From PRO file WO.208/4200: optically scanned. Please report obvious scanning errors. [Report]

IF THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS REPORT IS REQUIRED FOR FURTHER DISTRIBUTION. IT SHOULD BE PARAPHRASED SO THAT NO MENTION IS
MADE OF THE PRISONERS' NAMES, NOR OF THE METHODS BY WHICH THE INFORMATION HAS BEEN OBTAINED

Special Extract from S.R. Draft No. W.G.449/445

The following conversation took place between:

CS/990 - Gefreiter PFAFFENBERGER (Landesschützen Ers. & Ausb.Batl.9) Captured EIFEL 2 Nov 44

and a British Army officer.

Information received 28 Feb 45

BAO: Didn't you say that you had come to know a man at BUCHENWALD who had been in HIMMLER's employ?

PFAFFENBERGER: Yes, his chauffeur, Hans. I've forgotten his surname. Hans arrived about 1939, when I saw him in the camp for the first time. Philipp GRAUDENZ(?) from SAARBRÜCKEN was also there -- he and his brother were both in the camp -- they had an electricians business in SAARBRÜCKEN, they were both interned, and they said to me: "HIMMLER's chauffeur has arrived," and they questioned him and he told us that he was HIMMLER's chauffeur. He had a wife and two children. Hans was then twenty-eight years old. He told us that HIMMLER often visited him at home and that his wife always thought of something for him to go out and do, or else HIMMLER sent him on a job and then availed himself of the opportunity to go to his wife. Other women noticed it. He told us that HIMMLER was having a love affair with her. Hans was told what was going on, so he took his wife to task about it and his wife told HIMMLER. As a result, HIMMLER had him arrested at once and sent to BUCHENWALD. He spent about three years at BUCHENWALD, until 1942. Towards the end of 1942 he was sent for and shown a note from HIMMLER which stated that he could be released providing he signed a statement to the effect that he would not return to MUNICH; he was banned from MUNICH on the orders of Reichsführer HIMMLER, he could go to any other town in GERMANY, but he must not return to MUNICH.

BAO: Was his wife still in MUNICH?

PFAFFENBERGER: Yes. He asked Michel and Philipp GRAUDENZ what he should do. They advised him as follows: "If you don't sign it, then you can be pretty certain that the political department will get rid of you in the very near future. You sign it, then go out and find yourself another wife!" To which he replied: "No doubt it's for the best, but the day will come when I shall disclose the whole business." He was released at the end of 1942.

Toni was another fellow from MUNICH who was interned there, and he, too, had been put there by HIMMLER, his Party Membership number was 24 or 25 -- Toni LENESCH(?) from MUNICH He's one of the old guard who was always in personal attendance on HITLER. First he spent three months at DACHAU, then they released him again, then he was at ORANIENBURG and then he went to BUCHENWALD.

BAO: For what reasons?

PFAFFENBERGER: Because he always drank too heavily. He'd already drunk three inns dry and he always got on HIMMLER's nerves. But he was terrifically anti-Jewish. In the camp he was immediately made the controller, He and RÖDEL(?)[*] were like true comrades, the camp leader (Lagerführer) and the 'Sturmbannführer'. He ran around with his rifle all day long, but he only went for the Jews, he didn't do anything to us Germans. He was always drunk, he was with RÖDEL(?) and the two of them sat boo[z]ing in the camp.

BAO: He must have been a friend of HITLER's in the old days?:

PFAFFENBERGER: Yes, they were the greatest of friends. Party Membership number 24 -- that was one of the first.

BY C.S.D.I.C. (U.K.)

M.I.19.a      War Office   (56 copies)
N.I.D.        Admiralty    ( 9 copies)
A.D.I.(K)     Air Ministry (15 copies)

(29111) Wtr51755/3515 37,000 2/45
   A. & E.W.Ltd GP.692 J.7303

[website note:] * SS Stubaf Arthur Rödel, was the first Lagerführer of Buchenwald, 1938-1943, a ruddy-faced ex-blacksmith with a bow-legged, rolling gait: See CSDIC (UK) report SIR.1393, Gefreiter Pfaffenberger, Jan 14, 1945 (WO.208/3611).