The Triumph of Evil

By Ian Dixon Potter

In order to marry my Mother, herself a commoner, my Father renounced his entitlement to the throne. Were it not for this, I would now be King of Sweden - and none of the events which I'm about to recount would ever have happened.

My life has been devoted to public service in one form or another and there was a particular childhood incident which influenced me greatly. My very earliest memories are of family Christmases. Every year my father invited several poor families from our village to join us at home. When I asked him why these strangers were in our house he explained to me that Christmas is a time for giving and those people were a good deal less fortunate than ourselves. This impressed me greatly and in time, became the foundation for my own life in public service.

I wished to serve my country by joining the army but during a brief military career as a cavalry officer it became obvious that my poor health would preclude any further involvement in active service.

My Uncle, Prince Karl was at the time, president of the Swedish Red Cross. Five years ago, in the spring of 1943 he who suggested that I take on the role as vice president. In this capacity I became involved in the plan to rescue prisoners from the infamous Nazi concentration camps.

It was incumbent on me to draw up plans demonstrating how the Red Cross could be of service after the war. However, I felt that we could do useful work inside Nazi controlled territory, even whilst the war was still raging.

By the middle of 1944 it seemed almost certain that Germany was going to lose the war and British intelligence reports suggested that the Nazi’s were intending to exterminate all remaining prisoners in their concentration camps. They were planning to destroy all evidence of their atrocities before the allied armies reached the camps. I concluded that the Swedish Red Cross just might have a role to play in rescuing at least some of those unfortunate people.

It was well known that the head of the Gestapo and SS and Hitler's second in command, Heinrich Himmler had a particular love of Sweden. There was therefore a possibility that I might I might be able to capitalise on this emotional attachment. To contact Himmler I would have to go through the German foreign minister Von Ribbentrop. This was in the February of 1945.

I was particularly shocked when I first saw the ruins of Berlin. There were long queues outside food shops, barricades in the streets and huge plies of rubble where buildings used to stand. Almost every building had lost its roof. People were reduced to living in cellars and faced heavy bombing raids every night. This was the Berlin I saw when I met Von Ribbentrop in what was left of the foreign ministry.

This meeting took place at the time the Swedish government was actively considering entering the war on the side of the allies. Your Mr Churchill had made certain overtures intended to persuade the Swedish government to abandon its neutrality. No decision had been made but I was able to give Von Ribbentrop the impression that our discussions might have some bearing on the matter. I suggested that any cooperation would undoubtedly create amongst the Swedish people a more favourable impression of the Third Reich.

Von Ribbentrop was aware that if Sweden were to abandon its neutrality, that would be a disaster for Germany. I recall he suggested that would also be a disaster for Sweden. According to Von Ribberntrop, if Germany were to lose the war then Russian bombers would be over Stockholm in days and the Bolsheviks would undoubtedly execute all the members of the Royal Family, myself included. He had this notion that the governments of all Anglo Saxon countries including Sweden, should unite to combat the Bolshevik menace.

Von Ribbentrop believed that the Germans, the Swedes, the British and the Americans share the same values, born of the same history. Values, as he put it, moulded by the Renaissance, the Reformation and the Enlightenment. And in a sense he was correct, in contrast at least to the history of the Russians.

You can draw a line through Europe dividing east from west and this is the very same line which divided the eastern and western Roman Empires. Those nations to the east of that fifteen hundred year old line are prone to despotism in one form or another. Their past lies in the oppression and tyranny of the Byzantines. As a direct consequence of their history, the Russian people know of no other way.

Von Ribbentrop asked me which contemporary human being had contributed more to humanity than anyone else. He was of of course referring to Herr Hitler whom he sincerely believed to be at heart a good man. For many Germans there could be no greater good than the elevation of ones own race, ones own nation.

Hitler's every waking hour was devoted to the survival and supremacy of his own people. Germany suffered great ignominy after their defeat in nineteen eighteen, their national pride and economy were in tatters but according to Von Ribbentrop, Hitler had single handedly restored the prestige of the German race.

I wonder if there's anything to be said for this definition of a good man. A man who puts his own people above all else? For example, as a direct consequence of my new role in Palestine I've already made many enemies, particularly amongst Zionists who've suggested that in my dealings with the Nazi's I was only interested in rescuing Scandinavian prisoners and not even Scandinavian Jews.

In truth I would never favour one race above another. Suffering is suffering wherever you find it. Surely it is little more than petty parochialism to exhibit more concern for the suffering of people of your own race or nationality. I've always taken the view that in any endeavour we should avoid elevating our national identity above our other identities.

