The Swiss SS recruiter : Franz Riedweg

you may have seen a video i did on switzerland in world war one in that war the country faced a situation where it had the central powers the north and the east the allies the west and the south two fronts met at its territory one between germany and france the other between italy and austria the situation in world war ii was different it was completely surrounded by the axis powers from june 1940 for a period of four years so therefore to a certain degree it had to conform there will be all sorts of tyraids in the comments section about swiss collaboration funding the nazis ammunition holocaust trains passing through swiss territory etc however that is not going to be the subject of this video instead i am going to talk about the highest ranking swiss ss man ss units were made up of people from the occupied territories and some non-occupied territories such as spain and there was even a british ss unit this video is about franzwindwe the most influential swiss in the third reich and his recruitment drive for the ss reedwick was born into a well-off catholic family of hoteliers from lucerne on the 10th of april 1907. at the age of 16 he became a supporter of the kodenhova movement which called for a united federal europe he completed his medical studies in burn berlin and rostock on the 29th of july 1931 he qualified as a doctor in 1934 he joined the swiss national front the national front was a political organization somewhat based on the italian fascist model as most such organizations were however it altered to being based on the german model following the nazi seizure of power it received its greatest influx in the autumn of 1933 when it made strong gains in the elections in zurich and shafthouse and regions the border areas were also the strongholds of the party in other regions especially french-speaking and italian-speaking switzerland the national front was never really able to gain a foothold at its peak in 1935 it had around 9 000 members obviously the fun part in being a member of a far right organization is dressing up in uniforms pretending to be patriotic whilst being a traitor and attempting to seize power the national front did this in the summer of 1937 with a march on bern during which time they occupied parliament square and had a battle up with the police before realizing that even though they were very special people they were not going to have as much success as mussolini had in italy and then they went home this led to the party being broken up but members just reappeared in new parties wanting more or less the same thing some of these characters ended up in germany and joining the ss not so much because they wanted to fight bolshevism but because they wanted to avoid prison in switzerland sponsored by oberst corpse commandant ulrich villi from 1936 to 1937 franz wiedwegg was secretary and political adviser to the former federal councillor jean-marie mussi jean-marie mussi had been a member of the center-right christian democrats but in the run-up to world war ii this catholic conservative increasingly veered to the nazis mussi was clearly important in shaping reid veg's political outlook although he did not know how far his secretary was prepared to go around this time reedberg founded axion national swiss controller communism swish national action against communism which he later admitted to be a fund organization to use the threat of communism as a way of promoting conservative if not far-right ideology for example in 1937 reed veg worked for the action gigan den comunismos action against communism which produced the propaganda film the red plague which portrayed the swiss national strike of 1918 along with riots and conflicts around the world as part of a jewish bolshevik intellectualist conspiracy this strike had happened 19 years earlier and it only lasted three days so by the time it was made the risk of communism was pretty low on the other hand the threat from the far right was much greater although maybe that was not seen where it was actually produced the film was made in munich financed by the german nazi party and although up until then the most expensive film about to me about switzerland it was banned in that country reed veg never returned to switzerland and took german nationality that year he went to the nazi party rally where he met propaganda minister yosef goebbels ss leader heinrich himmler and reinhard heydrich chief of the security police sikh heights police zippo in 1938 reedberg married sybil von blomberg the daughter of reich war minister field marshal werner von blomberg and moved to berlin where he joined the ss with the rank of ss overstunborn fuhrer ss number 293-744 whereas von blomberg was minister of war until removed he was very much pro-hitler and always hoped to return to favor in the army however it was not his connection to field of martial von blomberg which allowed reidwig to arise so quickly he became himless protege mainly due to his anti-communist circles first to musee in switzerland then to riben trump and his office in germany retake joined the lifestyle data ss adolf hitler and took part in the invasions of poland and later in the 1940 western european campaign after which he returned to the ss main office in berlin where he worked as a medical officer from there he went to stuttgart where he founded a reception camp for swiss people who wanted to fight for or work in germany this would be the first port of call for anyone from switzerland wanting to join the german armed forces in october 1940 reinhard heydrich invited people who had been in the swiss national front and its various offshoot organizations to a meeting in munich to see if something could be put together this in turn led reed veg to the organization which recruited foreign