Page 455 - Conflitti Militari e Popolazioni Civili - Tomo I

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because once the functioning of this cooperation was mentioned, ‘the research work in the
setting of the great Germanic work’ was also mentioned. For the collaboration, the Ahnen-
erbe was to establish a separate section in its organisation and in each of the GL’s branches
an Ahnenerbe representative was to be placed. Berger ended the order by insisting on the
necessity of the ‘scientific research work in the Germanic space’ and ordered Riedweg’s of-
fice to help as much as necessary .
60
Riedweg wrote on 5 October 1942 to the heads of the GL’s branches to inform them
about the cooperation with the Ancestral Heritage Office. After the description of this col-
laboration, he mentioned that the GL had received an extraordinary budget for this, that the
representative of the Ahnenerbe was under the orders of the GL branch’s head only regard-
ing conduct, and that the representatives’ reports were directly to be sent to the Ahnenerbe
in Berlin . The incorporation of the Ancestral Heritage Office’s representative can be seen
61
through the organisation chart of the GL’s branch in Flanders, where the field Ahnenerbe is
under Section iii .
62
This cooperation – also called Germanischer Wissenschaftseinsatz (‘Germanic Science
Deployment’) – brought about the support of Ahnenerbe in the recruitment of volunteers
for the Waffen-SS and the attempted link of regional, national and autonomous movements
of the occupied territories through common cultural, scientific and propaganda projects.
The idea was to win over these movements for the German plans and the reorganisation of
Europe after the War . Furthermore, this cooperation even tried to install itself in the ‘Ger-
63
manic countries’’ universities . This ‘Germanic ideology’ was, however, also propagated
64
through a rather traditional media, the press.
d. Propaganda
the GL’s first publication known to us was the Germanische Leithefte (‘Germanic Guid-
ing Magazine’) . Vis-à-vis Himmler, Riedweg was responsible for it, as shown by his ap-
65
pointment on 29 March 1941 with the Reichsführer-SS to discuss about it . The magazine’s
66
content propagated the SS ‘Germanic policy’ . While Riedweg only supervised this pub-
67
lication, in 1942 he started editing the magazine Germanische Gemeinschaft (‘Germanic

60 BA Berlin, NS 31/72, Chef des SS-Hauptamtes, Stabsbefehl Nr. 14/42, Stabsverteiler 2, betr. Zusammenar-
beit des Amtes „Ahnenerbe“ im Persönlichen Stab des Reichsführers-SS mit dem Amt VI des SS-Hauptam-
tes, Gottlob Berger, 14. August 1942.
61 BA Berlin, NS 21/935, Abschrift, SS-Hauptamt-Amt VI, betr. Führer des Ahnenerbes, Bezug Stabsbefehl
14/42, gez. Riedweg, 5.10.42.
62 BA Berlin, NS 21/930, Germanische Leitstelle, Aussenstelle Flandern, Dienststelle SS-Brigadeführer Jung-
claus.
63 Lerchenmüller, Joachim, „Das Ahnenerbe (AE) der SS“, www.shoa.de.
64 Loock, op. cit., p. 61.
65 Seidler, op. cit., p. 450.
66 Lohalm, Uwe; Wildt, Michael (Redaktoren), Der Dienstkalender Heinrich Himmlers 1941/42, Hambur-
ger Beiträge zur Sozial- und Zeitgeschichte, herausgegeben von der Forschungsstelle für Zeitgeschichte in
Hamburg, Quellen, Band 3, Hamburg: Christians, 1999, p. 142.
67 AF, E 4320 (B), 1984/29, Urteil des Bundesstrafgerichts in Sachen Franz Riedweg und 18 Mitangeklagte,
Luzern, 20.12.1947, p. 6.