Video Audio icon An illustration of an audio speaker. Audio Software icon An illustration of a 3. Software Images icon An illustration of two photographs. Images Donate icon An illustration of a heart shape Donate Ellipses icon An illustration of text ellipses. Turn coat : a novel of the Dresden files Item Preview. EMBED for wordpress. Want more? Advanced embedding details, examples, and help! When it comes to the magical ruling body known as the White Council, Harry Dresden, Chicago's only professional wizard, keeps his nose clean and his head down.
For years, the Council has held a death mark over Harry's head. Some think of him as a black sheep, others as a sacrificial lamb. And no one regards him with more suspicion and disdain than Morgan, a veteran warden with a grudge against anyone who bends the rules. Like Harry. Taylor later claimed that during the morning session of January 7, , he had submitted papers before the IMT, unaware that the British had already tried Falkenhorst in August In fact, the British case against Falkenhorst took place some months after the January session at Nuremberg, opening on Monday, July 19 Falkenhorst was found guilty primarily through documentary and forensic evidence introduced into the proceedings by Colonel Scotland.
His final sentence after judicial review was life imprisonment but he was released during the general amnesties of the s. The difference between the two systems in their respective handling of Nazi perpetrators was also significant.
His interrogation report also included several references to Bach-Zelewski. By contrast, during an interrogation in October , Bach-Zelewski confessed to being responsible for the removal of Odilo Globocnik, a remarkable admission, indicating greater influence in Poland than has hitherto been recognised. The return to style measures and the presence of Bach-Zelewski, even in the background, exposes the short-sighted implications of not sharing intelligence information after Indeed Bach- Zelewski gave copious amounts of evidence and information, the problem was one of interpretation and analysis.
Under interrogation, Bach-Zelewski waxed long and lyrical about the Nazi regime. In October , he absolved the ordinary German soldier and Hitler from all blame. He apportioned guilt to the men around Hitler. He believed they had not told Hitler the truth. Later during the same interrogation, he said: Moreover the fight against partisans was gradually used as an excuse to carry out other measures, such as the extermination of Jews and Gypsies, the systematic reduction of the Slavic peoples by some 30,, souls in order to ensure the supremacy of the German people , and the terrorisation of civilians by shooting and looting.
At the time I was elected to the Reichstag [] there was an additional name, Zelewski, but now my full name is only Erich von dem Bach. He was undoubtedly courageous, suffering several wounds and gassing in , experiences which left him with a pathological fear of pain. He survived the war, another rootless ex-soldier, and but for the brutalization of post-war German politics, he might have disappeared from history.
His military career seemed secure even in the Reichswehr. Between until , he again saw action when his regiment was committed to the German-Polish border conflict. Years later, he was embroiled in a heated exchange with a jurist and boasted to having ordered his soldiers to beat to death an elderly Polish woman who had thrown hot water over him. The actual reason s for his departure from the army remains obscure.
He told his interrogators that his sisters had married Jews, contending their marriages caused the end of his army career. Given his choice of political party, the DNVP, the friends and comrades who participated in the Buchrucker putsch, indicate at the very least he was on the fringes of military revolt. Schlesisches Nr. The putsch arose from an order to disband the Black Reichswehr, an army of secretly trained reservists, imposed by the Allied occupation powers.
The government complied, the putsch was crushed and under Weimar jurisdiction, Buchrucker was tried and found guilty of treason along with his cohorts. This story had to minimise his involvement in the subsequent Nazi putsch against Stennes, in which he held a leading role. Under interrogation, Bach-Zelewski stated that after his discharge he became a battalion commander of the Black Reichswehr. This proved to be another example of his different testimonies not being compared, in this case with his allegations of becoming a Border Police official Grenzschutzpolizei or that he had settled down as a simple farmer.
He stressed that alongside Schenckendorff, his designated army commander, they sent umpteen reports, through their respective service channels in order to prevent the killings. Taylor then quickly examined his service record in Soviet Russia. Compiling evidence from these interrogations shows that Bach-Zelewski gave an accurate impression of the size and scale of the operations for which he was responsible.