volunteers for the waffen-ss the germanisher light stella in total around 2000 swiss were to fight for nazi germany either in the waffen-ss or the other armed forces the germanisher lightsteller was a department of the ss main office under the command of obergruppenfura gottlob burger it was set up in the summer of 1941 on order of himmler as one of the main departments of the ss and alongside the ss forum's helped and primarily responsible for the military wing of the organization the objective of this organization was to produce germanic fighters and as such oversaw the recruitment and propaganda offices for the waffen-ss in oslo copenhagen brussels and the hague so obviously it was considering mainly people from norway denmark belgium and the netherlands as its primary recruiting grounds but was not adverse to taking people from other countries two reed veg was subordinate to gottlob burger but because of his talents at networking and contacts within the third reich he could sometimes pass on his thoughts to himmler directly bypassing burger franz vietberg had a subordinate a known pedagogue who had served time in prison in switzerland for his actions as part of the national front this was alfred zander he saw the swiss as ideal ss candidates with their long history of being mercenaries for other nations he wrote the swiss man is an ideal soldier when he is well led and he knows what he's fighting for our forefathers fought for hundreds of years for kaiser and reich and for the freedom of the germanic peoples then the swiss sold themselves to the french for 300 years would it really be a departure if in the future the youth of switzerland engaged themselves on behalf of europe and their own race there is of course something somewhat illogical about the swiss fighting for their own race when it is made up of germanic and latin communities the latter two being french and italian but i have noticed that logic is a gift that in general racists don't tend to have as the campaign against the soviet union started one of the first to die for hitler was 24 year old medical student hannes medler on the 24th of june 1941 he wrote from the heinrich himmler barracks in prague to his parents in saint galin and if i shouldn't return from russia my friends take this as a last greeting do not worry my death was not in vain less than four months later his appearance announced in the sink gallon tagablat that their dearly beloved hans had met an early death near kiev his father juan arnold mettler an industrialist and supporter of the conservative right could get consolation that the nazi propaganda machine reprinted his son's last letter in a book in 1942 the germanisher lightsteller provided the attachment of swiss ss men to return to switzerland in order to overthrow the government there and to bring it into the orbit of hitler's new order probably someone in the ss got wind of this and decided that it was not a good idea instead the swiss got packed off to the eastern front why wasn't a dedicated swiss ss unit of the waffen ss formed well probably there weren't enough of them although had the 2000 men been put together in one place then maybe something could have been done spain like switzerland was a neutral country and it had an official unit at the front but spain was on germany's side even though it was neutral whereas switzerland was officially neutral and more or less stayed that way but on the other hand it needs to be pointed out that there was a british ss with a much lower number of volunteers some of whom just joined up because they wanted to get out of the p.o.w camp by 1945 there were around 910 000 men in the waffen-ss however around 200 000 were non-german and added to that there are 310 000 ethnic germans many of whom might not have been able to speak german or spoke it badly they were recruited largely from hungary and romania which are significant german populations twenty and twenty five percent of the vaphan ss was of ethnic german origin from hungary or romania we do not know if reedberg was aware of the crimes being committed in the east although given that he was often in conversation with ss totencop units it's hard to believe that no one mentioned it to him although it was of course theoretically a secret himmler once made a comment on the murder of the jews in his presence possibly in 1943 he appears to have started to have doubts on the nazi regime he realized that a form of united europe under german leadership but with equal rights for all was out of the question at the beginning of nineteen forty four readvec gave a speech at the ss training school in bad terms in which he called for the independence of these states of europe calling for such things of course was not a good idea in nazi germany and either him that rewarded him with a posting to the eastern front or he went to his own accord seeing his dreams of creating a united anti-bolshevik europe shattered he joined the third germanic panzer corps which was then in the long retreat from the siegel leningrad by the time he joined more than half the personnel were ethnic germans from romania and hungary although it still had the 11th ss volunteer panzer grenadier in nordland mainly formed from people from norway the norwegian volunteer legion and the freikorp denmark which surprise surprise came from denmark there was also a panzer grenadier brigade from the netherlands reedbek knew his commanding officer i was able to get a posting as a doctor behind the lines but even out of the immediate danger he would have suffered in the long retreat he wrote to inform the parents of our swiss ss understand fuhrer that their son had and now i quote fallen as a hero the honor of their homeland is preserved to the highest degree by these heroes whatever the day's events the kingdom will come and