Wilhelm Höttl

Wilhelm Höttl
SS-Führer Dr. phil. Wilhelm Höttl My job until the German collapse was that of a consultant and deputy group leader in Department VI of the Reich Security Main Office. Amt VI of the RSHA was the so-called foreign office of the SD and was responsible for intelligence services in all countries of the world. It is roughly equivalent to the British Intelligence Service. The group I belonged to was responsible for intelligence services in southeastern Europe (the Balkans).
Birth date	19 March 1915
Place of birth	Wien-Gumpendorf, Austria-Hungary
Death date	27 June 1999(1999-06-27) (aged 84)
Place of death	Bad Aussee, Republic of Austria
Allegiance	National Socialist Germany
Service/branch	SS Waffen SS
Years of service	1937–1945
Rank	SS-Sturmbannführer/SS-Obersturmbannführer
Unit	Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler RSHA
Battles/wars	World War II
Awards	War Merit Cross (1939)
Relations	∞ 1938 Elfriede Zelinger

Wilhelm "Willi" Georg Höttl (19 March 1915 – 27 June 1999) was a historian, SS officer, spy, publisher, author (also under the pseudonym Walter Hagen) and school director. Höttl was notorious for alleging during the Nuremberg trials that Adolf Eichmann had stated to him that six million Jews had died during World War II. On the literature page of the "Süddeutsche Zeitung" (SZ), Willi Winkler describes in great detail how Dr. Höttl, who after the war worked for Allied Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) disguised as the publisher of the "Nibelungen-Verlag" in Linz, together with the now forgotten writer Bruno Brehm, who was once revered by Hitler as a state poet for his trilogy "The Thrones Fall" and published by Piper after the war, and the Piper-Verlag functioned as a money laundering machine in the 1950s.

Life

Wilhelm Höttl was born in the 6th district of Vienna, the son of the jeweler Johann "Hans" Baptist Höttl (b. 11 August 1876 in Vienna; d. 5 March 1948 ibid) and his wife Maria Georgia Josefia, née Renner (b. 7 December 1882 in Vienna; d. 5 March 1962 ibid) and was baptized on 11 April 1915. His parents had married on 5 March 1905 in Vienna-St. Leopold. In Vienna, he attended elementary school and then Gymnasium in the 5th district, on Reinprechtstraße. From October 1931 to 1 February 1934, he was a member of the Hitler Youth.

Höttl studied history, German and Geography at the University of Vienna from 1933. During his studies he was a member of the Catholic youth movement "Neuland", but had also become an illegal member of the NSDAP on 1 March 1934. In the same month he became an employee of the NSDAP Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers SS in Vienna. To gather information, he built up a network of informants, including people from various social backgrounds. On 1 February 1934, he joined the SS (SS number 309,510). Through this work for the NSDAP, he came into contact with Ernst Kaltenbrunner in 1937. In the same year, before the "Anschluss" of Austria to the German Reich, he received his doctorate in philology from the University of Vienna with a thesis on the German gymnastics movement of Friedrich Ludwig Jahn.

On 27 June 1938, Höttl again applied for membership in the party and was accepted retroactively to 1 May 1938 (membership number 6,309,016). Shortly after the Anschluss of Austria in March 1938, the former "consultant for church issues" (Referent für Kirchenfragen im Oberabschnitt Wien) Höttl took over the management of Department II/111 (anti-opposition) in the SD sub-section in Vienna (SD-UA Wien). In the same year, Höttl married in a civil ceremony and left the Catholic Church on 5 July 1938.

Shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, Höttl moved to Berlin and was employed in the Reich Security Main Office. On 1 December 1940, he was delegated with the leadership of the Department VI Foreign Espionage of the SD Headquarters Vienna (SD-LA). He served with the Waffen-SS as of 14 February 1942 as a Kriegsberichter of the Leibstandarte SS (LAH), where he also received a basic military training, later with the 7. SS-Freiwilligen-Gebirgs-Division „Prinz Eugen“. He was commanded to the RSHA on 2 February 1943. On 1 August 1943, he was officially transferred from the SD-LA to Department VI (SD-"Ausland") of the RSHA as Hilfsreferent and moved his family from Berlin-Köpenick back to Vienna on 15 December 1943. He was later deployed in Italy and the the Balkans. As of 19 March 1944, he served in Budapest. When the Red Army came nearer, headquarters were moved to Ödenburg.

