I suspect my grandfather's hands shook as he took the measurements and fitted the suit of this particular German officer, who must have been pleased with the finished article as he then offered my grandfather and brother-in-law a warning: "Get out, while you still can. There's a round-up coming."
...
Dr Werner Best was a doctor of law and had an uncanny ability to bend the law in his favour. After the war he not only convinced the Danish courts to commute his death sentence to a prison sentence, but years later - when he was accused of signing the death warrants of 8,000 Poles - he managed to convince the judge that he was too sick to stand trial. The case collapsed and he lived for a further 17 years as a free man before dying of natural causes.
...
A key priority for Best, as the Third Reich's plenipotentiary in Denmark, was to maintain the flow of agricultural goods from Denmark to Germany. ... Hitler's order to make Denmark "free of Jews" - Judenrein - therefore came at a bad time for Best.
...
And when it became apparent that the primary escape route was across the Oresund, all German patrol boats on the water were ordered into harbour. They remained there for three weeks, when the bulk of the escapees were crossing to Sweden. The official explanation was that the boats needed a paint job. All of them - at the same time.
...
When the extent of the failure of the round-up became apparent, Hitler telegrammed Best ordering him to explain himself. He responded that he had done as he had been ordered - he had made Denmark Judenrein.
Maybe he thought Hitler's order was evil, or maybe simply stupid. He seems to have participated freely enough in the Nazi rise, but had qualms about scorched-earth during its fall.. People are complicated.
No comments:
Post a Comment