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Student and Soldier in the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany

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Peter von Zahn's Cold War Broadcasts to West Germany

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in the History of the Media ((PSHM))

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Abstract

Peter von Zahn was born in 1913 and grew up in a middle-class family in Dresden. He combined a rebellious temperament with the conservative views common in his milieu. After 1933 Zahn appears to have viewed the Nazi movement and its leaders as a menace to individual rights and freedoms as well as to the existing social order. At the same time he welcomed the expansion of German power in Europe. Zahn spent the entirety of the war in the German army, first as a radio specialist stationed with the German army’s high command, and then as a Propaganda Company soldier and then officer on the Eastern Front. In early 1943 Zahn was assigned as a Wehrmacht NCO to a murderous SS anti-partisan unit in Ukraine, a position he held for some two months.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Diary entitled “Aktion Esman,” entry for January 21, 1943, p. 7, BArch N 1524/422.

  2. 2.

    Ibid., entry for January 26, 1943, p. 11.

  3. 3.

    Undated biographical sketch from approximately 1952, BArch N 1524/1039.

  4. 4.

    Friedrich Ruge, In vier Marinen. Lebenserinnerungen als Beitrag zur Zeitgeschichte (Munich: Bernard & Graefe, 1979), 15; Gothaisches Genealogisches Taschenbuch der Adeligen Häuser, Teil B (Gotha: Justus Perthes, 1938), 626–27; Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels, Vol. 137, Adelslexikon, vol 16, ed. Walter v. Hueck (Limburg an der Lahn: C.A. Starke, 2005), 450.

  5. 5.

    Deutsche Biographische Enzyklopädie, Vol. 10 (Munich: Sauer, 1999), 614, s.v. Johann Alfred von Zahn; Gisa Bauer, Kulturprotestantismus und frühe bürgerliche Frauenbewegung in Deutschland. Agnes von Zahn-Harnack (1884–1950) (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsantalt: 2006), 153; Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, Vol. 44 (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1971, reprint of 1898 edition), 662, s.v. Albert von Zahn; Peter von Zahn, Stimme der ersten Stunde. Erinnerungen 1913–1951 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1991), 34–35.

  6. 6.

    Bauer, Kulturprotestantismus, 153–54; 155, n. 380; Neue Deutsche Biographie, Vol. 22 (Berlin: Dunker & Humblot, 2005), 235, s.v. Friedrich Ruge.

  7. 7.

    Zahn, Stimme der ersten Stunde, 14–15.

  8. 8.

    Ibid., 96.

  9. 9.

    Ibid., 130–31, 200.

  10. 10.

    Rolf Helm, Anwalt des Volkes (Berlin (East): Dietz, 1978).

  11. 11.

    Zahn, Stimme der ersten Stunde, 138.

  12. 12.

    Ibid., 340. Diary entry of August 29, 1948, p. 3, BArch N 1524/427, File A.

  13. 13.

    Zahn, Stimme der ersten Stunde, 338, and similarly at 130.

  14. 14.

    Ibid., 340.

  15. 15.

    Ibid., 140.

  16. 16.

    Michael Wildt, An Uncompromising Generation. The Nazi Leadership of the Reich Security Main Office, trans. Tom Lampert (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2009), 35.

  17. 17.

    Zahn, Stimme der ersten Stunde, 49, 54.

  18. 18.

    Ernst Jünger, Das abenteuerliche Herz (Stuttgart: Klett-Cota, 1987. First published in 1929), 30, 139–40.

  19. 19.

    See Michael Thomas, Deutschland, England über alles. Rückkehr als Besatzungsoffizier (Berlin: Siedler, 1984), 134; Wildt, An Uncompromising Generation, 25–27.

  20. 20.

    Barbel Körzdörfer, “Peter von Zahn, Der gottlose Gentleman,” Welt am Sonntag (April 25, 1999), 44.

  21. 21.

    Zahn, Stimme der ersten Stunde, 16; Körzdörfer, “Peter von Zahn, Der gottlose Gentleman,” 44.

  22. 22.

    Zahn, Stimme der ersten Stunde, 53, 56.

  23. 23.

    Ibid., 41.

  24. 24.

    Ibid., 49–50.

  25. 25.

    Ibid., 55–56.

  26. 26.

