Karl Silberbauer
Encyclopedia
Karl Josef Silberbauer was an Austrian
SD
officer holding the rank of SS
-Oberscharführer
(Staff Sergeant), when, serving in the occupied Netherlands
, he arrested Anne Frank
and her family in their hiding place in 1944.
, Silberbauer served in the Austrian military
before following his father into the police force in 1935. Four years later, he joined the Gestapo
, moved to the Netherlands
, and in 1943 transferred to the SD in The Hague
.
On August 4, 1944, he was instructed by his superior, Julius Dettmann, to investigate a tip-off that Jews were being hidden in upstairs rooms at Prinsengracht 263
. He took a few officers with him and interrogated Victor Kugler
about the entrance to the hiding place. Miep Gies
was also questioned, but allowed to stay on the premises after Kugler and his associate Johannes Kleiman
, together with Otto Frank
, Edith Frank-Holländer
, Margot Frank
, Anne Frank
, Hermann van Pels, Auguste van Pels, Peter van Pels, and Fritz Pfeffer
, were arrested and taken to Gestapo headquarters. From there the eight who had been in hiding were sent to Westerbork transit camp, and from there to Auschwitz. Victor Kugler and Jo Kleiman were sent to work camps. Of the ten, only Otto Frank, Kugler, and Kleimann survived.
Silberbauer returned to Vienna in April 1945 to begin serving fourteen months imprisonment on a charge of unnecessary brutality while interrogating members of the Communist Party of Germany
. After the war, Silberbauer was used by the West German intelligence service, or Bundesnachrichtendienst
, to infiltrate neo-Nazi and Pro-Soviet organizations.
He was reinstated by the Viennese Kriminalpolizei
in 1954, two years after the English language
publication of Anne Frank's diary
.
Simon Wiesenthal
's search for Silberbauer began in 1958 when he was challenged by Holocaust deniers
to prove the existence of Anne Frank. Silberbauer's name had been disclosed in 1948 during the Dutch police investigation into the denunciation and arrest of those hiding in the Secret Annex. The Dutch police detective
s who had assisted with the raid were identified by Miep Gies
and claimed to remember nothing, other than the name of their superior, Karl Silberbauer.
Wiesenthal requested the help of Anne's father, Otto Frank
, who refused. Otto Frank felt that those responsible for the original denunciation, not the arresting officer, bore the greatest responsibility. Wiesenthal disagreed, however.
In October 1963, after investigating and ruling out fourteen other Austrians with the same name, the Wiesenthal Center tracked Silberbauer down.
Silberbauer was suspended from the Vienna police force pending an investigation into his wartime activities. When the Dutch media learned of his whereabouts, they descended on his home. Silberbauer freely admitted to them that he had arrested Anne Frank. The story was broken to the world's press on November 11, 1963. Meanwhile, the Dutch police's investigation into the identity of the informer was reopened.
Silberbauer's memories of the arrest were notably vivid - he in particular recalled Otto and Anne Frank. When he asked Otto Frank how long they had been in hiding, Frank answered "Two years and one month." Silberbauer was incredulous, until Otto stood Anne against the marks made on the wall to measure her height since they had arrived in the annex, showing that she had grown even since the last mark had been made. Silberbauer said that Anne "looked like the pictures in the books, but a little older, and prettier. 'You have a lovely daughter', I said to Mr. Frank" (Roses from the Earth, pp. 245–246).
Silberbauer had only been told by his superiors that the tip came from a 'reliable source' and was unable to provide any information that could help further the Dutch police's investigation. His superior officer, Julius Dettmann
, who had originally taken the call, committed suicide immediately after the war. The Viennese and the Amsterdam police could not produce enough evidence of a criminal act to prosecute Silberbauer. Given Otto Frank's crucial declaration that Silberbauer had behaved correctly and without cruelty during the arrest, the judicial investigation was dropped. His suspension from the police force was lifted and he returned to work.
Austrians
Austrians are a nation and ethnic group, consisting of the population of the Republic of Austria and its historical predecessor states who share a common Austrian culture and Austrian descent....
SD
Sicherheitsdienst
Sicherheitsdienst , full title Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers-SS, or SD, was the intelligence agency of the SS and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. The organization was the first Nazi Party intelligence organization to be established and was often considered a "sister organization" with the...
officer holding the rank of SS
Schutzstaffel
The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...
