The Nazi Murder Machine: 13 Portraits in Evil by Ben Stevens Read Free Book Online Page B

attracted the attention of Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler , who had the tirelessly efficient young man transferred to his staff. Soon, Brant was handling almost all of Himmler’s total correspondence, which led to him having to produce anything up to eighty letters per week.

    At the end of the war, one associate of Brandt’s described him thus –

    Brandt would begin work at seven in the morning, regardless of whatever time he had gone to bed the previous evening. He only ever needed a maximum of four hours sleep.

    Barely had Himmler risen in the morning and washed, when Brandt would go to him carrying a multitude of letters, papers and files. Even while Himmler shaved, Brandt would read him the most important items in that morning’s mail. He always prefaced the telling of bad news by saying, ‘Pardon, Herr Reichsführer ’. At this, Himmler would temporarily cease shaving, in case this bad news upset his hand and so caused him to cut himself.

    Alternately complaining about being overworked, and then almost bragging about the seniority of his position within Himmler’s personal staff, Brandt was an extremely important individual. It is no exaggeration to say that he served almost as Himmler’s ears and eyes, and it was in the very manner in which he presented news to Himmler that often determined the way Himmler would react to it…

    From March through to May of 1941, Brandt saw military action, fighting in Greece as a soldier of the Artillery Regiment of the 1 st SS Panzer Division.

    But he was soon back at his beloved Himmler’s side, again producing the copious letters which his master dictated – a number of which requested that precisely 87 Jews imprisoned at the Auschwitz concentration camp be used for the proposed ‘Jewish Skeleton Collection’. This would preserve the remains of a group of Jewish Untermensch (‘sub-humans’), after that race had been entirely eradicated, in accordance with the plan known as the ‘Final Solution’.

    ( Untermensch was a term not just used for the Jews. The Nazis also used it to describe Poles, Slavs, blacks and others whom they considered to be ‘beneath’ them. Following Germany’s military victory, it was proposed that these Untermensch would be used as slave labor for the German Empire, the Third Reich, and would ultimately be worked and starved to death. The Jews, however, were to be exterminated as quickly as possible.)

    The cadaver of Berlin dairy merchant Menachem Taffel. He was transported to Auschwitz in March 1943, together with his wife and child who were gassed upon their arrival. Selected as one of the 87 ‘anatomical specimens’ for the proposed ‘Jewish Skeleton Collection’, Taffel was murdered, by gassing, in August 1943. (All but one of the ‘specimens’ were gassed, as it was deemed essential that the body, and especially the head, should not be ‘damaged’ in anyway – for example, by other methods of execution. Only one man was shot, as he began to struggle upon realizing that he was about to be put in a gas chamber.) Note the concentration camp ‘inmate number’, tattooed upon Menachem Taffel’s left forearm.

    With his customary, brisk efficiency, Brandt dealt with the correspondence concerning the ‘Jewish Skeleton Collection’ whilst simultaneously attending to the other, more mundane matters which were part-and-parcel of working for Reichsfuhrer Himmler. These might include anything from selecting suitable brides for SS men, to querying an unusually high utilities bill received by his department.

    As Germany’s defeat became certain, Brandt went into hiding with Himmler, but ultimately surrendered to a group of British soldiers.

    Brandt pictured during the Nuremberg Trials. He remained completely defiant and unrepentant to the end – and a hangman’s noose. His master, Heinrich Himmler, had already committed suicide by biting down on the cyanide capsule a British doctor had been about to discover concealed on his