Book Review

Here is an autobiography, in German, of a person born in 1919 into a militarist family of Germany. The origins of the family can be traced to Belgium, as it existed in the 15th century.

With patriotic fervor, and in the proud tradition of his family, the author joined the German army under Adolf Hitler. Though a teenager at the time he joined the army, he steadily rose through the ranks and became a colonel

The immediate mission assigned to him, after the initial training, was to cause disaffection among British settlers in their colony in eastern Africa. In pursuance of that mission, Wimmer-Lamquet, barely 17 years old at the time, was sent to Tanganyika. (Tanganyika had a special attraction for Germans because, before it came under British rule in 1920, it was a German protectorate. It gained independence from Britain in 1961. In 1964, Tanganyika united with Zanzibar to become Tanzania.) The role the teenager was asked to play in Tanganyika was not that of a soldier, though. He was ordered to be a farmer, like many British settlers in the region. To assist him in his work, he was given an Indian maistry by the name of Kohly.

But his fellow German settlers in Tanganyika, including those belonging to the National Socialists (the Nazis), did not accept him as one of their own. To them, he was a loner from Potsdam. And the British viewed him with suspicion, especially after the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. To them, he was a non-conformist German operative. They forced him to leave Tanganyika. Thus in 1940, Franz Wimmer-Lamquet, who had by then become a lieutenant, found himself returning to Germany.

Back home, a new assignment was awaiting the young lieutenant. He was ordered to marry Princess Tamilla, the daughter of the Sultan of Mauritania. The order was given by no less a person than Hitler himself. That was part of a scheme Hitler had put together to establish Arab connections. The Sultan’s cousin, it may be added, was married to the then prime minister of Iraq, Rashid Ali Ghailani.

That the prospective bride and bridegroom had never met was of no concern for Hitler. The young man was shown a photograph of his would-be wife, though. She looked attractive, he says in the book, with long, black hair almost covering her buttocks.

Hitler had negotiated the marriage through his ministry of external affairs. In return for his daughter’s hand in marriage, the Sultan of Mauritania was to receive all assistance from Germany in his fight against the colonialists. Before it gained independence in 1960, Mauritania was a French colony. Hitler’s ultimate goal was to revive German influence in the region.

When Hitler ordered the boyish-looking Lt. Wimmer-Lamquet to marry the African princess, he said, "Sir, as a good soldier, I obey your orders, but I had no opportunity to see a naked woman as yet." Hitler told him that that would be taken care of. Ordered by Hitler, Lt. Gen. Krueger arranged for the young man’s sex education. It took place in a special military brothel near Potsdam. A formal marriage ceremony was to be conducted later.

Soon after the arranged marriage, the young lieutenant was sent to Iraq. The mission entrusted to him this time was to wean away the countries of the Arabian Gulf from British influence. The Iraqi prime minister, now related to a German military officer, was very happy that he could count on Germany’s help in his efforts to expel the British from the Arabian soil.

Unfortunately, Wimmer-Lamquet’s two-year assignment in Iraq turned out to be disastrous, both for him and Germany. He blames it on the rise within the German establishment of "a thousand little Hitlers” and the resulting discontent and double-crossing among the Nazis. The corruption and opportunism that prevailed among the them spread beyond the European continent. Party functionaries and those in power often worked at cross-purposes. Only those who were very aggressive and had the ability to work the corrupt system to their advantage succeeded. The success brought them immense wealth. But their intrigues cost Germany dearly.

Wimmer-Lamquet was in charge of coordinating from his Iraqi base the air cover operations Hitler had provided the Arabs as part of his promised logistical support. But a man-made "fuel shortage" in Damascus, Syria, sabotaged the operations. The sabotage also brought to an end Field Marshal von Blomberg's plan to move his son closer to Hitler. The field marshal had managed to get his son, Major Axel von Blomberg, appointed commander of the 16 aircraft that took part in the air cover operations. But other Nazis, who had similar nepotistic plans up their sleeves, scuttled the operations. They did it by creating an artificial fuel shortage.

The book cites another instance of a senior military officer putting his personal interest above German national interest. At the height of Allied-Axis conflicts in North Africa, Wimmer-Lamquet was engaged in espionage activities. He had gathered intelligence on an imminent enemy attack. He provided details of the enemy plan to the head of German counterintelligence forces, Admiral Canaris. The admiral chose not to act on the information.

