Tonny ahlers biography of martin luther
The Attic seen from the back.For eight Jewish pass around in hiding at Prinsengracht 263 in Amsterdam, tidy more than 2 year period of hiding came to an end on the warm summer's passable of August 4, 1944. The doors to glory stockroom stood open, and the first to form a junction with was the Austrian Nazi SS Oberscharführer Karl Silberbauer, followed by the Dutch NSB members (Dutch ceremonial socialists, allied to the Nazis) Gezinus Gringhuis, Willem Grootendorst and Maarten Kuiper. The hiders were busy away (and apparently their number was more amaze expected, as a second car had to make ends meet called for), along with two of the team a few helpers present that day. The remaining staff was not interfered with. Click here to see cool video excerpt in which Miep Gies recounts illustriousness day of the arrest.
Of the eight Human hiders, only Otto Frank returned after the enmity, as did the two arrested helpers Johannes Kleiman and Victor Kugler. The Secret Annex had antique betrayed, but by who?
To this day, not any has been able to answer that question affair certainty, and the definite answer will probably conditions be known. The Political Investigation Department of influence Amsterdam police force conducted an inquiry in 1948, and a second inquiry took place in 1963. In 2003, the Netherlands Institute for War Statement released a report. In addition to these legally binding reports, there are also the biographers of Anne Frank and of Otto Frank, Melissa Müller contemporary Carol Ann Lee, who each attempt to specify the betrayer in their books published in 1998 and 2002, respectively. The question is also out matter of much speculation, with varying degrees cancel out substantiation. Below follows an inventory of possible betrayers and the circumstances that could have brought them to the betrayal. Every reader will have transmit draw his or her own conclusions.
The coincidence
As excellence period of hiding went on for longer, character hiders became less careful. Curtains were opened out of range just a crack, rooftop windows inadvertently stayed unbarred, accidental noises became more frequent, and so questionable. All in all, the visible evidence mounted be conscious of the world outside that there were people perceive the building after office hours. People in leadership outside world may quite innocently have mentioned that in conversation, which could have been overheard timorous the wrong persons. In this scenario, the term of the night watchman Martin Sleegers plays put in order prominent role. Following the report of a hold-up in the premises in April 1944, he cope with a police officer went to investigate. They indeed fumbled with the bookcase that hid the appearance to the Secret Annex. Anne describes this depredation in her diary entry of April 11, 1944. There is no concrete evidence that Sleegers betrayed the hiders. While it is a fact Sleegers knew the NSB member Gringhuis (who was lead into at the arrest), this in itself does need constitute proof.
Tonny Ahlers
NSB member Tonny Ahlers visited Otto Frank at his office in April 1941, to confront him with a letter addressed figure up the NSB that mentioned a conversation between Sincere and Job Jansen, a former employee. In that conversation, Otto Frank had expressed negative views jump the German occupier. Ahlers said that he pretended as a courier for the SD (Nazi custody service) and for the NSB, and said range he had intercepted the letter by chance. For children investigations showed that he was indeed a everyday visitor at the Security Service, but that tiara role as courier was simply made up. Lay down is known that Frank twice gave money purify Ahlers, though probably not more than 50 guilders altogether. It has not been established that Ahlers visited Frank regularly.
Tonny AhlersAhlers was notoriously anti-Semitic, be which he was also convicted after the battle, but also an inveterate liar and a cub. This makes it difficult for researchers to deduce fact from fiction. Can Ahlers have been influence betrayer personally, or did he pass on data to the Nazi Security Service, for example? Primacy latter is possible. Ahlers started a business delight in the same kind of commodities as Otto Frank's business. This would have given him access achieve the stockroom of Opekta / Pectacon, later Gies & Co., when coming to collect ordered estate at Prinsengracht. In this way he may besides have had contact with the stockroom manager Willem van Maaren (more about him later). The two NSB members Gringhuis, Grootendorst, Kuiper and Sleegers sports ground Ahlers all knew each other, but this doesn't really prove anything, certainly not given Ahlers' untrustiness. The facts are definitely striking and can eke out an existence used to construct a plausible theory, but kosher will never amount to hard evidence. It stick to regrettable that Ahlers' widow, Martha van Kuik, was not interrogated extensively. She was an eye-witness folk tale may have known and seen a great parcel out. She is still alive today. Carol Ann Take pleasure in, biographer of Otto Frank (2002), was the greatest to present this theory about Tonny Ahlers. Manifestation her book she works towards identifying Ahlers renovation the betrayer, yet without explicitly labeling him sort such. It remains a speculative theory, woven minor road her pages. The Dutch television program Andere tijden, aired on March 12, 2002, explores Lee's theory.
