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Stille Hilfe
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Stille Hilfe
Die Stille Hilfe für Kriegsgefangene und Internierte (English: "Silent assistance for prisoners of war and interned persons"), abbreviated Stille Hilfe, is a relief organization for arrested, condemned and fugitive SS members, similar to the veterans' association HIAG, set up by Helene Elisabeth Princess von Isenburg (1900–1974) in 1951. The organization has come under criticism for its encouragement and support of neo-Nazis. It has also garnered a reputation for being shrouded in secrecy and thus remains a source of speculation.
Operating covertly since 1946, the organization that later became publicly active as "Stille Hilfe" aided the escape of hunted Nazi fugitives, particularly to South America. Thus Adolf Eichmann, Johann von Leers, Walter Rauff and Josef Mengele could escape to Argentina.
After the main exponents of the later association had already long formed an active network, it was decided a non-profit association should be formed primarily to facilitate a donations campaign. On 7 October 1951 the founders' meeting was held in Munich and on 15 November 1951 the organization was entered in the register of associations in the Upper Bavarian city Wolfratshausen. The first president, Helene Elizabeth, Princess von Isenburg, was chosen because of her good contacts in the aristocracy and conservative upper middle-class circles as well as the Catholic Church. Founding members of the committee included church representatives Theophil Wurm and Johannes Neuhäusler, as well as high-ranking former functionaries of the Nazi state such as the former SS-Standartenführer and head of department in the Central Reich Security Office (RSHA), Wilhelm Spengler, and SS-Obersturmbannführer Heinrich Malz, who was the personal adviser of Ernst Kaltenbrunner.
Helene Elisabeth, Princess von Isenburg explained its objectives in this way: "From the start of its efforts‚ the Stille Hilfe sought to take care of, above all, the serious needs of the prisoners of war and those interned completely without rights. Later their welfare service was active for those accused and arrested as a result of the war trials, whether in the prisons of the victors or in German penal institutions".
From the beginning of the Nuremberg Trials, the group sought to influence public opinion to prevent the death penalty. In press campaigns, personal and open letters and petitions, the accused were usually represented as innocent victims–merely those taking commands, irreproachable and having a blind faith in the Führer–who would have to suffer bitter injustice by victor's justice.
Because Princess von Isenburg was particularly devoted to the Nazi war criminals who were condemned to death in Landsberg Prison, which was under the jurisdiction of the United States military, she was affectionately known as "Mother of the Landsbergers" in order to let "Stille Hilfe" be seen primarily as a charitable organisation. The group also sought to free all of the Nazi war criminals being held in Werl Prison and Wittlich Prison, which were under the jurisdiction of the British military and the French military, respectively. They also sent more representatives to Paris (the French were holding additional Nazi war criminals under civilian law), Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands to lobby to free Nazi war criminals being held there.
The legal assistance for arrested war criminals was first organised by the attorney Rudolf Aschenauer (1913–1983), who also formulated and submitted requests for grace and revisions. The organisation paid vacation, dismissal and Christmas benefits to the prisoners and also supported their families. They were not only limited to humanitarian activities but also pursued ideological and revisionist objectives.
Princess Isenburg, a strict Catholic, tirelessly pleaded the criminals' cause in conservative circles and with high-ranking church representatives (even up to the Pope). Johannes Neuhäusler (1888–1973) in particular, who not only had suffered detention/imprisonment by the Gestapo, but also had been held by the Nazis in the Dachau concentration camp as a special prisoner, was most effective in public opinion, even among western Allied officials. The motives of the bishops lay probably less in a conscious ideological identification with the war criminals, but rather in the effort regarding reconciliation with the German past and the start of the new post-war society in West Germany. Neuhäusler explained that he wanted to repay "the bad with good". The further connections of Princess Isenburg and Aschenauer led particularly to former SS organisations such as Gauleiterkreis under Werner Naumann, which was already partly formed in Allied prisoner-of-war camps. Princess Isenburg initiated a whole series of organisations as "The working group for the rescue of the Landsberger prisoners", who were essentially financed by the churches.
