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Mysteries of the Third Reich
Bedtime Stories 11 DEC 2019.
Part One of our Mysteries of the Third Reich series - In the aftermath of World War Two, the victorious Allied nations despatched numerous military expeditions into the Antarctic region. Did these battleships weigh anchor in the name of science and exploration, or did they set sail in search of something far more sinister? An evil, that dwelt under the ice...
Evil Under The Ice | Mysteries of the Third Reich Part One
Part Two of our Mysteries of the Third Reich series - The German war machine’s efforts to turn the tide of conflict in their favour have given rise to numerous tales involving advanced and dangerous weaponry. But amidst the rumours of alien technology and paranormal experimentation, one story in particular stands out. That of a mysterious machine, the ultimate purpose of which remains an enduring enigma. What was Die Glocke?
For Whom the Bell Tolls | Mysteries of the Third Reich Part Two
Sex, Cyanide and Nazi Wives: The Hitler-Worshipping Women Who Married Monsters
Adolf Hitler was more relaxed and comfortable in the company of women - as long as they unconditionally adored him, didn't discuss politics and conformed to the stereotypes he found attractive
The Goebbels are saluted on arrival at Berchtesgaden, site of Hitler's Bavarian Alps retreat
Gertrud Scholtz-Klink was the most powerful woman in Adolf Hitler's Germany. At least on paper.
The qualified nurse joined the Nazi party in 1930 and four years later, she was made Reich Women's Leader.
Over the next few years, she became head of the Women's Bureau set up to get women into work and established the Nazi Mothers' Service, which taught women about their duties.
She designed posters and invented slogans, wrote books and pamphlets, gave hundreds of speeches at rallies, went on lecture tours and broadcast on the radio.
Yet Hitler couldn't stand her. She was too plain-looking and the Führer hated women who were engaged in politics, thinking it was unfeminine.
She was also ignored by the wives of the Nazi elite and excluded from their many privileges.
Theirs was a gilded lifestyle, courtesy of the Führer. His interest in them was bound up with his need for an extended family - he took great care choosing Christmas and birthday presents for the wives and their children.
He was more relaxed and comfortable in the company of women, as long as they unconditionally adored him, didn't discuss politics and conformed to the stereotypes he found attractive.
The rituals of Aryan family life - births, weddings, funerals - were inextricably linked to Nazi ideology.
Perhaps this is why history has taken these women at face value, treating them as minor characters? Falling in and out of love Worrying about where to send the kids to school. Planning dinner parties, picnics and holidays.
(Image: ullstein bild via Getty Images)
While they enjoyed luxury lifestyles and VIP status, they also endured broken marriages, cheating husbands, suicide, assassination, desertion, impoverishment and incarceration. But despite all these trials and tribulations, their commitment to Hitler's cause never wavered, in some cases long after the war.
And any power the top Nazi wives had was entirely dependent on his goodwill.
Hitler could reduce them to nothing with a wave of his hand. He was particularly close to Gerda Bormann, wife of party official Martin Bormann, Ilse Hess, the wife of his deputy Rudolf Hess, and Magda Goebbels, wife of Hitler's propaganda chief Joseph.
Margarete Himmler and Lina Heydrich, whose husbands would respectively run the SS and Gestapo under Hitler's rule, were equally in awe.
And as my new book, Nazi Wives, reveals, Hitler wasn't beyond matchmaking.
In the spring of 1920, Ilse Prõhl moved into a student hostel on the outskirts of Munich. Her father had been a respected doctor who treated members of the Prussian court in Berlin and became a chief military surgeon.
A bright and popular pupil, she was keen on music and literature. She also enjoyed hiking and camping.
One evening, Ilse ran into a fellow lodger, a tall young man wearing a threadbare, tattered uniform, who gruffly introduced himself as Rudolf Hess.
Rudolf Hess, who flew to Britain on a peace mission (Image: Heritage-Images / Keystone Archives / akg-images)
She was struck by his gaunt appearance: the thick eyebrows that almost met in the middle, the sunken eyes and haunted expression.
Despite his curt manner, she was instantly attracted to the 26-year-old Hess and decided to pursue him.
Still a virgin, Hess showed absolutely no interest in sex and for the next few years, their relationship remained platonic.
It was their shared response to Hitler that forged an unbreakable bond between them and led to their marriage.
Soon after they first met, Hess heard Hitler speak at a tiny gathering.
Unable to contain his excitement, he burst into Ilse's room, raving about this amazing man and his a electrifying message.
A few weeks later, Ilse accompanied him to another Nazi gathering and was equally impressed by Hitler.
Hitler and Eva (Image: Bundesarchiv)
In recognition of their loyalty, Ilse and Hess were granted privilege of being around Hitler during his downtime unwinding with his most trusted companions as his power grew.