Must I define myself as Swedish above all? If anything I think of myself as European first and foremost. After all, the western European nations have a common heritage and culture which goes back thousands of years.

So on the contrary, I wanted to rescue prisoners of all types but my way of starting the process was to propose that we deal firstly with Scandinavian prisoners. I felt that this was likely to meet with less resistance from Himmler.

The first step was to persuade Himmler to allow a Swedish Red Cross convoy to enter German held territory and rescue all of the Swedish, Danish and Norwegian prisoners and bring them to a place of safety in neutral territory.

I recognised that the expedition I was proposing would be exposed to great danger. There could easily have been Red Cross casualties. And even my own expeditions into the heart of war torn Germany to meet with Himmler and Von Ribbentrop were not without risk.

It was necessary to strike up a good working relationship with Himmler. In order to achieve anything from these negotiations I was forced into a position where I had to treat him with kid gloves. I had to get him on my side. There was nothing to be gained in antagonising him by labouring on the iniquities of the Third Reich. I didn’t publicly denounce Nazism and its methods because I knew that would spoil all chances of achieving my purpose. In a manner of speaking I had to deal with the devil.

My first meeting with Himmler himself was in his office in a large hospital seventy five kilometres north of Berlin. My first impression was of a harmless provincial schoolmaster. A small, frankly unimpressive man. At first he wasn't at all responsive to my proposal. He became very defensive when I mentioned the concentration camps. He said I'd been misinformed. That the suffering of prisoners was most often a direct consequence of allied bombing campaigns. I suggested that whatever the cause of the suffering, the ideal solution would be to relieve the overcrowding by selectively releasing some of the prisoners. I argued that quite apart from anything else, these prisoners were a burden on the third Reich, taking resources away from their war effort.

Eventually he accepted that the old and sick could be allowed to return to Norway but was less happy about releasing Swedish born wives of German citizens and their children. He feared that in Sweden, the German children would be brought up to hate their own country and be spat upon by their playmates.

Himmler was particularly eager for his cooperation to be acknowledged. Should Germany loose the war he knew there would be recriminations and hoped to avoid being made a scapegoat. I told him that it was certain that all of his actions would be taken into account.

So my meeting with Himmler paved the way for the Red Cross convoy made up of thirty six coaches and twelve lorries along with field kitchens, ambulances and mobile workshops.

The convoy was transported by boat from Skorner in Sweden to Odense in Denmark heading first to Castle Friedrichruh in Germany, home of Prince and Princess Otto Von Bismarck.

The convoy then made its way to Neuengamme near Hamburg and I became the very first representative of a neutral humanitarian organisation to set foot in a concentration camp. The prisoners we hoped to rescue were transported to Neuengamme from concentration camps situated further to the east and to the south; Auschwitz, Ravensbrueck, Belsen, Dachau and others.

Neuengamme was an appalling place. Overcrowded, insanitary and inhumane and labouring under an exceedingly harsh disciplinary regime.

I never cease to wonder at the cruelty of men once they are a given a uniform and absolute authority over others. Especially those who are deemed to be their prisoners or perhaps those we define as the enemy or think of as somehow beyond the pale. Not that a uniform is a pre-requisite for cruelty towards those we believe to be different from ourselves. And I don't just mean those who plan or carry out these atrocities. I'm thinking also of all those ordinary men and women in Germany who were simply indifferent to the suffering of the Jews and other minorities.

Some Germans claim that they didn't know what was happening, but in every town and village they saw Jewish people being herded onto trains like cattle, and knowledge of their ultimate fate was far more than just a matter of rumour and conjecture.

I believe that it is important not to confine our recrimination to the ruthless and self serving men at the top. Consider how the Nazi party were able to identify and persecute “dissident” elements within a population despite only having a handful of Gestapo officers in each German city. Ordinary citizens were encouraged by the authorities to spy on each other and to report any behaviour which didn’t conform to their narrow standards.

A particularly sad case came to my attention recently. A housewife in Düsseldorf reported her neighbour to the local Gestapo. She described this neighbour as being unconventional in her habits, only keeping the company of members of her own sex and showing little enthusiasm for returning the Nazi salute. This neighbour was arrested, imprisoned, tortured and was finally murdered in Auschwitz. Thousands of German citizens reported their neighbours to the authorities in this way knowing full well that their actions would almost certainly lead to dire consequences.