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Stille Hilfe
Die Stille Hilfe für Kriegsgefangene und Internierte (English: "Silent assistance for prisoners of war and interned persons"), abbreviated Stille Hilfe, is a relief organization for arrested, condemned and fugitive SS members, similar to the veterans' association HIAG, set up by Helene Elisabeth Princess von Isenburg (1900–1974) in 1951. The organization has come under criticism for its encouragement and support of neo-Nazis. It has also garnered a reputation for being shrouded in secrecy and thus remains a source of speculation.
Operating covertly since 1946, the organization that later became publicly active as "Stille Hilfe" aided the escape of hunted Nazi fugitives, particularly to South America. Thus Adolf Eichmann, Johann von Leers, Walter Rauff and Josef Mengele could escape to Argentina.
After the main exponents of the later association had already long formed an active network, it was decided a non-profit association should be formed primarily to facilitate a donations campaign. On 7 October 1951 the founders' meeting was held in Munich and on 15 November 1951 the organization was entered in the register of associations in the Upper Bavarian city Wolfratshausen. The first president, Helene Elizabeth, Princess von Isenburg, was chosen because of her good contacts in the aristocracy and conservative upper middle-class circles as well as the Catholic Church. Founding members of the committee included church representatives Theophil Wurm and Johannes Neuhäusler, as well as high-ranking former functionaries of the Nazi state such as the former SS-Standartenführer and head of department in the Central Reich Security Office (RSHA), Wilhelm Spengler, and SS-Obersturmbannführer Heinrich Malz, who was the personal adviser of Ernst Kaltenbrunner.
Helene Elisabeth, Princess von Isenburg explained its objectives in this way: "From the start of its efforts‚ the Stille Hilfe sought to take care of, above all, the serious needs of the prisoners of war and those interned completely without rights. Later their welfare service was active for those accused and arrested as a result of the war trials, whether in the prisons of the victors or in German penal institutions".
From the beginning of the Nuremberg Trials, the group sought to influence public opinion to prevent the death penalty. In press campaigns, personal and open letters and petitions, the accused were usually represented as innocent victims–merely those taking commands, irreproachable and having a blind faith in the Führer–who would have to suffer bitter injustice by victor's justice.
Because Princess von Isenburg was particularly devoted to the Nazi war criminals who were condemned to death in Landsberg Prison, which was under the jurisdiction of the United States military, she was affectionately known as "Mother of the Landsbergers" in order to let "Stille Hilfe" be seen primarily as a charitable organisation. The group also sought to free all of the Nazi war criminals being held in Werl Prison and Wittlich Prison, which were under the jurisdiction of the British military and the French military, respectively. They also sent more representatives to Paris (the French were holding additional Nazi war criminals under civilian law), Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands to lobby to free Nazi war criminals being held there.
The legal assistance for arrested war criminals was first organised by the attorney Rudolf Aschenauer (1913–1983), who also formulated and submitted requests for grace and revisions. The organisation paid vacation, dismissal and Christmas benefits to the prisoners and also supported their families. They were not only limited to humanitarian activities but also pursued ideological and revisionist objectives.
Princess Isenburg, a strict Catholic, tirelessly pleaded the criminals' cause in conservative circles and with high-ranking church representatives (even up to the Pope). Johannes Neuhäusler (1888–1973) in particular, who not only had suffered detention/imprisonment by the Gestapo, but also had been held by the Nazis in the Dachau concentration camp as a special prisoner, was most effective in public opinion, even among western Allied officials. The motives of the bishops lay probably less in a conscious ideological identification with the war criminals, but rather in the effort regarding reconciliation with the German past and the start of the new post-war society in West Germany. Neuhäusler explained that he wanted to repay "the bad with good". The further connections of Princess Isenburg and Aschenauer led particularly to former SS organisations such as Gauleiterkreis under Werner Naumann, which was already partly formed in Allied prisoner-of-war camps. Princess Isenburg initiated a whole series of organisations as "The working group for the rescue of the Landsberger prisoners", who were essentially financed by the churches.