Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
The Intrigue
After examining available police and court records in the Institute of
Contemporary History Hans Schneider concludes that Fritz Tobias
single arsonist argument is not valid. Van der Lubbe alone could
not have set the Reichstag ablaze.
He also wrote to Spiegel´s Rudolf Augstein and asked him
to fact check the Tobias thesis. His letters were not answered.
In the early postwar period former members of the Gestapo,
the SS and even the SS Security service wrote for Der Spiegel.
To this day this remains a taboo at Der Spiegel.
Lutz Hachmeister: "This is a big taboo, a blind spot in the
history of the German press, which is still well kept blind.
They don´t want to deal with it.
One is treated like a complete cast out, so to speak, if
one stirs it up, and one gets no space to publish it.
With no other topic have I had such strange
experiences as with the history of Der Spiegel.“
What historian Hans Schneider did not forebode:
in the early sixties the wind has turned in the
Institute of Contemporary History. Director Krausnick
does not want his provoking research any more.
The Institute wants to get rid of Hans Schneider. By all means.
The one to accomplish this is Hans Mommsen.
The memos are maintained.At the End of 1962
the young historian meets with the institutes lawyer
and proposes to play all the cards against Hans Schneider.
Even where they, quote, do not withstand legal scrutiny.
"Thats all not true. Mr. Krausnick did that.He acted as
if I had done it and Mr. Krausnick did not.
This becomes clear from the following documentation."
From the document one thing becomes clear:
Hans Mommsen had signed it. And he suggested to
prevent Schneider from publishing his manuscript elsewhere.
thats illegal Mommsen said at the time. But Schneider
had no knowledge of copyright laws. In addition, he suggested
to exert pressure on the working high school teacher via
Stuttgart, Schneider's school board.
Director Krausnick asks Schneider to return immediately
all documents and files, the basis of his work.
"That would be a point where I would also criticize
Mr. Krausnick. In his place, and as director of the institute I
always proceed that a manuscript, that does not meet
academic requirements is returned to the author.
The academic quality is not an issue in the note. It says
the publication is undesirable because of general political reasons.
"Now they have taken this one sentence in an unofficial protocol
and of which I say it is not more to it than that.And I'm the
only witness, for I have formulated the sentence and till today,
and you do it too, it is blown up as a bugaboo to offend me.
But I'm trying to understand just what that means
"There is nothing to understand!"
what means „for policy considerations“?
"I do not know! Forty years ago I wrote that sentence
in combianation with other comments and
the sentence said: it seems, is says, out of
general political considerations What you do want
to use it for today?
Today, forty years late, the Institute distanced himself
from Hans Mommsen. It says that his treatment of Schneider
was academically unacceptable.
„The point is quite impossible for an academic. Research has to be free.
Even if it errs it has to be free and therefore it is unacceptable
to put pressure on a researcher by his employers. Public policy
considerations, whatever they may be, should not play a role
in the evaluation of a research manuscript.
Whereever Hans Schneider went to offer his results, to historians
or the Spiegel, doors were closed. Eventually he gives up hope.
However, one essay on the Reichstag fire is published by
the Institute of Contemporary History.
It is by Hans Mommsen. A boost not only for his career, but also for the
establishment of the single arsonist thesis, which is said have
been been scholarly proven by hans Hans Mommsen.
"This delivered no proof. It was a clever essay by someone who
is decidedly of the same opinion as Tobias, that van der Lubbe was it.
Is Mommsens and Tobias`` approach really convincing?
„No, because I think it is still not fully clear, not even by the
different opinions of fire experts. I think their thesis is rather implausible.
Who was Walter Zirpins in the Third Reich?
In 1937, he makes a request to become a member of the SS.
In 1940 he is head of criminal police in Lodz (Litzmannstadt) and establishes
special commission ghetto in the Lodz ghetto.
"He was someone who was responsible, for granting his detectives
permission to buy valuables, they confiscated or better plundered
from Jews, at reduced prices. He was always involved and
he knew what was going on.“
After the war, Walter Zirpins tried in vain to get permission to work
again as a detective. It was not until 1951 he was reinstated.
Also, because of an article that recommended Zirpins
reemployment, published in Der Spiegel.
The reinstated Superintendent had to live with the fear that his past could
take him down as it happened with other detectives of the Reichstagsfire.
If Tobias´thesis of single arsonist van der Lubbe was true,
the detectives had nothing to fear and were not to blame for
van der Lubbes execution. But what, if not?