In intelligence terms alone, he claimed receipt of over 15, security reports from across occupied Europe daily. The information taken from these reports was transferred onto the operational maps used by Hitler during situation conferences.
This speeded up the decision-making process and allowed troops to be deployed with maximum effect. Then Taylor passed the prosecution cross-examination to the Soviet Union. Just how the Americans informed the Soviets of their intention to use Bach-Zelewski in the courtroom remains unclear. Even the morning meeting of January 7, , did not refer to him.
During the same meeting, the question of witnesses was also raised. A career soldier, he had served in the Imperial Russian Army before the Bolshevik revolution. Pokrovsky opened with an unfounded accusation that Bach-Zelewski was the commander of Einsatzgruppen B assigned to killing operations.
Pokrovsky asked him how it was that the Army Command willingly strengthened its forces with criminals to fight partisans. I am of the opinion that this step was closely connected with a speech made by Heinrich Himmler at Wewelsburg at the beginning of , prior to the campaign against Russia, when he spoke of the purpose of the Russian campaign, which was, he said, to decimate the Slav population by 30 million, and that it was in order to achieve this purpose that troops of such inferior calibre were introduced.
In other words, by implication Bach-Zelewski was suggesting he had saved millions from extermination. This is difficult question to answer. Significantly, in The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials Taylor suggested his prosecution was a resounding success; given the evidence and findings, thus far, this appears not to be the case. Who, in , could comprehend or make an overall general assessment of the breadth of such depraved ideas. Nick Terry for granting access to his research notes on the subject of the Hunger Plan.
He could not explain the method to achieve this grandiose plan, without incriminating himself and castigating everyone who had served in the East with shame and guilt. The defence Since the final arguments and judgements in October , there has been a general assumption that the defence was inept.
This simplistic view washes over what was in fact a highly complex scenario. Taylor expected Bach- Zelewski to compromise the defence, forcing a bitter cross-examination and self- incrimination. If the plan worked, the defendants would reveal the transparency of crimes circulating at the highest levels of the Nazi regime. This in turn would prove the uninhibited transfer of knowledge of crimes and the correlation between policy, ideology and events; ipso facto both the Nazi conspiracy and the defendants collective guilt established.
What Taylor did not foresee, or later comprehend, was how the defendants and witness resorted to self- protection. In contrast to the prosecution, the defence process acquired the vibrancy of old relationships.
With the exception of Rudolf Hess, Bach-Zelewski had strong connections to all the defendants. Bach-Zelewski either ignored or avoided the trap, agreeing that there was no definition.
Upon his appointment, Himmler ordered him to formulate new regulations. Stahmer then introduced a question of command integrity. Without regulations and being the overall commander of the German troops, he asked if it was his task to instruct the troops in regards to conduct.
Bach-Zelewski explained his authority to give commands was limited to when he personally led an operation. Stahmer asked was he not the commander of all anti-partisan forces. The reply was unequivocal that he had no units. Stahmer then asked how then was he able to conduct the fight against the partisans. The witness reiterated that he could only command troops if the respective local commander released them but added that often the OKW and the OKH directly gave him troops.
Stahmer latched on to his answer and asked if the troops assigned to him were under his command. Former Wehrmacht operations commander, Alfred Jodl, confined his questions to the field of military expertise. His legal counsel Dr. He asked if the chaos was so extensive, why had he not changed the system.
Feigning 56 Oberkommando d. I could not issue orders, I had no disciplinary powers, and I was not an appointing authority for military courts.
During the Warsaw Uprising , he orchestrated a drumhead court-martial and execution of Bronislav Kaminski, the brutal commander of a Russian collaboration force, probably to remove an inconvenient witness. This concerned casualty ratios and body counts. Bach-Zelewski requested the right to reply in detail. Suppression of the Warsaw Uprising : enemy dead 1, identified but , estimated , wounded 15,, prisoners included 5 generals, 2, officers, and 17, others.
Those deported listed , - 70, to Germany , 61, unfit for work , , unfit for work and kept in the General-Government , 3,, others and 29, sick. Bach-Zelewski refused to rise to the bait and denied all knowledge of the directive, which probably saved himself and Telford Taylor much embarrassment.
