstein. The meetings were held in the
Solf's apartment on Alsenstrasse in Berlin . Wilhelm Solf died in 1936. In 1941, the Japanese Foreign Minister Matsuoka Yōsuke paid a visit to the Solf circle. Roland Freisler, then at the Justice Ministry, had placed Joanna Solf under observation. The group was assisting people to escape to Switzerland using false passports. Sometimes refugees swam across Lake Constance . Solf purchased a house in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in which her sister Elisabeth Dotti could live. When Solf and her daughter were completely bombed out in 1943, they found refuge there.
It was Lange who was entrusted with infilitrating the group. On 10 September 1943, he managed to place an informant, Paul Reckzeh, in a group organised by Elisabeth von Thadden.
Paul Reckzeh was born on 4 November 1913 in Berlin. His father was also called Paul and he was a professor of medicine. The younger Reckzeh studied medicine from 1933 to 1939. At the beginning of his studied he joined the National Socialist party. After receiving his doctorate in 1940, he worked as an assistant doctor at the Birkenwerder Hospital , at the Reich Medical Association and in the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories . Herbert Lange recruited him to be a Gestapo spy in the summer of 1943. Lange got Reckzeh to travel to Switzerland in August 1943 to research contacts between German emigrants and the Allies .
The 21 September 1943 was the fiftieth birthday of a member of the group, Anza Braune. Guests included Hanna Solf, Arthur Zarden and his daughter Irmgard, Hilger van Sherpenberg, Otto Kiep, Richard Künzer and Fanny von Kurowski, whose father had been a cabinet member of Bismarck's in the 1870s.
Paul Reckzeh had called Elisabeth von Thadden the day before. She had a very good friend in Switzerland, the daughter of the painter Segantini. This daughter knew Reckzeh's father. The Reckzehs always went on vacation in Sils Maria in Switzerland, so the families had known each other for a long time. Paul Reckzeh told Elisabeth von Thadden that Ms. Segantini requested her to introduce him to people who had similar views in Berlin. It would appear that Segantini had no knowledge that Reckzeh was Lange’s plant. However, the whole situation should have presented alarm bells. Lange may have arranged for Reckzeh to travel to Switzerland.
6 окт 2024