the sacrifices will not be in vain greetings heil hitler your devoted franz reidweg it's my way of thinking that sounded a little bit like a prayer the third germanic panzer corps was part of the 18th army and suffered one defeat after another that took it from the outskirts of leningrad to berlin over the course of 15 months in march 1944 it took part in the battle of nava pulling back into the baltic sea region as the german fund cracked wide open as a result of operation by grazion in june and july 1944 cut off in february 1945 it was transferred to pomerania by ship to form the newly established 11th army which was deployed on the northern sectors of the older front this was part of the ill-fated counter-offensive in the region of stargardt in march 1945 which almost completely finished the unit off what was left of it was transferred to the northern berlin sector where it was completely finished off on 3rd of may 1945 resvec was taken prisoner by the british by the end of the war around 300 of the 2 000 swiss who had fought for hitler were dead many of them had been recruited by riederg were swiss ss men involved in war crimes there was at least one that i know of who was involved in the shooting of 34 belgian men in the village of bond during the battle of the bulge on the 24th of december 1944. he was a citizen of sumisvald in the emmettal and killed with an intensity and brutality that suggests a lack of respect for human life at least those were the words of the swiss military tribunal which sentenced him to a maximum 20-year prison sentence things did not look too bright for reed veg in 1945 on account of his activities attempting to encourage swiss people to either join the ss or otherwise work for nazi germany is swiss citizenship was revoked in 1944 at this time now with a lifeline to the western allies following the liberation of france the swiss authorities did not have to tow such a subservient line to nazi germany on december the 20th 1947 reidvec was sentenced an absentee by the swiss federal criminal court in lucerne to 16 years in prison for attacking the independence of switzerland and for advocating for foreign military service as he did not return to switzerland the sentence expired in 1974 so he didn't have to serve any time at all strangely enough although going through the motions of a trial and sentencing the swiss never asked for him to be extradited reed vegg's brother in switzerland actively campaigned for this sentence to be overturned it would have been a simple matter for the west germans to arrest him he wasn't hiding but there was never a request could it be that if he had gone to trial then he might have said something unpleasant about someone then in power the solution found to sentence him in absentee without him appearing in person appears to suggest this of course had he been arrested then he would have been interrogated after reedberg was released from p.o.w custody he set himself up in 1949 as a doctor in munich here we have another ironing of history one of his patients was none other than otto von habsburg son of the last emperor of austro-hungary and for 20 years a member of the european parliament despite the doubt he had felt in the second half of the war reedberg continued to believe in national socialism until his death although perhaps it wasn't the same national socialism as hitler did with its criminality in west germany and then germany he continued to write against communism and attend meetings with like-minded people he gave an interview which you can see on the youtube channel zeitzeigen portal and there is a link below to it you will of course need to understand german reed veg died in munich on the 22nd of january 2005 at the age of 97. i would now like to add a little postscript to this story from 1936 to 1937 reid vic was secretary and political advisor to the former swiss federal councillor jean-marie mussi mussi was pro-hitler driven by anti-communism and his tendency towards authoritarian regimes after failing to be elected in 1939 he openly showed himself to be a supporter of the axis powers and their new order supported by their military successors during the second world war he maintained relations with far-right personalities in switzerland so far so bad however towards the end of the war a jewish organization requested his assistance as a mediator musi used his relationship with himmler to come to an agreement at a secret meeting in bad wild bad on the 12th of january 1945 that led to the liberation of 1 200 jewish prisoners from the terration stat concentration camp these people were able to enter switzerland and later to leave to go to the united states the group was saved after 1.25 million dollars was placed in swiss banks by jewish organizations working in switzerland however the money was apparently never paid to the nazis in this way musi the former pro-nazi to large extent the mentor of reedveg the ss recruitment officer at the end became a holocaust rescuer so i hope you found that interesting and that you subscribe but if you don't want to subscribe then don't subscribe for those who are interested i upload every friday always and that is at eight o'clock in the evening my time central european times seven o'clock in the uk and i think it's 11 o'clock in los angeles all sorts of other times and other places as well i often upload at other times as well and they're the ones other times maybe shorter videos but they are still videos which get uploaded so thanks very much for listening to me and all the best from me

Channel: History on YouTube

Views: 6,517

Keywords: SS, Swiss SS, Switzerland, Franz Riedweg, History on YouTube, history, World War 2, Soviet Union, Holocaust

Id: f7HE1vZ1LCM

Length: 22min 21sec (1341 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 17 2021