Until the collapse of Germany, I was a consultant and deputy group leader in Office VI of the Reich Security Main Office. The RSHA's Office VI was the so-called foreign office of the SD and was responsible for intelligence services in all countries of the world. It is roughly equivalent to the British Intelligence Service. The group I belonged to was responsible for intelligence services in southeastern Europe (the Balkans). At the end of August 1944, I spoke with SS Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann, whom I had known since 1938. The conversation took place in my apartment in Budapest. As far as I know, Eichmann was at that time the head of department in Office IV (Gestapo) of the Reich Security Main Office and had also been commissioned by Himmler to register Jews in all European countries and transport them to Germany. Eichmann was strongly influenced by Romania's withdrawal from the war at that time. That was why he had come to me to find out about the military situation, which I received daily from the Hungarian Honved (War) Ministry and the commander of the Waffen SS in Hungary. He expressed his conviction that the war was now lost for Germany and that he personally had no further chance. He knew that he was considered by the United Nations to be one of the main war criminals because he had millions of Jewish lives on his conscience.

During his stay in Budapest, he was allegedly in contact with the Americans in Bern, Switzerland. At the beginning of 1945, Höttl received a special permit from Kaltenbrunner for the businessman Fritz Westen to transport a convoy of trucks with valuables from Croatia. Westen arrived in Bern on 28 February 1945, at the home of the later CIA chief Allen Welsh Dulles. After the end of the Second World War in Europe on 8 May 1945, Höttl was to activate his contacts in Budapest and Bucharest via the SD radio station in Steyring with a directional antenna for the Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC). Höttl was arrested on 12 May 1945 on a mountain pasture near Altaussee. During the Nuremberg show trials, Höttl was available as a witness for the prosecution. He was confined until October 1947 when he was transferred to Austria and confined again in Lager Klessheim, Salzburg. Dr. Höttl was released from confinement in December 1947.

Nuremberg

Notwithstanding that the notorious Soviet propagandist Ilya Ehrenburg had, without presenting any evidence to anyone, stated that six million had perished as early as 1944, Höttl's was the only evidence presented to the Nuremberg Tribunal for this familiar number. Eichmann later rejected this allegation and later released documents have been argued to establish that Höttl was a completely unreliable informant, who routinely fabricated information to please those who were willing to pay him. Another SS officer, Dieter Wisliceny, made a somewhat similar claim, but alleged a lower number of four to five million.

The revisionist Germar Rudolf has written:

"Both Höttl and Wisliceny were originally held in the defendants’ wing of the Nuremberg prison because of their involvement in the mass deportation of Jews to Auschwitz. Their statements, however, allowed them to be moved to the witnesses’ wing – a life-saving switch in many cases. [...] On the basis of his pliability on behalf of the victors, Höttl, who was as deeply involved in the deportation of the Jews as Wisliceny, succeeded in ending up not as a defendant at Nuremberg, but rather as a privileged witness (Irving 1996, pp. 236f.; cf. Höttl 1997, pp. 83, 360-387). Wisliceny was convinced to cooperate with the Allies by threats that he would otherwise be extradited to communist eastern Europe. This caused Wisliceny to turn against his co-prisoners and even to offer to turn in hiding comrades. As an additional reward, the Allies promised him security for his family against possible revenge attacks by betrayed comrades (Servatius 1961, p. 64). While the Allies kept their promise to free Höttl for his services, they were not so cooperative with regards to Wisliceny. Despite his cooperation he was later extradited to communist Czechoslovakia anyway, where he was eventually sentenced to death and hanged (Arendt 1990, p. 257). Also worth mentioning are the circumstances, under which Höttl and Wisliceny as well as many other witnesses made their incriminating statements about Eichmann: They all thought that Eichmann, who had gone underground, was dead, and they hoped to exonerate themselves or to buy the benevolence of the Allies at the expense of Eichmann (ibid., pp. 331, 339). Only during the later Eichmann trial in Jerusalem it turned out that all these witnesses had unjustly transmogrified the assumed dead Eichmann to the main responsible individual of the “final solution” in order to exonerate themselves (ibid., pp. 339ff.)."

The Six Million Swindle stated:

"Hoettel himself claims to have been a British agent sometime during the war. The London paper Weekend (January 25, 1963) confirms this. It also reveals that when Hoettl gave his affidavit he had been threatened with delivery to the Hungarian Communists. This must be interpreted as a promise of immunity if he gave sufficient damning testimony against his superior, Eichmann, but hanging if he didn't. According to the British at Flensburg, he declared he had one time heard Eichmann say that four million Jews died in concentration camps and another two million elsewhere as reprisals and so on. He was then rushed to the Nuremburg Trials, where he dutifully repeated his hearsay. But oddly enough, though the German attorney for the Defense, one Dr. Kaufmann, repeatedly requested that he be called for cross-examination, the Nuremburg lynchers did not dare expose this key evidence to cross-examination. Again, at the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem the legal lynchers were afraid to expose him to cross-examination. And during the same trial Eichmann insisted that Hoettl had twised his casual remark and that he had in fact never named figures to Hoettel because he could not know such figures . (See: Heinrich Haertl, Freispruch fuer Deutschland, Goettingen, 1965, p. 190-01). Here in lies the truth of the matter. Neither Eichmann nor Hoettl could know the figures. And Hoettl got immunity for what was almost certainly a perjured affidavit. Yet on it rests almost the whole myth of the six million."