    The memoirs praise a journalism professor who managed to maintain a certain independence in 1939 by pairing cleverness with courage. Ibid., 141. See also ibid., 42, 344.

  27. 27.

    Ibid., 36.

  28. 28.

    Ibid., 43.

  29. 29.

    Ibid., 54, 31. For similar memories of a German of middle-class origins who was a contemporary of Zahn’s and who became a journalist in East Germany, see Gerhard Dengler, Zwei Leben in einem (Berlin: Militärverlag der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, 1989), 18–21.

  30. 30.

    Zahn, Stimme der ersten Stunde, 54.

  31. 31.

    Ibid., 30, 63.

  32. 32.

    On the popularity of Die Tat see Sebastian Haffner, Defying Hitler. A Memoir, trans. Oliver Pretzel (New York: Picador, 2002), 197–98; Kurt Sontheimer, “Der Tatkreis,” in Von Weimar zu Hitler 1930–1933, ed. Gotthard Jasper (Cologne: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1968); Walter Struve, Elites against Democracy. Leadership Ideals in Bourgeois Political Thought in Germany, 1890–1933 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1973), 353–76; Gangolf Hübinger, “Die Tat und der Tatkreis. Politische Entwürfe und intellektuelle Konstellationen,” in Das konservative Intellektuellenmilieu in Deutschland, seine Presse und seine Netzwerke (1890–1960), eds. Michael Grunewald and Uwe Puschner (Bern: Peter Lang, 2003), 407–26.

  33. 33.

    Zahn, Stimme der ersten Stunde, 88.

  34. 34.

    Ebbo Demant, Von Schleicher zu Springer. Hans Zehrer als politischer Publizist (Mainz: v. Hase und Koehler, 1971), 112–32.

  35. 35.

    Zahn, Stimme der ersten Stunde, 90.

  36. 36.

    Ibid., 90.

  37. 37.

    Helm, Anwalt des Volkes, 128.

  38. 38.

    Ibid., 129–37.

  39. 39.

    Zahn describes the influence of his sister on his political affiliations while he was a Gymnasium student and in 1933 in his memoirs. Zahn, Stimme der ersten Stunde, 55, 90.

  40. 40.

    Ibid., 96–101.

  41. 41.

    Peter von Zahn to Michael Matthiesen of October 28, 1988, BArch N 1524/475. Zahn, Stimme der ersten Stunde, 136–37.

  42. 42.

    Zahn, Stimme der ersten Stunde, 127.

  43. 43.

    See Stephan Malinowski, Vom König zum Führer. Sozialer Niedergang und politische Radikalisierung im deutschen Adel zwischen Kaiserreich und NS-Staat (Berlin: Akademie, 2003), 47–117.

  44. 44.

    “aequam memento rebus in arduis servare mentem.” Interview with Peter von Zahn, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (March 19, 1993).

  45. 45.

    Zahn, Stimme der ersten Stunde, 50.

  46. 46.

    Ibid., 128; Wildt, An Uncompromising Generation, 38–40. However, the East Elbian nobility in particular provided “massive support for the Nazi movement.” Malinowski, Vom König zum Führer, 603; see also Jonathan Petropoulos, Royals and the Reich: the Princes von Hessen in Nazi Germany (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006).

  47. 47.

    Zahn, Stimme der ersten Stunde, 220. On Mady Marschallin von Bieberstein, see ibid., 127; Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels, Vol. 136, Freiherrliche Häuser, Vol. 23 (Limburg an der Lahn: C.A. Starke, 2005), 262. In his memoirs Zahn referred to his family as belonging to the “modest service nobility.” Zahn, Stimme der ersten Stunde, 135.

  48. 48.

    Peter von Zahn, “Die Lehre vom gerechten Fürsten und gerechten Krieg,” 1936, pp. 8–9, BArch N 1524/420.

  49. 49.

    Ibid., p. 11.

  50. 50.

    Zahn, Stimme der ersten Stunde, 133.

  51. 51.

    Ibid., 134.

  52. 52.

    Ibid., 93.

  53. 53.

    Ibid., 137.

  54. 54.

    Ibid., 134. Peter von Zahn, Reporter der Windrose. Erinnerungen 1951–1964 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt), 267.

  55. 55.