It is most often ordinary people who are responsible for individual acts of violence and cruelty. There is this stereotype of the strong, Machiavellian, evil leader, but evil is so often the consequence of people simply following orders. Evil is essentially commonplace, even thoughtless. In reality it is seldom the self reflecting evil of for example Shakespeare's Richard the third although I wonder if that form of evil exists at all outside the realm of fiction.

I'm often asked how an otherwise civilised and cultured people could commit such atrocities. There are those who think they've identified something unique in the German character. Perhaps a predisposition to obey, to feel most at home when there is someone who has the power of command above them.

I'm not so sure. There are people in many nations who become uncertain and confused without authority above them. Due to some sort of mental indolence they don't want to form their own opinions or to act in accordance with them. They wants to swim with the stream, act with the masses. If there is no one to direct them they are swept into a vortex. Everything goes to pieces.

No, I think there is the potential for good and evil in all of us of whatever race or nationality and certain political climates can emphasise one or the other. For example, the German people were manipulated by an extremely persuasive propaganda machine which for many years had painted the Jewish people as little more than vermin. The newspapers in particular, were instrumental in creating this climate of hatred, both in their editorials and in their very selective printing of stories intended to depict the Jews in a negative light.

So, getting back to Neuengamme, I found myself having to deal with the notorious Ober Sturmbannführer Pauli, a man who carried out his duties as a commandant with great enthusiasm. He was the kind of brute who could only ever have risen through the ranks in an iniquitous regime such as Nazi Germany. He was almost certainly a bully at school, the sort who probably also beats his wife. Had he been born into a more civilised culture, he would still have been a nasty piece of work, likely a petty criminal, doubtless ending up in prison himself.

The character of any people, any nation or indeed any corporation is reflected in the quality of those we allow to rise to the top, which of course doesn't say a great deal for the German people nor for certain other societies even today ruled over by bullies and posturing narcissists.

Pauli was actively resisting my efforts to improve conditions at Neuengamme and despite Himmler’s assurances, progress of the rescue mission was far from smooth. Unfortunately the chain of command had somewhat deteriorated as a result of Germany’s precarious military situation.

One of Himmler’s aides, Kaltenbrunner was deliberately trying to sabotage the mission. He reported the terms of the agreement directly to Hitler who was determined that neutral representatives should not be allowed to see inside the concentration camps. I was unprepared to tolerate my plans being upset by Kaltenbrunner and I refused to discuss these matters with anyone other than Himmler. I had to return to Berlin to resume negotiations, once again in his office in the sanatorium. Himmler was no longer in Hitler's..what is that English expression...ah yes, his good books. Hitler had described Himmler as a traitor and rescinded the orders to allow prisoners to be moved.

Clearly The Fuhrer wasn't persuaded by the fact that that the prisoners to be released were Scandinavian Aryans. He was concerned that there were Scandinavian Jews amongst them and he wouldn't countenance the release of even a single Jew.

During our meetings Himmler himself spoke often about cleansing Europe of the Jewish race. He even claimed that the Jews had brought it on their own heads.

You have to remember the state of the German economy before Hitler came to power. Poverty, unemployment, a dire shortage of housing. The Führer promised to make Germany great again and for many Germans that's exactly what he'd done. Adolf Hitler identified the Jews as the cancer in their midst. He claimed to have uncovered the 'international Jewish conspiracy' and so he acted to eradicate Jews. But they were merely a scapegoat. Any other sizeable immigrant group would have served the same purpose. Frankly I doubt if the Nazi hierarchy really believed in this conspiracy but they played on the fears of ordinary Germans magnified by the anti-Semitic press barons.

There was a popular notion that Jews would only help each other. That should anyone make the mistake of elevating a Jew to a position of responsibility, then you would find that others would follow. That they act only to line their own pockets and those of other Jews. And not at all for the good of Germany. But don't we all do that to a certain extent? There would have been no problem if the Jews were favouring their own kind in their own country. But of course three years ago the Jews didn't have a country.

It's interesting to recall that Hitler himself actively promoted the establishment of a Jewish homeland. Prior to the implementation of the final solution, he anticipated that Jews expelled from Germany would indeed settle in Palestine.

Many Germans believed that the Jews have been in a constant state of conflict with other races since the time of Abraham, precisely because they believe themselves to be the chosen people of God, a superior race. After all, it's very difficult to convert to Judaism. With a few rare exceptions, a Jew is born a Jew. However historically speaking there are in fact very many examples of Jewish minorities working alongside and even assimilating to a degree with other peoples.

I've always admired the British policy of liberal integration. Great Britain welcomes with open arms peoples from all around the world just long as they integrate and at least in part, adopt British values. That seems to me to be a humane and eminently sensible approach. Although even in Great Britain, there are unscrupulous and despicable politicians who will seek to make scapegoats of immigrants by blaming them for problems which are not of their making.