Post-Nuremberg

Höttl was a key figure in the cooperation between former NSDAP officials and Western secret services in post-war Austria. Under his leadership, Erich Kernmayr und Karl Kowarik helped to set up two agent networks for the CIC Field Office Gmunden in early July 1948. The first was an espionage operation with the code name "Montgomery", which was intended to obtain information about military and communist activities and economic development in Hungary. The head of operations was the Hungarian collaborator and SS-Hauptsturmführer Karoly Ney. He also set up a troop of several dozen volunteers, mainly Hungarian veterans and emigrants, which he called the Anti-Bolshevik Hungarian Main Battle Line (AMA). The AMA had its headquarters in a CIC building in Lambach, 25 kilometers from Gmunden. Training was carried out around a hut belonging to the Alpine Club near Grünau. The remote area in the Totes Gebirge was suitable for training in partisan warfare. Kernmayr acted as press chief and head of the AMA's "active reconnaissance", and was tasked with preparing information. Parallel to "Montgomery", a second agent network was created with the code name "Mount Vernon". Its aim was to set up an "Austrian intelligence organization" that "would function as an anti-Bolshevik underground movement in an emergency." Above all, it was to collect information about the Communist Party of Austria and Soviet activities in Austria. It was headed by Kowarik. The CIC provided large amounts of financial resources for his troops, "mainly people from the former Hitler Youth". Kowarik allegedly traveled to Bavaria to organize radio and sabotage training.

The venture was not off to a good start. The AMA camp in Grünau was closed in mid-November 1948 because it was feared that it had been infiltrated by a Hungarian informant. Ney's close relationship with the French secret service and his refusal to follow orders from the CIC were also problematic. According to Höttl, financial problems led to the break. He was skeptical of Ney's "soldier games" (Gladio) anyway and ultimately no longer wanted to finance them. Höttl's other networks lasted until 1 September 1949, when the CIC also closed them down as part of a "general reorientation." Nine CIC employees who had worked with Höttl were replaced. The CIC operations chief in Salzburg, Major James V. Milano, reported to his superiors that "Mount Vernon" and "Montgomery" had been dropped. Höttl was an "excellent" intelligence agent, but also "extremely dangerous." He had mixed his espionage work with local politics and neglected his actual task. His reports had been "extremely poor" for six months and no longer justified the considerable monthly costs of $2,600.

In fact, Höttl, Kernmayr and Kowarik had used the CIC's financial resources to support a "national project" – the collection and political reintegration of former National Socialists. This was also noticed by the external organization of the Gehlen Organization (OG) in Austria, which was temporarily codenamed "13" internally. From Salzburg, she worked on the Balkans and Hungary, but also on Austria itself. Her employees wrote many reports on this topic, which were passed on to the CIA via the OG management and are now in their archives. The organization of Höttl and his like-minded friends was perceived by the OG as competition and was therefore closely monitored. In 1948, the OG employees suspected that the intelligence service was only a “means to an end [...] of a political nature” for Höttl. He had described it as his goal to establish a tolerable relationship “between the government and the national opposition and between Austria and the ‘German area’”: “The former National Socialists, if they are willing to rebuild, must be led out of their social misery and reconnected to the Austrian state.” An undated US report summed up Höttl’s ambitions more precisely: “Organization of a fourth party that is to win over an active and important part of the Austrian population in order to satisfy the ambitions of a small group of SD leaders.” To this end, they organized themselves in the informal Gmunden Circle, whose leadership included Stefan Schachermayer in addition to Höttl, Kernmayr and Kowarik. Former Gau inspector of the NSDAP in the Gau Oberdonau.

Gordon Stewart, a senior CIA employee in West Germany, criticized senior CIA employee Richard Helms in the summer of 1949 that CIC Major Milano had given more than 200,000 US dollars to the Höttl group since the end of the war, which he considered questionable in view of their political activities. Kowarik also appeared in Vienna in January 1949 with "large sums of money" of unknown origin and offered to support former Hitler Youth leaders in need. Together with Kernmayr, the Gehlen Organization (OG) stated, he wanted to set up an organization of former Nazi and Hitler Youth members. Both were in contact with the former deputy Reich Youth leader and Gauleiter Hartmann Lauterbacher in Munich, who had also been an employee of the OG since 1950.