-Oberscharführer
Oberscharführer
Oberscharführer was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank that existed between the years of 1932 and 1945. Translated as “Senior Squad Leader”, Oberscharführer was first used as a rank of the Sturmabteilung and was created due to an expansion of the enlisted positions required by growing SA membership...
(Staff Sergeant), when, serving in the occupied Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
, he arrested Anne Frank
Anne Frank
Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank is one of the most renowned and most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Acknowledged for the quality of her writing, her diary has become one of the world's most widely read books, and has been the basis for several plays and films.Born in the city of Frankfurt...
and her family in their hiding place in 1944.
Biography
Born in ViennaVienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, Silberbauer served in the Austrian military
Military of Austria
The Österreichisches Bundesheer , is the name for the military of the Republic of Austria....
before following his father into the police force in 1935. Four years later, he joined the Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
, moved to the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
, and in 1943 transferred to the SD in The Hague
The Hague
The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...
.
On August 4, 1944, he was instructed by his superior, Julius Dettmann, to investigate a tip-off that Jews were being hidden in upstairs rooms at Prinsengracht 263
Anne Frank House
The Anne Frank House on Prinsengracht canal in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, is a museum dedicated to Jewish wartime diarist Anne Frank, who hid from Nazi persecution with her family and four other people in hidden rooms at the rear of the building...
. He took a few officers with him and interrogated Victor Kugler
Victor Kugler
Victor Kugler was one of the people who helped hide Anne Frank and her family and friends during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. In Anne Frank's posthumously published diary, The Diary of a Young Girl, he was referred to under the name Mr...
about the entrance to the hiding place. Miep Gies
Miep Gies
Miep Gies was one of the Dutch citizens who hid Anne Frank, her family and several family friends in an attic annex above Anne's father's place of business from the Nazis during World War II...
was also questioned, but allowed to stay on the premises after Kugler and his associate Johannes Kleiman
Johannes Kleiman
Johannes Kleiman was one of the Dutch citizens who helped hide Anne Frank and her family during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. In the published version of Anne's diary, The Diary of a Young Girl, he is given the pseudonym Mr. Koophuis...
, together with Otto Frank
Otto Frank
Otto Heinrich "Pim" Frank was a German-born businessman and the father of Anne Frank and Margot Frank...
, Edith Frank-Holländer
Edith Frank-Holländer
Edith Frank was the mother of Holocaust diarist Anne Frank.-Early life:Edith was the youngest of four children, having been born into a German-Jewish family in Aachen, Germany...
, Margot Frank
Margot Frank
Margot Betti Frank was the older sister of Anne Frank, whose deportation order from the Gestapo hastened the Frank family into hiding, and who subsequently perished in Bergen-Belsen...
, Anne Frank
Anne Frank
Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank is one of the most renowned and most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Acknowledged for the quality of her writing, her diary has become one of the world's most widely read books, and has been the basis for several plays and films.Born in the city of Frankfurt...
, Hermann van Pels, Auguste van Pels, Peter van Pels, and Fritz Pfeffer
Fritz Pfeffer
Friedrich "Fritz" Pfeffer was a German dentist and Jewish refugee who hid with Anne Frank during the Nazi Occupation of the Netherlands, and who perished in the Neuengamme concentration camp in Northern Germany...
, were arrested and taken to Gestapo headquarters. From there the eight who had been in hiding were sent to Westerbork transit camp, and from there to Auschwitz. Victor Kugler and Jo Kleiman were sent to work camps. Of the ten, only Otto Frank, Kugler, and Kleimann survived.
Silberbauer returned to Vienna in April 1945 to begin serving fourteen months imprisonment on a charge of unnecessary brutality while interrogating members of the Communist Party of Germany
Communist Party of Germany
The Communist Party of Germany was a major political party in Germany between 1918 and 1933, and a minor party in West Germany in the postwar period until it was banned in 1956...
. After the war, Silberbauer was used by the West German intelligence service, or Bundesnachrichtendienst
Bundesnachrichtendienst
The Bundesnachrichtendienst [ˌbʊndəsˈnaːχʁɪçtnˌdiːnst] is the foreign intelligence agency of Germany, directly subordinated to the Chancellor's Office. Its headquarters are in Pullach near Munich, and Berlin . The BND has 300 locations in Germany and foreign countries...
