The Heretics' Hour Hall of Fame

Oldies but Goodies

This early Heretics' Hour program from June 28, 2010, with Carolyn's favorite guest of all time Wilhelm Kriessmann, is too good to be forgotten and left back in the archives.

Wilhelm Kriessmann - The Detention Camps

Left: Wolfsberg main gate (click to enlarge)

Right: Auschwitz main gate (click to enlarge)

What was life like in the British-run Wolfsberg detention camp in Austria, where Wilhelm was detained soon after he found his way home from Northern Germany in September, 1945? How did it compare with the Auschwitz detention camp in Poland? Was it really any better ... or was it worse? After 9 months at Wolfsberg, he spent another 8 months detained at the similar, but much smaller Wetzelsdorf camp ... all without any charges ever laid against him.

Wikipedia writes:
By the middle of June only Russian prisoners remained, these were eventually exchanged for British and American PoWs in Russian hands, near Graz. The camp then served as a British detention center for ex-Nazis, before finally closing in mid-1947.

Wilhelm Kriessmann was a soldier, not a "Nazi"; he was never a Party member. I had to appeal to him as a friend to come on the show and talk about his camp experience, as it is not something he normally did. He was one of those "too-decent and uncomplaining" Germans when it came to speaking about his own treatment by the English and Americans. He felt he had not suffered nearly what so many others did, and thus it was not worth telling. I am glad for the sake of the historical record that we have his story, brief as it is.

Program begins with an Elie Wiesel update. 54 min