The Pale Criminal

Author’s Note

Otto Rahn and Karl Maria Weisthor resigned from the S S in February 1939. Rahn, an experienced outdoors traveller, died from exposure while walking in the mountains near Kufstein less than one month afterwards. The circumstances of his death have never been properly explained. Weisthor was retired to the town of Goslar where he was cared for by the S S until the end of the war. He died in 1946.

A public tribunal, consisting of six Gauleiters, was convened on 13 February 1940, for the purpose of investigating the conduct of Julius Streicher. The Party tribunal concluded that Streicher was ‘unfit for human leadership’, and the Gauleiter of Franconia retired from public duties.

The Kristallnacht pogrom of 9 and 10 November 1938 resulted in 100 Jewish deaths, 177 synagogues burnt down and the destruction of 7,000 Jewish businesses. It has been estimated that the amount of glass destroyed was equal to half the annual plate-glass production of Belgium, whence it had originally been imported. Damages were estimated to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Where insurance monies were paid to Jews, these were confiscated as compensation for the murder of the German diplomat, von Rath, in Paris. This fine totalled $250 million.