But after seven sexless years, Hess seemed no closer to popping the question to Ilse.
Despite shrugging off the delay ? "we were too busy to get married; he was away all the time and I was working" - she was contemplating moving abroad after finishing university.
Ilse liked to claim that it was Hitler who settled the matter while the three of them were eating at his favourite Café Osteria.
She was debating her future when Hitler took her hand, placed it in Hess's and asked if "she'd ever thought about marrying this man?"
Her answer was obviously "yes" and, unable to deny Hitler's wishes, Hess stopped procrastinating.
On December 20, 1927, they were finally married at a small civil ceremony with Hitler as one of their witnesses.
Loyalty and devotion were key character traits of the Reich ves, who either wilfully ported mass murder or turned a blind eye.
Gerda Bormann knew her husband had served time in prison for being involved n the sadistic murder of a former employee, Walter adow, in 1923.
But she appeared entirely unconcerned by his violent past.
Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, famously declared in 1929 that he would shoot his own mother if Hitler demanded it - a sentiment which left Margarete unmoved.
Lina Heydrich was totally enthralled by her husband, Reinhard, an architect of the Holocaust, refusing to denounce the mass murderer years after the full extent of his crimes became known.
None was more loyal than Eva Braun, the young woman who married Hitler but was initially treated as badly as Geli Raubel, the half-niece infatuated by her possessive uncle.
At the wedding in April 1945, attended by Magda and Joseph Goebbels and Martin Bormann, Eva wore a taffeta dress and her finest jewellery.
Magda and Goebbels with their children and her son (Image: akg-images / ullstein bild)
As their bunker was rocked by shellfire, the mood was festive. There were champagne toasts. Then Eva, just 33, and Magda said goodbye for the last time as they prepared to die with their beloved Hitler.
Hitler and his new bride killed themselves the day after the wedding using, respectively, a revolver and a cyanide capsule, while Magda and her husband took their lives along with their six children who had been in the bunker.
Bormann made a run for it but was killed by Russian forces tightening their grip on Berlin.
His wife Gerda fled over the Alps, reaching South Tyrol, where a doctor diagnosed her abdominal pains as ovarian cancer.
The disease claimed her life in March 1946 after she converted to Catholicism. In the early summer of 1945, Ilse Hess had been taken into custody by French troops before being moved to a location close to Nuremberg.
Her husband was put on trial but was spared the noose because he had mysteriously fled to Britain on a solo peace mission in 1941.
Ilse appeared before a de-Nazification tribunal in 1948 but was exonerated because of Hess's flight to the UK. It spared her any further retribution for her years of unwavering dedication to Hitler.
Actress Emmy Gõring, Luftwaffe chief Hermann's second wife, went on trial two months after Ilse.
Emmy Goering modelling one her many fur coats
The proceedings lasted two days. Sixteen witnesses testified on her behalf; Jewish friends she'd helped, residents from the retirement home for actors that Emmy had founded and famous female movie stars.
But Emmy was too high-profile a figure to be discharged with just a slap on the wrist. She was sentenced to one year in prison, time she'd already served, 30 per cent of her assets and property were seized and she was banned from acting for five years.
In May 1945, Margarete Himmler and her teenage daughter Gudrun were found in the Tyrol.
There they learned Heinrich had killed himself by taking cyanide after he was captured and his identity was discovered.
Both were taken to Nuremberg and inter- r rogated but feigned ignorance of the Holocaust. After a brief period of detention, Margarete moved to a comfy flat in Munich and lived in relative obscurity.
As to whether her husband was the driving force behind the annihilation of the Jews, Margarete shifted the blame on to Hitler.
"I think these matters were determined by the Führer," she liked to repeat. Lina Heydrich went before a de-Nazification trial in 1949 but escaped a custodial sentence.
Her husband had died in 1942 after an attempt on his life.
"I became one of the few Nazi women who never got locked up, and I was a bit sorry not to have had to do some time," she said later.
She was allowed to keep a villa in Fehmarn, a Danish island in the Baltic Sea, which she converted into a guesthouse and restaurant.
Many of her visiting trade were SS veterans and through them she was introduced to a charitable organisation called Silent Help that had been formed in November 1951 to "help all those who, as a consequence of wartime and post-war conditions, have forfeited their liberty".
There is no doubt that if Lina had been given real power in the Nazi regime she would have used it ruthlessly, without hesitation or remorse. Likewise it never occurred to Ilse she might be wrong.
A few years before her death, a film crew got into her nursing home
Watching her fend off their questions with monosyllabic, non-committal answers, it's hard to shake the feeling that despite everything, Ilse still believed it had all been worthwhile.
She died in 1995, the last of Hitler's favourite fräuleins to succumb to a natural death...something the Nazis denied to millions of their victims.
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