Lis­ten now: One Seg­ment

NB: This descrip­tion con­tains mate­r­i­al not con­tained in the orig­i­nal broad­cast.

Against the back­ground of increased Nazi activ­i­ty in the “new” and reunit­ed Ger­many, the emer­gence of vir­u­lent Nazism in the Bun­deswehr takes on a par­tic­u­lar­ly sin­is­ter note (the Bun­deswehr is the Ger­man army.) This pro­gram exam­ines the rela­tion­ship between con­vict­ed Nazi ter­ror bomber Man­fred Roed­er and the Bun­deswehr. The per­pe­tra­tor of the bomb­ing mur­der of two immi­grants, Roed­er was select­ed to lec­ture at an elite Ger­man offi­cers acad­e­my in 1995. In addi­tion, the Bun­deswehr donat­ed a num­ber of sur­plus mil­i­tary vehi­cles to Roed­er’s organization÷a prac­tice that was not atyp­i­cal of the Bun­deswehr’s behav­ior towards oth­er Nazi orga­ni­za­tions. The Bun­deswehr was the bene­fac­tor of an orga­ni­za­tion of Waf­fen SS vet­er­ans, which also received sur­plus army vehi­cles. Sup­port for Roed­er’s activ­i­ties on behalf of the state reached to the high­est lev­els of the Ger­man gov­ern­ment, which has attempt­ed to cov­er up the affair by dis­cred­it­ing crit­ics of the army’s behav­ior. Oth­er Nazi ele­ments had been req­ui­si­tioned to lec­ture at the offi­cers acad­e­my as well. In the past, Roed­er has served as a liai­son with Nazi and fas­cist groups in oth­er coun­tries, includ­ing the Unit­ed States. The seg­ment also con­tains dis­cus­sion of the role of Third Reich vet­er­ans in the post World War II Ger­man mil­i­tary.

Man­fred Roed­er’s promi­nent role in the post-World War II Ger­man Nazi milieu owes its grav­i­tas from the fact that he had been a promi­nent Nazi jurist under Hitler. The Army’s Counter-Intel­li­gence Corps found Roed­er to be use­ful, used him and, in turn, Roed­er turned that CIC sup­port to fur­ther his post­war Nazi aims:

1.—U.S. Intel­li­gence and The Nazis by Richard Bre­it­man, Nor­man J.W. Goda, Tim­o­thy Naf­tali and Robert Wolfe; Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty Press [SC]; Copy­right 2005 by Richard Bre­it­man, Nor­man J.W. Goda, Tim­o­thy Naf­tali and Robert Wolfe; ISBN 13978–0‑521–61794‑9; p. 298.

. . . . The CIC’s inter­est was trig­gered by Ger­man Red Orches­tra sur­vivors’ call for the tri­al of Dr. Man­fred Roed­er, judge advo­cate gen­er­al and chief legal offi­cer of Air Region III (Berlin) and the chief pros­e­cu­tor to Red Orches­tra spies arrest­ed in Berlin. Lat­er known as “Hitler’s Blood­hound,” Roed­er secured Her­mann Goering’s agree­ment to try the defen­dants before a mil­i­tary court-mar­tial and demand­ed the death sen­tences that were hand­ed down, even to many whose role was inci­den­tal. Roed­er pre­pared his cas­es with Gestapo help. . . .

2.– U.S. Intel­li­gence and The Nazis by Richard Bre­it­man, Nor­man J.W. Goda, Tim­o­thy Naf­tali and Robert Wolfe; Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty Press [SC]; Copy­right 2005 by Richard Bre­it­man, Nor­man J.W. Goda, Tim­o­thy Naf­tali and Robert Wolfe; ISBN 13978–0‑521–61794‑9; p. 299.

. . . . By 1947, the CIC [Army Counter-Intel­li­gence Corps] in Regens­burg launched a full inves­ti­ga­tion based on the assump­tions that Red Orches­tra sur­vivors in Ger­many were still work­ing for the Sovi­ets and that for­mer Nazis were those best suit­ed to dis­cov­er who and where they were. The CIC Spe­cial Agent Ben­jamin Gor­by led the inves­ti­ga­tion. Roed­er, a want­ed war crim­i­nal, would be the key source. [Ital­ics mine—D.E.] . . .

3.– U.S. Intel­li­gence and The Nazis by Richard Bre­it­man, Nor­man J.W. Goda, Tim­o­thy Naf­tali and Robert Wolfe; Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty Press [SC]; Copy­right 2005 by Richard Bre­it­man, Nor­man J.W. Goda, Tim­o­thy Naf­tali and Robert Wolfe; ISBN 13978–0‑521–61794‑9; p. 300.

. . . . Once in the CIC’s care, Roed­er took advan­tage, not­ing that the Red Orches­tra “is still alive and active in more than one coun­try.” This com­ment drove fur­ther inves­ti­ga­tion. Gor­by quick­ly insist­ed that the inter­ro­ga­tion, orig­i­nal­ly envi­sioned for three weeks, now became a project of six months or more that would include not only Roed­er and [Wal­ter] Hup­penkothen, but also “oth­er per­son­al­i­ties who pos­sess a wealth of infor­ma­tion and expe­ri­ence in the field of coun­teres­pi­onage and who, to the best knowl­edge of this head­quar­ters, have not . . . been ful­ly exploit­ed.”. . .

4.– U.S. Intel­li­gence and The Nazis by Richard Bre­it­man, Nor­man J.W. Goda, Tim­o­thy Naf­tali and Robert Wolfe; Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty Press [SC]; Copy­right 2005 by Richard Bre­it­man, Nor­man J.W. Goda, Tim­o­thy Naf­tali and Robert Wolfe; ISBN 13978–0‑521–61794‑9; p. 301.

 . . . . The office of The Chief of Coun­sel, which thought Roed­er and Hup­penkothen both deserved long prison sen­tences, was stunned that the CIC had used them. On their return to the con­trol of the war crimes author­i­ties, nei­ther man would answer ques­tions, claim­ing that they were work­ing for the CIC . . . .

5.– U.S. Intel­li­gence and The Nazis by Richard Bre­it­man, Nor­man J.W. Goda, Tim­o­thy Naf­tali and Robert Wolfe; Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty Press [SC]; Copy­right 2005 by Richard Bre­it­man, Nor­man J.W. Goda, Tim­o­thy Naf­tali and Robert Wolfe; ISBN 13978–0‑521–61794‑9; p. 302.

. . . . By 1951, Man­fred Roed­er had used his past as a Nazi sup­port­er to become a West Ger­man polit­i­cal fig­ure on the rad­i­cal right. His rela­tion­ship with the CIC in 1947 and 1948 showed him that anti-com­mu­nism offered pro­tec­tion from pros­e­cu­tion and vin­di­cat­ed his view of Germany’s Nazi past. Though not a mem­ber of the Social­ist Reich Par­ty (SRP)—a neo-Nazi par­ty found­ed in 1949 and banned in 1952—Roeder sup­port­ed the SRP and was close to one of its founders, a volkisch writer named Fritz Dorls. . . .