Interestingly, on January 17, , ten days after the session, Taylor asked Bach-Zelewski to comment on the Kampfweisung document. The three civilian defendants all connected with the Nazi economy and ideology also cross-examined Bach-Zelewski with a view to their own self-interest.
He hoped that Bach-Zelewski might make a general statement about the Nazi hierarchy which would place Sauckel lower down the pecking order, possibly even behind Albert Speer. He achieved very little. From January , Bach-Zelewski began meeting Sauckel regularly. Instructions issued by OKW, on July 8, and August 18, , confirmed that all captives from security actions were to be treated as forced labour. He instructed them on the importance of labour to the German war effort and ordered the vigorous conduct of operations to round up labour.
Villages found guilty of aiding the bands were subject to collective reprisals, ranging from increased labour quotas to total destruction by burning. He asked Bach-Zelewski if he was aware of the protests registered by the Nazi administration in central Russia against the SS. Bach-Zelewski confirmed this. Bach-Zelewski stated that not only had he reconciled his conscience, but had pursued promotion, intending to solve the chaos from and Thoma continued, asking if he knew nothing could be achieved, why continue with it.
Bach-Zelewski conceded to not being aware of this prior to his promotion. Ohlendorf had admitted to killing 90, people but said it was not in harmony with National Socialist ideology. An acrimonious relationship developed with Erich Koch, the Gauleiter. Schacht was openly critical of the attacks on Jews and their effect on German trade.
Bach-Zelewski became enraged during the speech, hurling accusations at Schacht for being a traitor to the German people. He announced, in full view of the conference that one day the Jews would pay for their crimes. He then ordered the SS and police to leave the conference in protest against Schacht. Among the conferees were representatives from the army and navy; they reported the incident to their respective commands, painting the impression that Bach-Zelewski was a fine comrade with perfectly correct behaviour.
He reported the incident to Himmler and demanded retribution. It was a pivotal moment: the transfer of his allegiance from the army to the SS. Intervention by Daluege and Bach-Zelewski saved Hitler. The first known case in involved the murder of three communists. Eventually the German Federal Republic imprisoned Bach-Zelewski for life, in , for killing six communists. Partisans or bandits, Jews and Slavs, millions of victims, all were of little importance to men gorged on unlimited power and perpetrators in genocide.
Their cross-examinations were about authority, competence, status, hierarchy, but mostly about minimising self-incrimination. Irrespective of the theories of polycracy, social Darwinism and the leadership principle, their silent standoff was a mutual defence.
That defendants like Keitel, Frank, Frick and Kaltenbrunner opted to remain silent and this speaks volumes about the depth of Nazi collusion. The words challenge the thrust of his evidence and suggest his expertise was ignored, in which case his status was undermined but again restored by Taylor.
Wilhelm List et al, known as the Hostage case 7, , defence cross-examination. Bach-Zelewski explained to the court that he had been in jail in Nuremberg since , interrogated over 80 times by the prosecution and 20 times by the defence. Reply, No. Were you ever told you might be extradited? Reply No. There had been opposition to the adoption of Bach-Zelewski as an expert witness. Taylor confirms that he was forced to seek approval from Robert Jackson, the U.
Chief Prosecutor, and it was granted. Taylor took a different tack, especially since Bach-Zelewski had subsequently retracted his testimony at Nuremburg. He doubted his credibility, which led him to ask other witnesses for their opinions. Goldensohn interviewed Otto Ohlendorf on March 1.
He confirmed meeting Bach-Zelewski twice - in Berlin and then after the war in the Nuremberg cells. Ohlendorf thought Bach-Zelewski was barely recognisable from the man he first met, then an egocentric, selfishly ambitious to the absolute exclusion of others. Daluege, Schenckendorff and Himmler etc. Schellenberg said Bach-Zelewski was a complicated personality, unable to distinguish between truth and lies.
Schellenberg believed that Bach-Zelewski lacked perspective, once wrapped-up in something he was unable to stop and so matters turned inevitably into a life or death cause.
There was perhaps more than a hint that Goldensohn was judging Bach-Zelewski as an anal-character. In , Bach-Zelewski changed religion from Catholic to Lutheran, probably in an act of fealty to Daluege.
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