    Peter von Zahn to Christa von Zahn, January 26, 1945, BArch N 1524/424; Undated biographical sketch from approximately 1952, BArch N 1524/1039.

  56. 56.

    Zahn, Stimme der ersten Stunde, 132.

  57. 57.

    Ibid., 132.

  58. 58.

    “Der rasende Chefreporter der Windrose,” Rundschau in der Zeit Nr. 69 (March 22, 1967), 8, WDR Pressearchiv.

  59. 59.

    Zahn, Stimme der ersten Stunde, 161; Peter von Zahn to Christa von Zahn, March 18, 1943, BArch N 1524/423.

  60. 60.

    Undated note in English, BArch N 1524/886.

  61. 61.

    Zahn, Stimme der ersten Stunde, 138.

  62. 62.

    Gerhard Ritter, Friedrich der Große. Ein historisches Profil (Leipzig: Quelle, 1936), 251.

  63. 63.

    Ibid., 252.

  64. 64.

    Ibid., 255.

  65. 65.

    Ibid., 267.

  66. 66.

    Ibid., 268.

  67. 67.

    Ibid., 268–69.

  68. 68.

    Klaus Schwabe and Rolf Reichardt, eds., Gerhard Ritter. Ein politischer Historiker in seinen Briefen (Boppart am Rhein: Harald Boldt, 1984), 56–97, 382, 769–74; Christoph Cornelißen, Gerhard Ritter. Geschichtswissenschaft und Politik im 20. Jahrhundert (Düsseldorf: Drost, 2001), especially 232–46.

  69. 69.

    Günter Scholdt, “Wiedertäufer und Drittes Reich: Zu einer Verschlüsselung im literarischen Widerstand,” in Literatur und Sprache im historischen Prozess: Vorträge des Deutschen Germanistentages in Aachen 1982, Vol. 1, ed. Thomas Cramer (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1982), 350–69.

  70. 70.

    The book has recently been published in English. George von der Lippe and Victoria Reck-Malleczewen, A History of the Münster Anabaptists. Inner Emigration and the Third Reich: A Critical Edition of Friedrich Reck-Malleczewen’s Bockelson. A Tale of Mass Insanity (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008). See also John Klapper, Nonconformist Writing in Nazi Germany. The Literature of Inner Emigration (Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2015), 184–201.

  71. 71.

    For further examples, see Viktor Klemperer, I will bear Witness, 1933–1941. A Diary of the Nazi Years, trans. by Martin Chalmers (New York: Modern Library, 1999), 4 (entry for February 21, 1933); Jerry Müller, The Other God that Failed. Hans Freyer and the Deradicalization of German Conservatism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987), 301; Michael Burleigh, The Third Reich. A New History (New York: Hill and Wang, 2000), 5, 690.

  72. 72.

    Peter von Zahn, Studien zur Entstehung der sozialien Ideen des Täufertums in den ersten Jahren der Reformation (Dissertation: Albert Ludwigs University in Freiburg im Bresgau, 1942), 18.

  73. 73.

    Ibid., 37.

  74. 74.

    Ibid., 37–38.

  75. 75.

    Zahn’s suggestion in his memoirs that he had viewed the Anabaptists as a religious minority unjustly persecuted by elites does not accurately characterize the dominant focus of the work. Zahn, Stimme der ersten Stunde, 137.

  76. 76.

    “Referat über die Arbeit von Peter von Zahn. Studien zur Entstehung der sozialen Ideen des Täufertums in den ersten Jahren der Reformation,” January 26, 1939, by Gerhard Ritter. BArch N 1166 (Nachlaß Ritter)/308. I thank Mr. Peter Franz of the Bundesarchiv for this reference.

  77. 77.

    While Party membership was not absolutely necessary for the practice of journalism, it was helpful. Journalists had to be members of the Reichspressekammer. Norbert Frei and Johannes Schmitz, Journalismus im Dritten Reich (Munich: Beck, 1989), 17, 27.

  78. 78.

    Peter von Zahn to Willy Andreas, May 4, 1943, p. 2, BArch N 1524/423. Andreas served as Rector of Heidelberg University in 1933. He never joined the Nazi Party, but, like many conservatives, in 1933 had expressed his support for the Nazi regime. Steven Remy, The Heidelberg Myth. The Nazification and Denazification of a German University (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), 14, 23–24, 187–89.

