MIUarchiv

Categories of MIUarchiv, click the title to view posts.

New backup page: miuarchiv.blogspot.com German edition memoir: download

Handwriting and Photos • Handwritten letter in English • Photos from various sources • Handwritten CV • As the honour guard at Heydrich's funeral

Personnel and Identity Papers • Personnel files (with a few photos) • Passports (authentic & forged) • Reichssportabzeichen • Certifications of NSDAP, quitting the catholic church, marriage, hunting, etc.

Correspondence and Memorandum Of private and official nature.

Interrogation and Testimony sometimes in a tune of gossip interview... • Kurt Lindow on Schellenberg's personality and his relationship with Heydrich & Himmler • Christl Erdmann (secretary) • Marie-Luise Schienke (secretary) • Hugo Buchwald (chauffeur) • Werner Best • Hans-Hendrik Neumann (Heydrich's adjutant) etc.

In Prison • Inventory of Schellenberg's luggage seized (including some papers belonged to Robert Schmied, photos and letters of an unknown woman named "Peter") • Correspondence in prison, with Hanna Reitsch, Count Bernadotte, Irene's family, the two lawyers, etc.

Schellenberg’s Final Years of Life • After his release from prison he reunited with Irene and the children in Iburg. His attempt to enter Switzerland via regular proceedings almost succeeded. • According to his doctor Francis Lang, Coco Chanel has covered his expenses of 30000 francs. • And a little investigation into his burial place.

Divorcing Kaethe Kortekamp • Plaintiffs & correspondence • Kaethe's meeting with Heydrich etc.

Irene Grosse-Schönepauk and her Family She lived in Iburg, Hannover, with the children and her mother in the post-war years, in poor condition.

Schellenberg's Parents and Siblings • Bernhard & Elisabeth Schellenberg's participation in espionage • Ludwig Schellenberg's trouble • Correspondence with old Guido Schellenberg

Dr. Schellenberg? The question remained.

As Others Recalled • Wilhelm Wulff's memoir, description of WS's office, and abridged content about his first meeting with WS • Klaus Harpprecht on Schellenberg's peculiar assertion of Heinrich Müller's defection to the Soviet Union • Friedrich Paulus' Story

Conference Minutes Amt-VI and RSHA Amt Chef conferences

Schellenberg’s Adjutant & Assistants Adjutant • Erhard Urbannek: Schellenberg's Adjutant in IV-E Secretaries • Hans-Heinrich Gaulke: Had worked with Schellenberg since the Amt I years. Executed for violation of Paragraph 175. Last seen in RSHA files in June 1943. • Werner Krueger: Sent to the front or Einsatzgruppen after boasting of being an "adjutant". Last seen in RSHA files in May 1942. • Marie-Luise Schienke: Gaulke's successor. • Christl Erdmann: Schienke's assistant. Personal assistant (Persönlicher Referent) • Wilhelm Schmitz Assistant for liaison and reception • Franz Göring

RSHA Offices Details of RSHA office buildings and guesthouses.

Other RSHA-Related Personalities

Uncategorized

And also... do you have any information on a boy named Albrecht, one of his assistants?

It is 100% sure that his mother's name was Lydia Katharina Riedel, born in Neunkirchen in 1879, as recorded in his SS family tree investigation files and corroborated by the obituary. Although his father Franz Bernhard Guido Schellenberg was born in the French city Metz in 1867 and was baptised under the name François, none of his earlier ancestors bore French surnames or were born in French cities. They were mostly craftsmen in various industries.

The bas-relief above Heydeich's office door was Sphinx, it was possibly the original neo-classic decoration. Cerberus would be more suitable for such an occupant lol

• He avoided answering whether he was "Dr Schellenberg" by providing only his name Walter Schellenberg. His doctoral degree seems all the more dubious.

• The most interesting part is his reckless speech in his first personal conversation with Hitler, which is mostly consistent with his memoir. What he did not mention in his later memoir was that Max Wünsche was on good terms with him and phoned to warn him the next day, informing him of Hitler's inquiry about his identity and complaints about legal men:

"Well, you don't know how things are around the old man, nobody dares to contradict him."

Only visited the Reich Chancellery twice as he claimed , and befriended AH's adjutant, fine.

• His opinion on Hitler's arbitrary behaviour and rationalisation of making use of Himmler's powerful status:

...and I was always asked in these many interrogations why should I like to work with a man like Himmler with these things to do, and I always replied, well, how long could anybody else in my situation that I was in could have helped me more, who would have had more power.