I was eventually able to persuade Himmler to allow the convoy to leave Neuengamme against the Führer's direct orders. In return he wanted to play a part in bringing a peaceful resolution to the war in the west. He wanted me to describe to Eisenhower his cooperation in the matter of the convoy. Himmler hoped that he and Eisenhower could discuss terms for a German surrender on the Western front. We now know that Himmler’s terms were unacceptable to the Allies. It was Admiral Doenitz, not Himmler who surrendered to Eisenhower and Himmler committed suicide after being arrested by British troops.

As for the convoy, the difficult negotiations paid off handsomely and over thirty thousand prisoners were rescued from the concentration camps, including a very significant number of Jews. Although I think it would be vain to regard this as a personal triumph in the light of dreadful fate of the millions we were unable to rescue.

I became acquainted with many of the liberated prisoners and I still remain in contact with several of them. For example only this morning I received a letter from Pavlina, a young lady in her early twenties who was liberated from Auschwitz. She lived for a while in a hostel in Stockholm but just as soon as the war was over she returned to her village, Vranov, not far from Prague, with the intention of being re-united with her family. She came from a large family. Her widowed mother, three brothers and two sisters along with many aunts and uncles and cousins. She told me that she was related to half of the population of Vranov, but when she arrived in the village she found not a single one of her relatives. She's been waiting there for nearly three years now, hoping in vain that someone would return. I made some enquiries on her behalf and it seems that every other member of her family was sent to the gas chambers. Out of her entire extended family, Pavlina is the only survivor.

It's terribly sad but her case is far from unique. Imagine you are liberated from Auschwitz or Belsen. You return to your old town in Poland or Austria or Hungary, in Germany or Czechoslovakia. You find a another family occupying your old house. You look into the faces of your former neighbours and see the murderers of your family. You discover that you are still hated. Your neighbours regard you as having returned from the dead. At best, your return was a painful surprise to them. How can you remain there? How can you remain in the place where you were once happy amongst family and friends.

Many people have deliberated long and hard on the lessons we can learn from the crimes of the Third Reich. The 18th century Conservative politician Edmund Burke famously said that the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men should do nothing. We must ask ourselves where were the good men of Germany a few short years ago?

Perhaps there were very few men - or women in Germany who were not fundamentally anti-Semitic. But anti-Semitism alone cannot be sufficient explanation for the death camps. The cruelties were also meted out against the mentally ill, the crippled, against gypsies, homosexuals, communists and Slavs, indeed against anyone who didn’t uphold the values of the Third Reich. If a person or a society exhibits intolerance towards one group they generally exhibit intolerance towards many.

I suggested earlier that the German people are far from unique in having a strong predilection for order and compliance with authority but wherever we find it, this tendency certainly breeds intolerance towards anyone who is in any way different, non conformist, - non compliant.

Take for example an incident in which a troop of German conscripts were asked to take part in a firing squad. Their victims were Jewish women and children who had attempted to escape from the Warsaw Ghetto.

The German commander told each member of the firing squad that there would be no repercussions if they preferred not to take part. These men were not professional soldiers. They were not members of the Nazi party. They were bakers and plumbers, car mechanics and shopkeepers. Not one of these men declined to take part. Apparently they didn’t want to stand out so instead they murdered those women and children. Perhaps they simply didn’t want to think for themselves.

Three years after the defeat of the Nazis, anti-Semitism still persists in Germany as in some other parts of Europe. Only yesterday I read a newspaper report about Germans passing by the Jewish community centre in Stuttgart. They were heard to shout out loud ‘It’s a pity they didn’t burn them all’. The majority of Germans feel no sense of guilt or shame. They only regret that they lost the war. In the same newspaper, the Bishop of Vienna was reported as stating publicly that religious anti-Semitism is entirely justified and that the only solution to the Jewish problem is for Jews to convert to Christianity.

There’s hardly a country in Europe where the Jews haven’t suffered persecution and many other nations colluded enthusiastically with the Nazis. And not just in Europe. The Palestinian religious leader, The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem was allied to the Nazi's. It was he who suggested the idea of the final solution to Hitler. I’ve seen letters from The Grand Mufti to Eichmann, to Himmler and to Von Ribbentrop and also to the Prime Ministers of Bulgaria and Romania all advocating the extermination of Jews.