  79. 79.

    Peter von Zahn to Christa von Zahn, April 1, 1943, BArch N 1524/423.

  80. 80.

    Zahn, Stimme der ersten Stunde, 156–58, 161.

  81. 81.

    “Unser Jahrhundert – Unternehmen Barbarosa. Interview mit Peter von Zahn,” 1999, p. 2, BArch N 1524/762.

  82. 82.

    Zahn, Stimme der ersten Stunde, 164.

  83. 83.

    Ibid., 166.

  84. 84.

    Ibid., 163. On Transocean see Peter Longerich, “Davon haben wir nichts gewusst!” Die Deutschen und die Judenverfolgung 1933–1945 (Munich: Siedler, 2006), 259. The American government expelled all Transocean representatives in the United States in July 1941 on the grounds that they had “participated in activities incompatible with their legitimate functions.” Saul Friedländer, Hitler et les États-Unis, 1939–1941 (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1966), 241.

  85. 85.

    Zahn, Stimme der ersten Stunde, 158. Zahn here quoted the words of his memorandum, which I was unable to locate in his papers.

  86. 86.

    “Die Welt an der Jahreswende 1941 zu 1942,” BArch N 1524/422.

  87. 87.

    Ibid., p. 19.

  88. 88.

    Ibid., pp. 13, 16.

  89. 89.

    Ibid., p. 20.

  90. 90.

    Ibid., p. 2, reverse side, pp. 17–18.

  91. 91.

    Ibid., p. 3.

  92. 92.

    Peter von Zahn to Christa von Zahn, July 5, 1944, BArch N 1524/424. Zahn reported that an SS officer had commented to him that “the Latvians fear the Russians, but they hate the Germans.” Zahn concluded that this only revealed Latvian immaturity, since they acted on the basis of sentiment instead of cold self-interest. If Soviet rule returned, he predicted, they would all end up in Siberia. Disparagement of the role of moral and ideological commitments and passions in the making of foreign policy had been a feature of conservative German thought since the late 19th century. See, for example, the work of the conservative German historian Siegfried Kaehler, discussed in Siegfried A. Kaehler, Briefe 1900–1963, eds. Walter Bußmann and Günther Grünthal (Boppard am Rhein: Harald Boldt, 1993), 65–68.

  93. 93.

    Hitler’s Secret Conversations, 1941–1944, with an introduction by H. Trevor-Roper (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Young, 1953), 22, comments of August 2, 1941 (“I shall no longer be there to see it, but I rejoice on behalf of the German people at the idea that one day we will see England and Germany marching together against America.”); 76, comments of October 26–27, 1941 (“If the English are clever, they will seize the psychological moment to make an about-turn – and they will march on our side.”); 154–55, comments of January 5–6, 1942 (“One thing may seem improbable, but in my view it’s not impossible – that England may quit the war…. If a nation were to quit the war before the end of the war, I seriously think it might be England…[I]t will be a German-British army that will chase the Americans from Iceland.”).

  94. 94.

    “Die Welt an der Jahreswende 1941 zu 1942,” p. 30.

  95. 95.

    Ibid.

  96. 96.

    Ibid., p. 32.

  97. 97.

    Ibid., p. 31.

  98. 98.

    Ibid., p. 34.

  99. 99.

    Ibid., p. 35.

  100. 100.

    Ibid., p. 33.

  101. 101.

    Ibid., p. 35.

  102. 102.

    Ibid., p. 36.

  103. 103.

    Zahn, Stimme der ersten Stunde, 165. Zahn gave the title “Howling with the Wolves” to a memoir chapter that described the darkest episode in his service on the Eastern Front.

  104. 104.

    Volker Berghahn, “NSDAP und ‘Geistige Führung’ der Wehrmacht 1939–1943,” Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte 17, no. 1 (1969): 17–71.

  105. 105.

    On the roles of German propaganda companies in the Second World War, see Daniel Uziel, The Propaganda Warriors. The Wehrmacht and the Consolidation of the German Home Front (Bern: Peter Lang, 2008).

  106. 106.

    Virginia von Zahn (daughter of Peter von Zahn), in discussion with the author, June 19, 2016.