Höttl worked for the CIC Linz until September 1951, then he was shut down because the CIC realized the disproportion between effort and return. After that, Höttl was head of the main base of the German Friedrich Wilhelm Heinz Service (FWHD) in Austria in 1951/52. It was also said that he worked for a French service. However, he was arrested on 25 March 1953 because of his involvement in an espionage affair involving the two ex-US officers Kurt Ponger and Otto Verber. He was released on 11 April 1953 because his relationships with the two Soviet spies were only of a "business nature". In return, the CIA is said to have "burned" Höttl in the secret service business forever by leaking information to the media. An article in the "Spiegel" from 22 April 1953 described Höttl as one of the "most sophisticated intelligence dealers in Europe." There is "currently hardly a secret intelligence organization in Europe with which this man does not have contacts, either through direct or odd channels, and from which he does not receive royalties of various amounts, directly or indirectly." A "slender model SS youth" had become "a figure in a canary-yellow leather coat and a palm tie around his neck." The CIA also warned friendly intelligence services about Höttl. After that, Höttl's career as an agent was finally over.

From 1952, Höttl was head of the Bad Aussee private middle school, which prepared young people with school difficulties for the Matura. Among others, Hans Pusch, Jochen Rindt and André Heller attended the school. In addition to his role as director, he was also a history teacher there.

Family

Marriage

On 20 August 1938, SS-Untersturmführer Dr. Höttl married his fiancée Dr. Elfriede Zelinger (b. 11 April 1912). Son Hagen was born on 21 October 1939 and son Volker on 19 February 1942. Their third child was born in 1945 while Dr. Höttl was a POW. His wife had died only a few months before him.

SS promotions

• 9.11.1937 SS-Untersturmführer
• 20.4.1939 SS-Obersturmführer
• 9.11.1940 SS-Hauptsturmführer
  • as of 14 February 1942, he was also a member of the Waffen-SS
• 9.11.1943 SS-Sturmbannführer

Although many sources, including Wilhelm Höttl himself, state, his last rank was SS-Sturmbannführer of the Waffen-SS, other documents, including those of the CIA, state he was promoted to SS-Obersturmbannführer in 1945. Höttl testified in the trial of Adolf Eichmann:

In accordance with my rank, I was taken on as SS-Untersturmführer on a full-time basis, and then, at the end of 1939, I was promoted to SS-Obersturmführer, in 1940 or 1941 to SS-Hauptsturmführer, and in November 1943 to SS Sturmbannführer. At the end of the war in 1945, I was also demobilized with the rank of Sturmbannführer in the Waffen-SS (the Armed SS). The reason was that, while I was given the first ranks within the SS (Security Service), I received the last rank as part of the Waffen-SS, because in the meanwhile – and I shall return to this later – legal proceedings had been taken against me in the SS and Police Court, as a result of which I was transferred to the Waffen- SS. The rank of a Sturmbannführer in the SS, including the Waffen-SS, corresponds to that of a major in the German Army.

Awards and decorations (excerpt)

• German Reich Sport Badge (Deutsches Reichssportabzeichen) in Bronze
• Honour Chevron for the Old Guard (Ehrenwinkel für Alte Kämpfer)
• SS Long Service Award (SS-Dienstauszeichnung), 4th and 3rd Grade for 4 and 8 years
  • 4th Grade in 1938
  • 3rd Grade in 1942
• Anschluss Medal
• Golden HJ Honour Badge
• War Merit Cross (1939), 2nd Class without Swords in 1941
• War Merit Cross (1939), 2nd and 1st Class with Swords in 1943
• Golden Medal of Honor of the State of Styria in Summer 1995

Works (excerpt)

• Die Anfänge der deutschen Turnerbewegung und die Untersuchung gegen Jahn und seine Mitkämpfer, Dissertation, Universität Wien 1937
• Die geheime Front. Organisation, Personen und Aktionen des deutschen Geheimdienstes, Nibelungen-Verlag, Linz 1950
  • The Secret Front, Enigma Books, 1954
• Unternehmen Bernhard. Ein historischer Tatsachenbericht über die größte Geldfälscheraktion aller Zeiten, Welsermühl Verlag, Wels und Starnberg 1955
  • a historical report on the biggest currency counterfeit operation in history (the Germans had printed millions of British pounds)
• Einsatz für das Reich. Im Auslandsgeheimdienst des Dritten Reiches, Verlag S. Bublies, Koblenz 1997

See also

• Holocaust demographics

External links

• Wilhelm Höttl and the Elusive ‘Six Million’
• The Victories of Revisionism (Part 2) - the section "The Imposture of the Six Million. Wilhelm Höttl and the Nuremberg Tribunal Unmasked"

Biographical

• SS and interrogation files (Archive)
• Oral history interview with Wilhelm Höttl
• Wilhelm Hoettl – Testimony Given for the Trial of Adolf Eichmann (Archive)

CIA reports

• 30 August 1945 (Archive)
• 4 May 1949 (Archive)
• 5 August 1949
• 17 February 1952 (Archive)
• Höttl and the Nibelungen-Verlag (Archive)
• 27 March 1964 (Archive)