Ever since seeking refuge in Germany in 1941 he actively campaigned for the elimination of all Jews and personally ensured the murder of thousands of Jewish children who would have certainly been saved had it not been for his intervention.

When Hitler knew his days were numbered he asked the Grand Mufti to set up a Pan-Islamic Empire and to perpetuate the final solution by other means. Indeed, documents revealing this conspiracy formed part of the prosecutions at the Nuremberg trials.

Of course it's important to remember that the Jews are not the only ones who’ve suffered genocide. More indigenous people were massacred in South America by the Spanish armed only with crude muskets and bayonets than the Nazi’s were able to exterminate using their industrialised killing machine. The Spanish felt justified in their actions because they thought of their victims as unchristian savages.

Once again religion is at the root of a great evil. Unreasonable beliefs so often lead to unreasonable actions. The Nazi cult of Aryan supremacy was very much akin to a religion, and very much bound up with the occult. This was an unreasonable belief by any standards.

Of course any difference can be used as an excuse for persecution. It doesn't have to be religious but for many people, their religious identity takes precedence over their other identities. It's more fundamental than national or even racial identity. And those who don't share ones religious identity are often seen as somehow 'beyond the pale'. To an outsider, these religious distinctions are nothing short of ridiculous. Ludicrous, puerile myths. And yet they inevitably lead to so much conflict and suffering.

People from all nations are so often happy to do the bidding of authority, both religious and secular, because it relieves them of the need to judge for themselves what is right from what is wrong, but religious authority is by far the most difficult kind of authority to question. If the Quran, the Bible or the Torah are interpreted by wicked and self serving men what hope is there for their followers?

I'm often asked if my experiences in Nazi Germany have allowed me to form any general opinions about human nature. Sadly it would seem that in Germany and perhaps elsewhere, only a small minority possess that independence of thought which is the bulwark against manipulation by others. If only we were confident in our own individual thought processes even when they lead us into a position which is in opposition to the majority. Only then can we be intellectually self reliant and not afraid to condemn those who follow a hollow creed.

Furthermore, if we have the imagination to understand what it's like to be another person we should be able to empathise with their plight. Acts of evil so often have at their root a lack of empathy. We can do terrible things to other people if we cannot empathise with them. Usually because we've been persuaded that they are in some way different from ourselves..

There is a very bleak argument that a form of xenophobia is innate to all human beings, indeed to all organisms. Darwin demonstrated that the development of separate species through sexual selection depends on a clear identification of those who are part of one’s own group as distinct from those who are outsiders, specifically those with whom we are discouraged from procreating.

Xenophobia may also be also a consequence of our evolution as creatures trying desperately to survive in harsh and dangerous environments at a time when those who are different from ourselves may indeed have constituted a genuine threat. Some therefore suggest that it is entirely natural to hate and fear the other.

In the school yard children are merciless in persecuting and bullying those who are different in some way. But perhaps hatred of the other doesn’t blossom naturally at all; perhaps it is the result of learning from the example set by parents. Or by priests, imams and rabbis.

Speaking as a Swedish Anglophile, I look upon England as a beacon of civility almost unique in the world today. Your values of tolerance and fair play and your preparedness to defend the underdog are well known across the globe. And yet, a large proportion of the British public leave school at the age of fifteen. They are by any standards woefully under educated. They are probably unable to understand the political and social issues of our day in anything other than the most simplistic terms. These people are easily led by the more disreputable organs of the press and by unscrupulous politicians like your Mr Mosley.

If there were choices to make about the direction of society I'm sure that you wouldn't think of consulting the man on the Clapham omnibus. What would be his views or example on policies regarding independence for your colonies, immigration from your colonies, the appropriate policies for the treatment of certain minorities? Not views which you would want to pay any heed I'm perfectly sure. In some ways he might be as motivated by prejudice and bigotry as were the Nazis.

Whether whether this propensity towards intolerance is innate or is in fact learned behaviour I’m sure that we must agree that as reasonable human beings we should strive at all times to rise above it.

A new chapter in my life has begun. Tomorrow I fly to Jerusalem to broker a peace between the Arabs and the Jews. It's my firm intention to find a solution to this hitherto intractable problem in Palestine. So wish me luck. I rather think I'll need it.

On 17th September 1948 Count Folke Bernadotte, the United Nations Security Council Mediator in Palestine was assassinated in West Jerusalem. His limousine was held up by men wearing the uniform of the Zionist militia, one of whom fired at point blank range into the car.

The Swedish Ambassador remarked that it is a savage irony that a man responsible for the liberation of so many Jews from the Nazi concentration camps should be murdered by Jewish extremists.