Wolf Sendele

Wolf Sendele was born in Vienna in 1916. He joined the Schutzstaffel (SS) in February 1932. Andrew Mollo, the author of To The Death's Head: The Story of the SS (1982): "Wolf Sendele who had joined the Allgemeine or General SS in 1932 when it numbered less than fifty thousand men - mostly part-timers. At that time he saw only two choices: Communism on the one hand and Hitler on the other. Sendele represents the early idealism of the SS." Sendele commented: "There was no shortage of volunteers, as young boys - mostly from rural areas - longed to put on the smart black uniform and join an elite unit."

One of Sendele's main tasks was to break-up meetings of the German Communist Party (KPD): "Sometimes it seemed as if we were on the go every day - after we'd finished work - we would go off to some meeting or another, often way out of town to the outlying villages near Heidelberg. There were also some Communist-dominated villages where it was pretty difficult to get the upper hand, and so obviously people had to go along who wouldn't turn and run as soon as the Communists told them to clear off. I remember one particular meeting held by a Communist Member of Parliament. We'd planned to break up this meeting, but we were the ones to get busted. We were just thrown out of the hall - our feet hardly touched the ground - and landed in the street, drummed out."

Karl Wolff
SS and SA men about to set fire to Communist banners in 1933

In 1933 Wolf Sendele was transferred to Political Readiness Squad Wurtemburg. According to Andrew Mollo, the author of To The Death's Head: The Story of the SS (1982): "Sendele represents the early idealism of the SS, but once Hitler came to power and the aristocracy and other opportunists - or 'march violets' as they were called - flooded the ranks of the SS, Sendele soon grew disillusioned and when he tried to expose corruption in his unit he was kicked out."

Wolf Sendele served in the German Army during the Second World War. He was captured by the United States Army in May 1945 and forced to clear up the recently liberated concentration camp at St Georgen, a subsidiary camp of Mauthausen. Sendele thought that these camps were only for political prisoners like Ernest Thalmann and other members of the German Communist Party (KPD): "We knew well enough that these camps existed, detention camps, or whatever they were called, and that political opponents were being incarcerated. We were never quite clear why. God knows, the crimes themselves were not serious enough to remove a man from his house and home. But you thought to yourself - it's just a temporary measure, they'll put them away in a camp for three or four weeks, and then let them go again, when they've established that they're just harmless fellows - not like Thalmann (leader of the German Communist Party - KPD) or people who were real agitators."

Sendele was shocked when he discovered that the camps had been used to kill Jews. "In this camp they had also locked up children, and I feel the Americans were right to make us see it, and this is still my point of view today when people doubt the figure of five or six million Jews dead or try and make a comparison with the number of German soldiers who died in the war; or who say that two million Germans died after the capitulation in May 1945, my only reply can be that if it was only the eight children that I saw there it was the greatest shame of all time".

Primary Sources

(1) Wolf Sendele, interviewed by Andrew Mollo (1981)

There was continuous electioneering at that time - not like now every few years - practically the whole time from 1930 to 1933 there were elections in which Hitler was very active. We then had the job.of providing security and seeing that nothing happened to the Fuhrer - that he came to no harm.

Sometimes it seemed as if we were on the go every day - after we'd finished work - we would go off to some meeting or another, often way out of town to the outlying villages near Heidelberg. There were also some Communist-dominated villages where it was pretty difficult to get the upper hand, and so obviously people had to go along who wouldn't turn and run as soon as the Communists told them to clear off.

I remember one particular meeting held by a Communist Member of Parliament. We'd planned to break up this meeting, but we were the ones to get busted. We were just thrown out of the hall - our feet hardly touched the ground - and landed in the street, drummed out.

The other Centre and German-National Parties were quite happy to see us beating up the Communists. After all we were doing their dirty work for them. They could have done it themselves - not with punch-ups - but they could have cut the ground from under their feet by getting the unemployed off the streets but they were too genteel for that. The German Nationalists, Hugenberg and the like and the Stahlhelm (Veteran's Organization later incorporated into the SA), were too fancy to beat up the Communists in the street - they left that to us....

Since we were all volunteers, I'd hoped that we would be able to achieve what we had envisaged - what we wanted to be - a fighting force which would be able to get to grips with things, that it would become a disciplined, organized force, which is what we had envisaged before 1933....

It should have been a day of unbelievable celebration, a day of rejoicing because we'd done it at last. Hitler is going to be Chancellor and we've won the Party battle... The fighting side of things - if we can call it that - was pushed into the background. There were no more marches and propaganda wasn't needed any more because Hitler had been elected. The young men, young SS men, Hitler Youth, the young National Socialists were affected because the element of struggle had just disappeared, and those people that we had respected earlier because they had really thrown themselves into the struggle, were now only worried about getting a seat in Parliament or becoming a Gauleiter or some other sinecure which was more or less a life insurance policy....

We knew well enough that these camps existed, detention camps, or whatever they were called, and that political opponents were being incarcerated. We were never quite clear why. God knows, the crimes themselves were not serious enough to remove a man from his house and home. But you thought to yourself - it's just a temporary measure, they'll put them away in a camp for three or four weeks, and then let them go again, when they've established that they're just harmless fellows - not like Thalmann (leader of the German Communist Party - KPD) or people who were real agitators....