  107. 107.

    Ortwin Buchbender and Reinhold Sterz, Das andere Gesicht des Krieges. Deutsche Feldpostbriefe 1939–1945 (Munich: Beck, 1982), 15.

  108. 108.

    Peter von Zahn, “Aktion Esman,” entry for January 19, 1943, BArch N 1524/422.

  109. 109.

    Relations with women in occupied Europe was a subject that most German soldiers avoided in their letters home, presumably for similar reasons. Katrin Kilian, “Moods in Wartime: The Emotions Expressed in Forces Mail,” in Germany and the Second World War, Vol. 9/2, German Wartime Society 1939–1945: Exploitation, Interpretations, Exclusion, ed. Jörg Echternkamp (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2014), 265.

  110. 110.

    Sonja Hedgepeth and Rochelle Saidel, Sexual Violence against Jewish Women during the Holocaust (Waltham: Brandeis University Press, 2010).

  111. 111.

    Peter von Zahn to Michael Vermehren, July 16, 1942, BArch N 1524/422.

  112. 112.

    Peter von Zahn to Michael Vermehren, September 2, 1942, p. 2, BArch N 1524/422.

  113. 113.

    Peter von Zahn, “In einem ukrainischen Städtchen,” August 1942, p. 2, BArch N 1524/423; Zahn, Stimme der ersten Stunde, 171–81.

  114. 114.

    Zahn, “In einem ukrainischen Städtchen,” p. 2.

  115. 115.

    Peter von Zahn, Pocket Calendar for 1942, BArch N 1524/1025.

  116. 116.

    Peter von Zahn to Michael Vermehren, September 2, 1942, BArch N 1524/422. The reference to the “happy few” is in English.

  117. 117.

    Peter von Zahn to Christa von Zahn, undated, but likely from August 1942, BArch N 1524/423.

  118. 118.

    Ibid.

  119. 119.

    Zahn, “In einem ukrainischen Städtchen,” p. 3.

  120. 120.

    Ibid., p. 3.

  121. 121.

    Peter von Zahn to Christa von Zahn, March 18, 1943, p. 2, BArch N 1524/423. The final section of this letter defending the German war effort is not included in Zahn’s papers.

  122. 122.

    Silence on the subject of Nazi policies of genocide on the Eastern Front was apparently the norm in soldiers’ letters. Peter Longerich, “Davon haben wir nichts gewusst!” Die Deutschen und die Judenverfolgung 1933–1945 (Munich: Siedler, 2008), 225.

  123. 123.

    Peter von Zahn to Christa von Zahn, August 27, 1942, p. 2, BArch N 1524/423.

  124. 124.

    Peter von Zahn to Christa von Zahn, August 23, 1942, p. 1, BArch N 1524/423.

  125. 125.

    Ibid.

  126. 126.

    Speech of August 26, 1942, BArch N 1524/422. The handwritten note at the top of the typewritten document is “Rede des Oberkommandants.” For an analysis of German policies in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union, see Jürgen Forster, “Operation Barbarossa as a War of Conquest and Annihilation,” in The Attack on the Soviet Union, Vol. 4 of Germany and the Second World War (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 481–85, 1140–49, 1162–63, 1172–76.

  127. 127.

    Karel Berkhoff, Harvest of Despair. Life and Death in Ukraine under Nazi Rule (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), 95–101.

  128. 128.