• Here he gave the date of his conversation about an alternative ending of the war with Himmler as August 1942, in the Zhitomir field headquarters. He elaborated in his memoir on this event: a report started at 4 o'clock in the afternoon and lasted until 3 o'clock in the morning. However, no midnight meeting with Schellenberg was recorded in the August official journal of Himmler. It was possibly another separate conversation at 22:00, 14 Sep 1942.

• His activities in the last days of the Reich, his participation in the writing of Count Bernadotte's book, conspiracy theories about Prof. de Crinis' involvement in murdering Hitler, etc.

Another WS video, still with low quality unfortunately.

You can see him still wearing the old collar tabs. He had been quite busy during that period, according to his memoir.

Press photo of this event:

Since this platform has an irrational censorship on WW2 content, a backup is made on:

Old posts will be moved there gradually. Hup hup!

Yes, let’s have a look at his vlog at Heydrich’s funeral ——

And there’s an interesting comparison:

The screenshots are here:

I’ve taken several screenshots from a video about 20 July Plot (Title: Verräter vor dem Volksgericht. Source: https://digitaler-lesesaal.bundesarchiv.de/video/18012/666735), and I think the man circled in these pictures looks like Walter Schellenberg.

I think the man and WS share many similarities:

* The hair style (the 7th pic)

* The sitting posture

* The dressing style

* The profile

Also, it’s known that WS attended the trail (the 8th pic) and he was the chief of Amt VI, so it was very possible that he was captured.(I find that Kaltenbrunner was captured.)

However, I’m very bad at recognizing human faces, especially those of white people. And I don’t find the scar on his chin.(Maybe it’s because the video is blurry.) I’m not sure about the man’s identity.

Do you think the man is WS?

Thanks a lot.

No I don't think so 🧐🔬

This guy has wavy hair and I don't think WS would be in the mood to chat when his acquaintances in the military intelligence were on trial...

His chauffeur confirmed his presence at the trial, though. Maybe he was hidden in the last few rows.

IWM offers a clearer but edited version of the clip. It could be viewed at up to 16x speed.

From David Kahn's Hitler's Spies, p257. But so far, I can't find the original source anywhere. Similarly, Kahn's claim that Kaethe had paid for WS's university fee could not be found in the divorce documents either.

WS shot some hares and pheasants.

An extensive report on Schellenberg's official and private life.

The job of a "watchdog": Schienke was in charge of Schellenberg's itinerary and personal bank account, she even had to cook for him when his fear of being poisoned intensified. Himmler gave him 2 police dogs for his security. (So who would walk the dog??) Schienke worked as a secretary, a cashier and a housekeeper and still praised WS as "the best chief to work for". (Maybe her patience was gained from her previous childcare work...)

The workaholic boss: Schellenberg had his family evacuated to Mark Brandenburg. He lived in the Amt VI office building and worked overtime as much as he wanted. Schienke claimed that he led a quiet life of abstinence from alcohol and smoking, having no woman friends. (But there were boxes of cigars and Camel cigarettes in his luggage.)

Some files signed by or related to Schienke: · Renewing WS's questionnaire in the SS Personnel Head Office, Jul 1943 · Authorised as the proxy of WS's Deutsche Bank account, Apr 1943 · Notifying Skorzeny of his reporting procedure, Aug 1943

WS remained a member of the NS-Altherrnschaft of "Carl Allmenroeder" of Marburg since 1938. The membership fee issues used to be managed by his adjutant Urbannek in IV E. The old Corps brother Alfred Bartholomäus had expressed his unease about writing down things about their Corps in the correspondences.

WS's name was listed in the 1940 Corps bulletin as "Alter Herrn im Wehrdienst". His award of EK1 from Hitler's hand for "besonderen Einsatz" was recorded in the 1941 bulletin.

Published by old Guido Schellenberg

On the passing of my unforgettable wife, our loving mother, Lydia Schellenberg née Riedel, we would like to express our heartfelt thanks for the condolences received.

And advertisements of or related to the family's musical instrument store:

1905

1923

1929

1931

1938

1941

The store was located on Freiheitsavenue / Avenue de la Liberté, which was renamed to Adolf Hitlerstrasse then. (Where there's Adolf Hitler, there's no liberty...)

An Aug 1945 notification indicating the confiscation of their property:

The store reopened in Dec 1945 but was seemingly not owned by the Schellenberg family anymore:

Mentioned in Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem:

...In the first place, as they dutifully reported, the badge was only a "very little star"; second, most Jews simply did not wear it; and, third, those who did wear it received "so many manifestations of sympathy from the misled population that they actually are proud of their sign" - as Walter Schellenberg, Chief of Counterintelligence in the R.S.H.A., wrote in an S.D. report transmitted to the Foreign Office in November, 1942.

