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Authors: Jochen von Lang
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office at the Reichswehr ministry and well known for his direct line to the Nazi party, requesting that he make a statement. As Fritsch voiced his suspicion that the Reichswehr and SA were only to be turned against one another in some sort of intrigue, Reichenau commented, “That could be true, but it’s too late now.”
This would explain why Fritsch became so upset at the sight of the black uniforms. Wolff found it amusing, however, that just three days after the bloodbath the disturbed general was just looking very much beside himself. For Wolff, going to receptions, celebrations, and reviews increasingly became a part of his duties, either as his master’s constant and decorative companion or as his no less impressive personal representative. With his new office he rented a conveniently located apartment, a seven-room house, in the fashionable neighborhood of Dahlem, despite his low monthly salary, which was the norm for the Party. If his family was to come to the capital of the Reich, he did not want them to feel hemmed in. The house in Bogenhausen was sold and with that money Wolff bought a piece of property in Rottach-Egern on Lake Tegern, now called, for some reason, the “Lago di Bonzo” because more and more prominent Nazis were settling there. Even Heinrich Himmler had given up his modest estate in Waldtrudering for a more suitable home. Wolff proclaimed that he would build the family’s ancestral seat on the lake property. Moreover, the house was also necessary since Hitler resided on the Obersalzberg during most of the vacation months.
Himmler now had the rank of Reichsleiter within the Party. Regarding his police duties, the Reich minister of the interior, Dr. Wilhelm Frick, was still above him, but he hardly had to worry about his opinions. During an interrogation in Nuremberg after the war, Wolff said, “As a jurist the minister did not incur the Führer’s favor; to him he was just a bureaucrat. Frick never got into any arguments with Himmler because he knew that Hitler would always say that the Reichsführer was right.”
In the leadership of the SS, Himmler could just about do as he pleased. Hitler usually only clipped the wings of his birds of paradise if they got in his way. It didn’t bother him that everyone had different views of what National Socialist Germany was supposed to be and that the Party andits satellite organizations were anything but a monolithic block. Himmler had even thrown together a rather abstruse program from various kinds of sources: racial delusions, arbitrary interpretations of history, theories by would-be scientists, rules of secret societies and monastic religious orders, heroic cults, the occult, natural medicine, and anti-Christian religious musings.
As first adjutant (April 4, 1934), and even more upon becoming the top adjutant (November 9, 1935), Wolff zealously served that program like a convinced disciple. Typical of this attitude was his relationship to Christianity. As a child he had been baptized in the Protestant church, where religious belief was an integral part of bourgeois respectability. As an officer in the Kaiser’s army, he was brought up in the traditional alliance of throne and altar. Like so many middle-class Germans during the Weimar Republic, he saw in the Christian churches a bulwark of defense against godless Marxism and a factor of order in society. He and his family went to church services regularly in their community of Munich-Bogenhausen; sometimes he even attended wearing his SS uniform. He had his daughters Irene (born in 1930) and Helga (born in 1934) baptized. “The fact that he made himself available to the parish council in the church community was further evidence of his upstanding and consciously devout attitude,” as retired pastor Ernst Veit was to state later on. This was certainly a de-nazification certificate used by the former SS Führer to whitewash his reputation in 1945 when he was accused of being a militant Nazi
This would explain why Fritsch became so upset at the sight of the black uniforms. Wolff found it amusing, however, that just three days after the bloodbath the disturbed general was just looking very much beside himself. For Wolff, going to receptions, celebrations, and reviews increasingly became a part of his duties, either as his master’s constant and decorative companion or as his no less impressive personal representative. With his new office he rented a conveniently located apartment, a seven-room house, in the fashionable neighborhood of Dahlem, despite his low monthly salary, which was the norm for the Party. If his family was to come to the capital of the Reich, he did not want them to feel hemmed in. The house in Bogenhausen was sold and with that money Wolff bought a piece of property in Rottach-Egern on Lake Tegern, now called, for some reason, the “Lago di Bonzo” because more and more prominent Nazis were settling there. Even Heinrich Himmler had given up his modest estate in Waldtrudering for a more suitable home. Wolff proclaimed that he would build the family’s ancestral seat on the lake property. Moreover, the house was also necessary since Hitler resided on the Obersalzberg during most of the vacation months.
Himmler now had the rank of Reichsleiter within the Party. Regarding his police duties, the Reich minister of the interior, Dr. Wilhelm Frick, was still above him, but he hardly had to worry about his opinions. During an interrogation in Nuremberg after the war, Wolff said, “As a jurist the minister did not incur the Führer’s favor; to him he was just a bureaucrat. Frick never got into any arguments with Himmler because he knew that Hitler would always say that the Reichsführer was right.”
In the leadership of the SS, Himmler could just about do as he pleased. Hitler usually only clipped the wings of his birds of paradise if they got in his way. It didn’t bother him that everyone had different views of what National Socialist Germany was supposed to be and that the Party andits satellite organizations were anything but a monolithic block. Himmler had even thrown together a rather abstruse program from various kinds of sources: racial delusions, arbitrary interpretations of history, theories by would-be scientists, rules of secret societies and monastic religious orders, heroic cults, the occult, natural medicine, and anti-Christian religious musings.
As first adjutant (April 4, 1934), and even more upon becoming the top adjutant (November 9, 1935), Wolff zealously served that program like a convinced disciple. Typical of this attitude was his relationship to Christianity. As a child he had been baptized in the Protestant church, where religious belief was an integral part of bourgeois respectability. As an officer in the Kaiser’s army, he was brought up in the traditional alliance of throne and altar. Like so many middle-class Germans during the Weimar Republic, he saw in the Christian churches a bulwark of defense against godless Marxism and a factor of order in society. He and his family went to church services regularly in their community of Munich-Bogenhausen; sometimes he even attended wearing his SS uniform. He had his daughters Irene (born in 1930) and Helga (born in 1934) baptized. “The fact that he made himself available to the parish council in the church community was further evidence of his upstanding and consciously devout attitude,” as retired pastor Ernst Veit was to state later on. This was certainly a de-nazification certificate used by the former SS Führer to whitewash his reputation in 1945 when he was accused of being a militant Nazi
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