    The evidence to support this conclusion is overwhelming, although the point was for many decades disputed. See, among the many sources that focus on this question, Sönke Neitzel, Tapping Hitler’s Generals. Transcripts of Secret Conversations, 1942–1945 (Barnsley: Frontline, 2007), 167–71, 183–86, 198–206, 226–30; Sönke Neitzel and Harald Welzer, Soldaten. On Fighting, Killing, and Dying The Secret WWII Transcripts of German POWs, trans. Jefferson Chase (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012), 120–63; Wilm Hosenfeld, “Ich versuche jeden zu retten.” Das Leben eines deutschen Offiziers in Briefen und Tagebüchern (Munich: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 2004), 626–27 (diary entry of July 23, 1942); 630–1 (diary entry of July 25, 1942); 653–55 (diary entry of September 6, 1942); Fliers of the White Rose group, from Nazism 1919–1945. A Documentary Reader, ed. by J. Noakes and G. Pridham, vol. 4, The German Home Front in World War II (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1984), 457–59; Friedrich Percival Reck-Malleczewen, Diary of a Man in Despair (New York: Macmillan, 1970), 166; Buchbender and Sterz, Das andere Gesicht des Krieges, 168–73; Peter Bamm, Die Unsichtbare Flagge. Ein Bericht (Munich: Kösel, 1952), 74–75, 152–53; Longerich, “Davon haben wir nichts gewusst!”, 222, 324; Rafael Zagovec, “Talking to the Volksgemeinschaft: German War Society as seen by the Western Allies through Front-Line Interrogations,” in Germany and the Second World War, Vol. 9/2, German Wartime Society 1939–1945: Exploitation, Interpretations, Exclusion, ed. Jörg Echternkamp (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2014), 331–32. See also Unser Jahrhundert – Unternehmen Barbarossa, Interview mit Peter von Zahn, 1998, pp. 32, 72–73, BArch N 1524/762.

  129. 129.

    Ernst Jünger, Strahlungen (Tübingen: Heliopolis,1949), 112–13 (entry for March 30, 1942). See also Daniel Morat, Von der Tat zur Gelassenheit. Konservatives Denken bei Martin Heidegger, Ernst Jünger und Friedrich Georg Jünger 1920–1960 (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2007). Morat’s book includes further descriptions from the same period from unpublished sections of Jünger’s diaries. Ibid., 261. “In the great slave huts that have been constructed in the eastern border regions, there are slaughterers who have killed with their own hands as many people as are found in a medium sized city.”

  130. 130.

    Jünger, Strahlungen, 250 (entry of December 31, 1942); Morat, Von der Tat zur Gelassenheit, 264, 268. See also Andreas Kunz, “Die Wehrmacht 1944/45: Eine Armee im Untergang,” Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, Vol. 10:2, Der Zusammenbruch des Deutschen Reiches 1945 (Munich: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 2008), 44.

  131. 131.

    “Novgorod Severskiy,” accessed February 20, 2016, http://www.yadvashem.org/untoldstories/database/index.asp?cid=518.

  132. 132.

    Ben Shepherd, War in the Wild East. The German Army and Soviet Partisans (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), 110–15; 120–24.

  133. 133.

    Berkhoff, Harvest of Despair, 256–74.

  134. 134.

    Bernd Wegner, “The War against the Soviet Union,” in Germany and the Second World War, Vol. 6, The Global War. Widening of the Conflict into a World War and the Shift of the Initiative, trans. E. Osers et al. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001), 1013.

  135. 135.

    Ibid., 1017. See also Matthew Cooper, The Phantom War. The German Struggle against Soviet Partisans 1941–1944 (London: MacDonald & Janes, 1979), 59–108; Wolodymyr Kosyk, The Third Reich and Ukraine, trans. I. Rudnytzky (New York: Peter Lang, 1993), 222–41.

  136. 136.

    Wegner, “The War against the Soviet Union,” 1012–13. See also Timm Richter, “Herrenmensch” und “Bandit” Deutsche Kriegsführung und Besatzungspolitik als Kontext des sowjetischen Partisanenkriegs (1941–44) (Münster: Lit, 1998), 64–68, 73–75. On the link between anti-partisan measures and mass killings of Jews that began in July 1941, see Waitman Beorn, “A Calculus of Complicity: The Wehrmacht, the Anti-Partisan War, and the Final Solution in White Russia, 1941–42,” Central European History 44 (2011), 308–37.

  137. 137.