Hitler himself was aware of intrigues and inaction on the part of his subordinates. By way of punishing the culprits, he shot and caused to be shot nearly a dozen top officers. Even Field Marshal Rommel’s record was not free of blemish. He committed suicide when it was discovered that he had condoned the plot against Hitler’s life. More than anything else, it was intrigues and in-fighting among high-ranking German officials that set the stage for Germany’s ultimate defeat in World War II and that drove Hitler himself to commit suicide.

There were inadvertent errors, too, that contributed to the defeat. The book mentions one of them. One day, the Iraqi prime minister received a happy piece of news: that Major von Blomberg was bringing him a valuable booty, an Allied fighter plane. The plane, repainted badly to mask its identity, was piloted by von Blomberg himself. As ill-luck would have it, it didn’t reach its destination, Baghdad. Iraqi and German anti-aircraft guns, mistaking it for an enemy plane, shot it down. A costly mistake caused by friendly fire, to use today’s military terminology. It ended Major von Blomberg’s life and Germany’s air cover operations in Iraq.

After this 1941 debacle, Wimmer-Lamquet, who had by then become a colonel, was ordered back to his native Potsdam. Though he had been married for some time now, the marriage had not yet been consummated. It did during this short visit. Two weeks later, he was ordered to go to North Africa. The mission this time was to organize Arab resistance to the British, independently of Rommel’s military expedition.

Col. Wimmer-Lamquet bled the British white. With the plunder that came into his possession, he ran a “free enterprise” in smuggling, drug trafficking and robbery. He also established a chain of high-fashion brothels that sold the services of Jewish and other females rounded up during the war. As a good number of those rounded up were homosexuals, the brothels were also able to take care of the needs of those interested in same-sex love. The “free enterprise” activities were personally approved by Hitler himself.

The German army provided Wimmer-Lamquet all facilities to run a brothel and espionage school at Zwettle, Austria, bordering on Czechoslovakia. The school – called Kloster, meaning monastery – had 40 women, most of whom volunteered to become prostitutes, and 70 men who volunteered to undergo espionage training. All of them were handpicked by Wimmer-Lamquet himself. Out of those who ‘graduated’ from the ‘monastery,’ thirty-one are still alive, says the author. They live in Austria, Germany, Spain, North Africa and other places.

The income the “free enterprise” generated was more than sufficient to finance Col. Wimmer-Lamquet’s official activities: getting behind the enemy lines to gather intelligence and cause sabotage. During the last phase of the war, he was also obliged to undertake commando operations.

In May 1945, when Wimmer-Lamquet was in Berlin incognito, the Soviets apprehended him. They did it with help from the treacherous among the Nazis. The Soviets sent him to Workuta, in the northern part of the Soviet Union, as a prisoner of war. In 1955, after nine and a half years in captivity, he was released and repatriated.

Among his Arab staff was one Col. Mohammedi Said. According to the author, it was Col. Said who, during Algeria's freedom struggle in 1954-62, trained and led the guerrillas of the National Liberation Front (FLN). As we all know, it was the FLN struggle that forced the French army, led by General de Gaulle, to withdraw from Algeria for good, paving the way for the end of France’s colonial rule in that country. Col. Said became free Algeria’s Vice President and Minister for Mujahideen and Health, under president Ahmed Ben Bella. He died in 1994. Until 1989, he had kept contact with the author.

I first met Col. Wimmer-Lamquet and his present wife, Anneliese, at a gathering of journalists at Vienna Hilton, over two decades ago. I met him again at the monthly salons Mrs. Wimmer-Lamquet, who is also a poetess, held at the University of Vienna.

Wimmer-Lamquet is now 87. Though he has some heart problems, he is strong. His back is not steady. He goes about with a walking stick or on a self-propelled vehicle. A sequel to the book, one on his experience as a POW in the Soviet Union, is in the works now. He met Anneliese during his prison life. Her book on her prison experiences was published five years ago.

Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, as those familiar with Indian history know, had worked with Hitler, hoping to win India’s independence from Britain with help from Germany. While in exile in Germany, Bose married an Austrian, Emilie Schenkel. I was curious to know if Ms. Schenkel was ordered by Hitler to marry Bose. I had put that question to Wimmer-Lamquet once. He knew nothing about it. "I never met him,” he said. “My field of operation was Iraq, Syria, North Africa, and the Sahara, all the way up to Tchadsee.”

(Kulamarva Balakrishna is a freelance journalist and social activist. Now in semi-retirement, he divides his time between India and Austria. This book review was sent from the Austrian capital, Vienna.)

Thanks for publishing the book review by Kulamarva Balakrishna. It's a fine piece of work. Mr Balakrishna is endowed, besides other talents, with a keen sense of history.

Akhil Hussain, Ahmedabad, India

November 12, 2006

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