, to infiltrate neo-Nazi and Pro-Soviet organizations.
He was reinstated by the Viennese Kriminalpolizei
Kriminalpolizei
is the standard term for the criminal investigation agency within the police forces of Germany, Austria and the German-speaking cantons of Switzerland. In Nazi Germany during 1936, the Kripo became the Criminal Police Department for the entire Reich...
in 1954, two years after the English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
publication of Anne Frank's diary
The Diary of a Young Girl
The Diary of a Young Girl is a book of the writings from the Dutch language diary kept by Anne Frank while she was in hiding for two years with her family during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. The family was apprehended in 1944 and Anne Frank ultimately died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen...
.
Simon Wiesenthal
Simon Wiesenthal
Simon Wiesenthal KBE was an Austrian Holocaust survivor who became famous after World War II for his work as a Nazi hunter....
's search for Silberbauer began in 1958 when he was challenged by Holocaust deniers
Holocaust denial
Holocaust denial is the act of denying the genocide of Jews in World War II, usually referred to as the Holocaust. The key claims of Holocaust denial are: the German Nazi government had no official policy or intention of exterminating Jews, Nazi authorities did not use extermination camps and gas...
to prove the existence of Anne Frank. Silberbauer's name had been disclosed in 1948 during the Dutch police investigation into the denunciation and arrest of those hiding in the Secret Annex. The Dutch police detective
Detective
A detective is an investigator, either a member of a police agency or a private person. The latter may be known as private investigators or "private eyes"...
s who had assisted with the raid were identified by Miep Gies
Miep Gies
Miep Gies was one of the Dutch citizens who hid Anne Frank, her family and several family friends in an attic annex above Anne's father's place of business from the Nazis during World War II...
and claimed to remember nothing, other than the name of their superior, Karl Silberbauer.
Wiesenthal requested the help of Anne's father, Otto Frank
Otto Frank
Otto Heinrich "Pim" Frank was a German-born businessman and the father of Anne Frank and Margot Frank...
, who refused. Otto Frank felt that those responsible for the original denunciation, not the arresting officer, bore the greatest responsibility. Wiesenthal disagreed, however.
In October 1963, after investigating and ruling out fourteen other Austrians with the same name, the Wiesenthal Center tracked Silberbauer down.
Silberbauer was suspended from the Vienna police force pending an investigation into his wartime activities. When the Dutch media learned of his whereabouts, they descended on his home. Silberbauer freely admitted to them that he had arrested Anne Frank. The story was broken to the world's press on November 11, 1963. Meanwhile, the Dutch police's investigation into the identity of the informer was reopened.
Silberbauer's memories of the arrest were notably vivid - he in particular recalled Otto and Anne Frank. When he asked Otto Frank how long they had been in hiding, Frank answered "Two years and one month." Silberbauer was incredulous, until Otto stood Anne against the marks made on the wall to measure her height since they had arrived in the annex, showing that she had grown even since the last mark had been made. Silberbauer said that Anne "looked like the pictures in the books, but a little older, and prettier. 'You have a lovely daughter', I said to Mr. Frank" (Roses from the Earth, pp. 245–246).
Silberbauer had only been told by his superiors that the tip came from a 'reliable source' and was unable to provide any information that could help further the Dutch police's investigation. His superior officer, Julius Dettmann
Julius Dettmann
Julius Dettmann was a German officer of the SD of the SS.Dettman belonged to the SS with the card number 414,783, and to the Nazi Party with card number 722,240, member of Section IVB4 of the Gestapo. He was stationed in Amsterdam, Holland, during the German occupation of that country...
, who had originally taken the call, committed suicide immediately after the war. The Viennese and the Amsterdam police could not produce enough evidence of a criminal act to prosecute Silberbauer. Given Otto Frank's crucial declaration that Silberbauer had behaved correctly and without cruelty during the arrest, the judicial investigation was dropped. His suspension from the police force was lifted and he returned to work.
Sources
- The Critical Edition of the Diary of Anne Frank, Anne Frank, edited by David Barnow, 2003
- Anne Frank House: a museum with a story, Anne Frank Foundation 1999
- Roses from the Earth, Carol Ann Lee