    Zahn’s memoirs do not mention Plath’s name, but his diary for this period refers to Plath on several occasions. Peter von Zahn, “Aktion Esman,” pp. 3, 5, 10, 18, BArch N 1524/422. The history of this unit remains to be written. Its activities are mentioned in passing in Dieter Pohl, “Schauplatz Ukraine: Der Massenmord an den Juden im Militärverwaltungsgebiet und im Reichskommissariat 1941–1943,” in Ausbeutung, Vernichtung, Öffentlichkeit Neue Studien zur nationalsozialistischen Lagerpolitik, eds. Norbert Frei, Sybille Steinbacher, and Bernd Wagner (Munich: Sauer, 2000), 149; Dieter Pohl, “The Murder of Ukraine’s Jews under German Military Administration and in the Reich Commissariat Ukraine,” in The Shoah in Ukraine. History, Testimony, Memorialization, eds. Ray Brandon and Wendy Lower (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008), 38; Sowjetunion mit annektierten Gebieten I. Besetzte sowjetische Gebiete unter deutscher Militärverwaltung, Baltikum und Transnistrien, Vol. 7 of Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Juden durch das nationalsozialistische Deutschland 1933–1945 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2008), 389, n. 7; Sowjetunion mit annektierten Gebieten II, Vol. 8 of Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Juden durch das nationalsozialistische Deutschland 1933–1945 (Oldenbourg: De Gruyter, 2016), 311, n. 4; “Sonderkommando Plath,” accessed February 11, 2016; www.yadvashem.org/untoldstories/database/hyperlinks/sonderkommando_plath.html;“Dnieper Cliffs,” accessed February 11, 2016, www.yadvashem.org/untoldstories/database/murderSite.asp?site_id=304;“Pliskunovka Ravine,” accessed February 11, 2016, www.yadvashem.org/untoldstories/database/murderSite.asp?site_id=617.

  138. 138.

    Theo Schulte, The German Army and Nazi Policies in Occupied Russia (Oxford: Berg, 1989), 234–39.

  139. 139.

    The actions of Sonderkommando Plath, and the role of the attached police unit, are described in great detail in materials collected between 1965 and 1977 by the Würzburg prosecutor’s office in connection with the – ultimately unsuccessful – prosecution of a police lieutenant who served with the unit. BArch B 162/17059–17072. Reports of the killings in which this single individual was alleged to have participated are summarized in a prosecution document dated July 3, 1972. See “Verfügung,” B 162/17071, pp. 5443–48. The total amounted to over 8,700. And this included only killings about which the prosecution team had been able to find evidence, such as a witness. It is likely that the total number was in the tens of thousands. I am grateful to Dr. Andrej Angrick of the Hamburg Foundation for the Promotion of Science and Culture for informing me about the existence of these documents.

  140. 140.

    Deposition of A.C. of September 13, 1966, BArch B 162/17063, p. 3475. Similar accounts of the unit’s methods can be found in the depositions of A.H. of October 9, 1947, BArch B 162/17603, pp. 3392–93, and of K.S. of September 12, 1966, BArch B 162/17603, pp. 3452–59.

  141. 141.

    Declaration of K.K., BArch B 162/17063, pp. 3462–66; Declaration of A.H. of April 12, 1967, p. 3616.

  142. 142.

    Peter von Zahn to Christa von Zahn, March 8, 1943, p. 1, BArch N 1524/423.

  143. 143.

    Wegner, “The War against the Soviet Union,” 1013, n. 238.

  144. 144.

    Zahn, Stimme der ersten Stunde, 184.

  145. 145.

    Ibid., 184–85.

  146. 146.

    Zahn, “Aktion Esman,” p. 10, entry of January 23, 1943, BArch N 1524/422.

  147. 147.

    Zahn, “Aktion Esman,” p. 1, BArch N 1524/422.

  148. 148.

    Zahn, Stimme der ersten Stunde, 182.

  149. 149.

    Zahn, “Aktion Esman,” p. 11, entries for January 26, 1943 and January 27, 1943. Some German commanders came to similar conclusions. Richter, “Herrenmensch” und “Bandit,” 64, 74–75.

  150. 150.

    The suggestion that religious or quasi-religious ideologies motivated Germany’s rivals and threatened a realistic resolution of international conflicts can also be found in the contemporary writings of conservative historians. See Siegfried Kaehler, “Bemerkungen zu einem Marginal Bismarcks von 1887,” in Historische Zeitschrift 167 (1943): 98–115, which discussed Bismarck’s view that the influence of religion and morality on the policies of both British Prime Minister Gladstone and Tsarist officials made it difficult for both countries to follow more coldly realistic, and peaceful, policies. One can assume that the article was written with an eye on contemporary events. Gerhard Ritter, Zahn’s dissertation adviser, was the editor of the Historische Zeitschrift who was responsible for the publication of Kaehler’s article. Walter Bußmann, “Siegfried Kaehler: Persönlichkeit und Werk – Ein Essay,” in Siegfried A. Kaehler. Briefe 1900–1963, 67.