Waneck was questioned about a series of reports concerning foreign attitudes toward the persecution of Jews sent from Amt VI E to other agencies. At first he claimed the "Jewish Question" was not a concern of Amt VI; although such matters could have been reported to Berlin by Amt VI agents stationed abroad, he did not recall any of these reports being evaluated.

After being presented with the 9 Nov 1942 report signed by Schellenberg and being questioned about its intention, he further argued that such reports were merely transmitted to other agencies verbatim as received from the agents:

Q. I want to come back to these documents. Whatever is enclosed in this letter and the letters of the agency, were passed on without any change on the part of Office VI? A. Yes, If we had changed those reports, they would have lost the character of factuality, and the highest authorities always told us that we are not supposed to play politics. We have no right to make suggestions. We have no influence. Just write these things as we see them, or rather report them as we see them.

The 9 Nov 1942 report:

Waneck's explanation of the signing authority:

All notifications, reports, and other documents leaving Amt VI were personally signed by the head of Amt VI. The group leaders of Amt VI did not have signing authority in this regard.

The prosecution's impression from these reports:

These four documents which I am about to introduce formally, were all signed by Schellenberg and originated in the department within Schellenberg Amt VI of the witness Wanek, They were all identified during the cross examination of the witness Wanek. These documents were introduced and placed before the witness for purposes of impeachment to show that Amt VI was not the lily-white organization which he tried to paint it. 

"...was known to be an officially correct relationship."

Exactly the same script as Neumann's.

"...Schellenberg was called the "student" by certain circles. All of us who knew Schellenberg from the Office had to smile about this. At the time, when this started, Schellenberg was still in Office I, or IV-E. At any rate, it is certain that this expression came from Office IV and was then spread by the chief of the Personnel staff who liked to spread such fireside stories and loved to tell such anecdotes and was known for this in the SS."

"Chief of the Personnel staff" surely refers to the chief of Persönlicher Stab RFSS, 📢Karl Wolff📢. (The chief of personnel of the RSHA was Amtschef I, neither Best nor Streckenbach had such a reputation. And Wolff would get his Karma in 1943.)

In another interrogation, Waneck stated that the rumours about Lina and WS originated from Amt III.

Q. Now, Schellenberg was a pronounced protégé of Heydrich. A. The expression is unfortunate. Q.Wolff told me he was a favorite pupil of Heydrich, apart from Lina Heydrich. A. I know this nonsense too. It all came from Amt III. That he, as an elegant young man, went in and out of Heydrich's office as a matter of course, and that there was anything between him and Lina Heydrich, all of that is quite out of the question, because Schellenberg was the personification of caution and distrustful of everything. Schellenberg would never have risked treating Mrs. Heydrich in any way that was anything more than polite. Mrs. Heydrich was a very beautiful woman, very vain, very ambitious, and ran a large social circle. It's clear that she must have found Schellenberg attractive as a young man, and that people then said there must be something more to him. But there was certainly nothing more to him than that. The fact that he was described, somewhat exaggeratedly, as her favorite student can be explained by the fact that there was nothing else there. Amt VI had far more capable personnel. Amt IV consisted only of detectives who lacked polish and poise. Schellenberg was an exception, even in Amt VI. You can see that he was capable by what he achieved in Amt VI. (Translated with Google)

...In my opinion, Heydrich gave him the opportunity to prepare himself for this task and to prove his ability while he was in the executive. His activity in Dortmund, the Border Stapo Office, and jobs in the investigation service showed what he could do in that field, and he was assigned to Department IV-E. In this capacity we felt rather sorry for him although this might seem strange, but it was proverbial that anyone who was to work in closely contact with Heydrich would sooner or later be in a difficult position. And in this case I would like to describe the relationship between the two saying the relationship was neither excellent nor bad. It was difficult for Schellenberg.