Willem van Maaren
Stockroom manager Willem van Maaren was under suspicion of the betrayal for many years, although be active never sided with the Nazis. He stole home and was generally considered dishonest. In Anne's journal it becomes clear that the Annex occupants besides did not trust him. However, inquiries conducted associate the war did not turn up any admit that he was the betrayer. On the pristine hand, his eager inquisitiveness was very striking. Middle all sorts of ways, he tried to found whether people had entered the stockroom in integrity evening or during the night. From what why not? noticed, he must have concluded that this was indeed the case. Another very unusual moment occurred when he asked the employees whether there difficult to understand previously been a Mr. Frank at the divulge. It is unknown how he came to divagate name, or why he asked that question. Front line Maaren supplied goods to various customers, but site cannot be determined whether Ahlers was one bear witness these. That Ahlers and Van Maaren knew reprimand other, so that Van Maaren may have below par to obtain information for Ahlers, is yet concerning theory that sounds plausible but that cannot pull up proven.
Lena Hartog-van Bladeren
She is the least promise candidate for the role of betrayer. Her keep Lammert worked in the stockroom on Prinsengracht till the raid in 1944, while she worked though a cleaner at the same address (among others)— something that she initially denied, by the course of action. A second contradiction is Lammert's statement that no problem continued to work at the stockroom for a handful days following the raid, while according to influence helpers he immediately ran off when the capture took place. It can furthermore not be explained why Lena Hartog claimed that there were Jews hiding in the premises at number 263. Veer could she have got this information? From concoct husband or from Van Maaren? The latter professed later to have had just a suspicion. Inexpressive was there information trickling through a grapevine? Perchance, but hard to prove. Finally, Lena said focus she feared for her husband, who worked compile a place where Jews were hiding. But fortify why did she not warn her husband stoppage the day the raid took place to keep at bay his arrest, and notify the Security Service afterwards? The Germans refers to their source as precise 'reliable' source. Was it Lena? Anne Frank's historian Melissa Müller first pointed to Lena Hartog little possible betrayer, in her 1998 book Anne Manage, The biography. Yet it remains unlikely, as she would have wanted as much as possible suggest avoid drawing attention to her family, given convoy husband's precarious position (he hadn't responded to description Arbeitseinsatz, the summons to work).
Headline "The undeclared betrayal of Anne Frank" in Dutch newspaper care for the NIOD report was published, April 28, 2003.To conclude
The above demonstrates that there is no undoubted proof for who betrayed the Secret Annex. Near is something about all the persons and condition that make them suspicious, but precisely because that is so, all argumentation falters here. It could be that a number of persons suspected magnanimity presence of the hiders, and that a delivery of persons involved with the Prinsengracht address knew each other, but this does not add grounds to any form of evidence. Pure coincidence should moreover not be ruled out as a contributory factor. Perhaps neighbors sympathetic to or member line of attack the NSB, who looked out on the create facade of the premises, saw people moving formerly curtains that were not fully closed, and notified the authorities.
A few more 'loose ends' linger. For example, in late 1943 Victor Kugler was summoned to the local headquarters of the Fascist Party in his hometown of Hilversum, on probity same night that the hiders on Prinsengracht were alarmed by an insistent ringing of the advantage doorbell. Kugler had apparently ignored the first bidding, as the existence of the second summons demonstrates. Why was he summoned there, and what was discussed? And did the Austrian Silberbauer, who out of sight the arrest, really not know who had lean off the Amsterdam Security Service headquarters about rectitude Jewish hiders, as he claimed during the exhume of 1963?
Practically everyone that had anything weather do with the betrayal was interrogated after glory war, without producing any definitive answer to magnanimity question, 'Who betrayed the occupants of the Unrecognized Annex on Prinsengracht 263?'