  151. 151.

    Peter von Zahn to Christa von Zahn, May 29, 1943, p. 2, BArch N 524/423.

  152. 152.

    Peter von Zahn to Christa von Zahn, March 27, 1943, p. 2 (reverse side), BArch N 524/423.

  153. 153.

    Peter von Zahn to Christa von Zahn, April 18, 1943, BArch N 1524/423.

  154. 154.

    Peter von Zahn to Christa von Zahn, May 20, 1943, BArch N 524/423.

  155. 155.

    Peter von Zahn to Christa von Zahn, May 4, 1943, p. 2, BArch N 524/423.

  156. 156.

    Peter von Zahn to Christa von Zahn, March 13, 1943, BArch N 1524/423.

  157. 157.

    Peter von Zahn to Christa von Zahn, March 27, 1943, p. 2, BArch N 1524/423.

  158. 158.

    Peter von Zahn to Christa von Zahn, March 27, 1943, p. 2, BArch N 1524/423.

  159. 159.

    Peter von Zahn to Christa von Zahn, May 4, 1943, p. 2, BArch N 1524/423.

  160. 160.

    Peter von Zahn to Christa von Zahn, February 14, 1943, p. 2, BArch N 1524/423.

  161. 161.

    Peter von Zahn to Christa von Zahn, August 2, 1943, BArch N 1524/423. For a similar remark see a letter of March 15, 1943, p. 3, BArch N 1524/423.

  162. 162.

    Peter von Zahn to Christa von Zahn, March 2, 1943, p. 1, BArch N 1524/423.

  163. 163.

    Morat, Von der Tat zur Gelassenheit, 216–24; Stephan Reinhardt, Alfred Andersch. Eine Biographie (Zürich: Diogenes, 1990), 68–69.

  164. 164.

    Walter Struve, Elites against Democracy. Leadership Ideals in Bourgeois Political Thought in Germany, 1890–1933 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1973), 401–10, quotation at 403.

  165. 165.

    Peter von Zahn to Christa von Zahn, March 13, 1943, BArch N 1524/423.

  166. 166.

    Peter von Zahn to Christa von Zahn, March 3, 1943, p. 1, BArch N 1524/423.

  167. 167.

    Peter von Zahn to Christa von Zahn, April 6, 1943, p. 1, BArch N 1524/423.

  168. 168.

    Peter von Zahn to Christa von Zahn, April 13, 1943, p. 1, BArch N 1524/423. In a later letter Zahn described recommending Jünger to his brother. Peter von Zahn to Christa von Zahn, May 28, 1943, p. 2, BArch N 1524/423.

  169. 169.

    Peter von Zahn to Christa von Zahn, February 27, 1943, p. 2, BArch N 1524/423.

  170. 170.

    Peter von Zahn to Christa von Zahn, April 13, 1943, pp. 1–2, BArch N 1524/423.

  171. 171.

    Peter von Zahn to Christa von Zahn, undated letter, apparently from July or August 1943, BArch N 1524/423. The date of the letter is suggested by references at its end to Christa’s second pregnancy, which was apparently quite advanced. Christa gave birth to a second daughter at the end of August 1943. Peter von Zahn to Christa von Zahn, August 29, 1943, BArch N 1524/423.

  172. 172.

    Peter von Zahn to Christa von Zahn, undated letter, apparently from July or August 1943, BArch N 1524/423.

  173. 173.

    Peter von Zahn to Christa von Zahn, June 19, 1943, pp. 1 (reverse side) and 2, BArch N 1524/423.

  174. 174.

    Ibid., p. 2 and reverse side of p. 2.

  175. 175.

    Ibid., pp. 2 (reverse side), 3.

  176. 176.

    Zahn, Stimme der ersten Stunde, 200. Virginia von Zahn, email message to author, September 4, 2016.

  177. 177.

    Undated letter addressed to “Sehr geehrter Herr Oberleutnant,” BArch N 1524/422.

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    Eli Nathans

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Nathans, E. (2017). Student and Soldier in the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany. In: Peter von Zahn's Cold War Broadcasts to West Germany. Palgrave Studies in the History of the Media. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50615-9_2

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