Waneck's further elaboration on this topic (although it was not submitted to the court):

Regarding the relationship between Schellenberg and Heydrich, I would like to say that, based on my personal assessment of Heydrich, there could be no question of friendship, especially since Heydrich fundamentally rejected the concept of “friendship” in both small and large circles and deliberately did not grant anyone the right to call themselves his friend. Nor was he a so-called “student” of Heydrich. I know that these two terms, “friend” and “pupil,” were circulated and deliberately staged by certain circles and people who were, on the one hand, professionally inferior to Schellenberg and, on the other hand, motivated purely by a need for recognition and sensationalism. Schellenberg's relationship with Heydrich — one must remember that he was an SS Hauptsturmführer at the time and later a Sturmbannführer and, in terms of civil service, an assessor or junior government councilor — was always that of a subordinate to a superior in professional terms, and he stood out from the crowd solely because of his unheard-of zeal for work and his abilities. These qualities, which he originally displayed in Amt I and later mainly in Amt IV, where the majority of criminal investigators were of average ability, perhaps gave him a certain special status as a worker in relation to Heydrich, but this was by no means associated with advantages for him, rather with disadvantages. As far as I can judge, he was exploited very heavily in terms of work, both in Amt I and in Amt IV. Heydrich himself was a very strong personality, extremely distrustful of everyone and also very headstrong.

??? but the examination proceeding was unfortunately interrupted

Q What happened to Gaulke?

A Gaulke was given a trial and as far as I have heard he was executed.

Q Did Schellenberg recommend that execution?

A I don't believe that, but I don't know it.

Q Was Gaulke considered a homosexual?

A Gaulke told me himself that he was a homosexual and that he had intercourse with other men.

Q Was it Schellenberg then that sent him to the Gestapo for extermination for being a homosexual?

A At that time I had an opposite impression. Schellenberg was very much distressed about Gaulke's resignation because Gaulke was a very faithful collaborator.

Q Was there ever talk about Gaulke having personal relationships with Schellenberg in RSHA circles?

A What type of personal relationships do you mean? Do you mean homosexual -

PRESIDING JUDGE MAGUIRE: Counsel, unless you expect to cover this matter with proof and would show the relevancy, I really don't think we will pursue the subject.

(????????)

MR. HARDY: Very well, Your Honors, I merely wanted to point out that the purpose of executing this man was to cover up for his higher SS leaders and I wanted to find out why he was executed.

JUDGE POWERS: You don't expect to do that by the cross-examination of an adverse witness, do you?

Q All right, Your Honors. Was Gaulke eventually exterminated or sentenced to death?

A I don't know it from my own knowledge. I heard it in the office that he was given a trial and executed. At that time there was an order that any SS man who was a homosexual had to be executed. That was a law that applied particularly to the SS.

Q And who turned Gaulke over to the Gestapo for trial?

A I don't know that.

Schienke revealed that Hans Dietrich Warsinski came to WS for help when he was about to be conscripted, and he was recruited into VI-Wi to work as the receptionist for important guests. The house he lived in, which he looked after for his friend Otto Horcher, was used as a guesthouse by Amt VI.

1. Q. When and how did you come into contact with Muesy? A. I am not informed how Muesy contacted with Himmler. Suddenly it was announced: Muesy is coming. There was a lot of excitement and everything was supposed to be done very nicely. Then he did not come to the office. He was received in the guest house on the Wannsee. 2. Q. What was it like with the guest house? A. There was a large guest house at Wansee. The small guest house didn't exist at all. I made that up. Kersten also writes about the small guest house. I have to laugh about it. It was the house at Bismarckstrasse 8 or 9. It belonged to Horcher.  It wasn't a particularly beautiful house. Horcher probably wanted to make it comfortable. It was a building from the turn of the century. Horcher went abroad and put an acquaintance in it, a receptionist named WARSINSKY from Oberhof. He told him he could live there. WARSINSKY had met Schellenberg on his honeymoon. That's how Warsinsky approached us later when he was about to be drafted. Schellenberg said: "Yes, you can work for us in the Wirtschaft" - in the hotel business, at least. I knew him because his family had grown up with us in Steglitz. Mr. GOERING was bombed out of Berlin two or three times. Warsinsky said: "You can live with us." When I got to know Goering better, I got to know the house. When Wulf was about to be housed in Berlin, no one was to know anything about it. I said: "I'll take him to Franzl (Franz Goering)." So I put him there. Then Schellenberg said: "Can't you put this one or that one there too?" All of Schellenberg's quiet guests came there. There was a housekeeper there who could cook well and didn't worry about anything else. Kaltenbrunner also received Bernadotte there. Muesy first came to the large guest house and then to the more intimate one.

(Schienke stated that WS met Warsinski on his honeymoon trip, but according to the conversation between Kaethe and RH, WS had already been to Oberhof in the Christmas vacation of 1938.)

Warsinski's name was misspelt as "Warwinski" in both the 1942 and 1943 RSHA telephone books. His position was "employee" (Angestellte) of VI-Wi.

He may have been involved in more than just hotel business.