mit Bezug zu / related to: Kurt Wagenseil
In English: Short Introduction | En français: Brève introduction | Magyarul: rövid bevezető | På svenska: Kort introduktion | краткое введение | In italiano: Breve introduzione | En español: Breve introducción
"Friday November 29 [...] Go to see Bismarck at the German embassy about Kurt. Montgelas and Stutterheim are in the ante room. I tell Bismarck that Kurt is interned at Dachau on the charge of homosexuality but then either he should be tried for that offense or let loose. The man will die at Dachau. He takes notes quietly and says he will make enquiries. He says they are 'terribly severe' on homosexuality. Which amuses me when one considers Röhm. What swine they are! I do not like Otto Bismarck one half as much as I like Gottfried. Lunch with Pierre Lansel. Veronica Holtby and Mrs Dick Guinness there. Also Beverly Nicholl down to Sissighurst after. Vita is away lecturing at Oxford. It is all rather lonely. Only a Siamese cat to welcome me."
Wednesday June 10th Kurt Wagenseil comes round at 1 o'clock and I take him to lunch at the House of Commons. He told me that they had never explained exactly on what charge he was put into a concentration camp. He had been denounced by a friend for having written articles in the British and American papers which were critical of the regime. When he denied ever having done this and ask them to produce those articles, they merely told him not to be impertinent. He was then sent off to Dachau and kept there for nine months. He say that they did not treat him badly himself, although there was the constant fear of being beaten or murdered. The beatings were very terrible and the other prisoners were from time to time forced to watch the official floggings. He was forced to watch a friend of his being beaten with rubber truncheons. This friend died two days later as a result. He said that at the time of the election they were all told to vote for Hitler, but some of the guards voted against. This was reported to headquarters, with the result that they were dismissed, the Commandant (who was a fairly decent man) was replaced by a devil, and the new guards were very low type of people who spent their time baiting and bullying the prisoners. Luckely he himself had been let out before this happened. He told me that my intervention with Bismarck had undoubtedly secured him his release. He also said that one of the most terrible things about it all is that people without influential friends actually disappear in the camps and are completely forgotten for years."
Thursday June 11th Lunch with Maggie Greville. Find myself next to a German woman, fat but vivacious, dressed in shapeless green clothes. She is one of the Haniel family, a close friend of Ribbentrops, and very Nazi. After pouring into me Nazi propaganda for about half an hour, she says that I really ought to visit the country and see how much is it changed. I say that I do not wish to go back at present, as I would be so sad. She says 'Why so sad?' I say 'because all my friends their have either been murdered, exiled, or imprisoned.' She is rather taken aback by this, and loses her head. I then tell her that I spent yesterday with a German who had just come out of a concentration camp. I was very careful to add that he made no complaints and was very loyal to the regime. Lord Willingdon, who was on her other side, was much amused about her embarassment and I do not think she enjoyed her luncheon party or felt that that [!] her propaganda had been successful."
Reproduced by kind permission of the copyright holders and the Master and Fellows of Balliol College: Diaries of Harold George Nicolson (1886-1968, Balliol 1904-1907, Hon Fellow 1955), T.S. Elliot Collection.
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