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Victories are part of the war like defeats.
At some point you get used to it.
In the first months of 1943 the residents of the capital had learned of the Stalingrad catastrophe and of the victory at Kharkov.
Cruel normalcy.
However, this spring many Berliners really got excited about another topic.
Because rumor has it that a smaller but more embarrassing case of nepotism in the Third Reich became known.
1943 - The great retreat
After the defeat of Stalingrad, the Wehrmacht fell on the defensive on all fronts.
The last major offensive at Kursk fails, the Allies land in Sicily, Mussolini is overthrown.
Source: WORLD
Ever since the start of food management at the end of August 1939, there had been repeated rumors about “diplomatic rations”.
It is said that not only representatives from other countries but also members of the state and NSDAP elite enjoy it.
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The focus of the rumors was the delicatessen dealer August Nöthling, who had his business in the southwestern district of Steglitz.
Because vehicles from ministries and Wehrmacht services were regularly parked in front of his shop, which hard-working employees filled with goods discreetly packed in baskets and bags, the newcomer was given a new nickname: "Bag August".
Then, at the end of January 1943, Nöthling was suddenly arrested - for violating food rationing.
He even got the case rolling himself by filing an objection to a penalty notice of 5,000 Reichsmarks.
The criminal investigation department was now reviewing the case.
The Reichsfettkarte was the first food card of the Second World War, which was introduced in August 1939
Source: picture alliance / Bildagentur-o
The result: Since September 1939, Nöthling had delivered tonnes of rationed food to at least one and a half dozen special customers, including five ministers and three state secretaries, two field marshals and the highest German admiral, without the actually prescribed brands.
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The order list from Reich Minister of the Interior Wilhelm Frick included 125 kilograms of poultry, 100 kilograms of fruit, one hundredweight each of venison and sugar, 25 kilograms of sausage and just as much ham as well as corned beef, 25 pounds of pralines and five pounds of real honey - in addition to the food stamps, which of course also got a minister.
Berlin's chief of police, Wolf Graf von Helldorff, quickly took over the investigation;
he knew exactly why: According to Nöthling's customer list, he had ordered and received wine, sparkling wine and cognac with a total value of 3,100 Reichsmarks, picked up "by a police car".
So he stood up for his supplier, who was not to be seen as a “common pest”.
Rather, the chief of police was "of the opinion that the customers of the Nöthling must face a heavier penalty than Nöthling himself," it said in his report to Joseph Goebbels, in which, however, there was not a word about his own role.
Goebbels - Hitler's propagandist and on his own behalf
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The leadership of the Nazi regime (1936; front from left): Joseph Goebbels, Rudolf Hess, Hermann Göring, August von Mackensen, Adolf Hitler, General Werner von Bloomberg, General Wilhelm ... Frick, Admiral Erich Raeder.
Credit: picture alliance / Everett Colle / Everett Collection
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Goebbels, born in Rheydt in the Rhineland in 1897, became a Gauleiter of the NSDAP in Berlin after studying and receiving a doctorate in German studies in Heidelberg.
Source: picture-alliance / akg-images / akg
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He began the fight against democracy according to the motto "who can conquer the street can also conquer the state one day".
Source: picture-alliance / akg-images
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The recording was probably made around 1928 and is a still image from one of the first NSDAP propaganda films.
Source: picture-alliance / dpa
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Hitler was the best man at the table when Magda Quandt said yes to Goebbels on December 19, 1931.
Later she was considered the "First Lady" of the Third Reich.
Source: picture-alliance / dpa
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Goebbels and his wife Magda left the polling station on April 10, 1932.
The democratic parties succeeded once again, with their candidate Hindenburg, in preventing Hitler from reaching ... for the office of the Reich President.
Source: picture-alliance / dpa
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When Hitler "swore in" the NSDAP MPs on himself in 1932, Goebbels was sitting in the background.
Party leaders could completely rely on his loyalty.
Source: picture alliance / akg-images / akg
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On January 30, 1933, Hitler and Goebbels reached their destination: in the Hotel Kaiserhof in Berlin, the new gentlemen stood as models for the photographer.
Source: picture alliance / akg-images / akg
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As Reich Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, Goebbels relied on state-of-the-art technology: his speeches were broadcast on the radio and mostly recorded by several cameras ...
Source: picture-alliance / dpa
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The symbolic burning of "un-German books" in Berlin on May 10, 1933 is one of Goebbels' most famous appearances.
His speech is a document of rhetorical brilliance and utterly ... lack of culture.
Source: picture-alliance / IMAGNO / Schost / IMAGNO
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As a chief propagandist, he not only controlled public opinion in Germany, but also put it on a level with Nazi ideology.
Source: picture-alliance / Mary Evans Pi / Mary Evans Picture Library
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Goebbels staged the personality cult around Hitler and was addicted to it at the same time.
In the exhibition "Berlin Art" in 1935 he looked at a newly created bust of "Führer ... s" for a long time.
Source: picture-alliance / akg-images
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"I take the matter to the Fiihrer. He determines": Goebbels power was based on his closeness to Hitler, whom he was supposed to practice for a day as Chancellor after his suicide in 1945.
Credit: picture alliance / Everett Colle / Everett Collection
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Goebbels with his wife Magda and two of their children.
They were all supposed to die in the Berlin Führerbunker in April 1945.
Source: picture-alliance / Mary Evans Pi / Mary Evans Picture Library
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As the master of the German film industry, Goebbels was also a regular guest at Ufa productions, here with Mussolini's son Vittorio.
Source: picture-alliance / akg-images
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Goebbels and his family visit his "Führer" on the Obersalzberg ...
Source: picture-alliance / akg-images / akg
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... and on the job on a propaganda tour.
Credit: picture alliance / Everett Colle / Everett Collection
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As Goebbels probably preferred to see himself: in tireless efforts for National Socialist Germany.
In addition, he received an advance of 100,000 Reichsmarks per year for his daily notes - which were by no means personal diaries.
Source: picture-alliance / akg-images / akg
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On February 18, 1943, he gave the infamous speech in the Berlin Sports Palace in which he declared "total war" on the world.
Source: picture-alliance / akg-images
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In the last days of the war, as plenipotentiary for total war, he sent children and old men to the front to die.
Source: picture-alliance / akg-images
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After the murder of their six children, the Goebbels committed suicide on May 1, 1945 in Berlin.
The bodies were burned in the garden of the Reich Chancellery, but the So ... wjets were able to identify them.
Source: picture-alliance / dpa / Pixfeatures
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The propaganda minister and Berlin Gauleiter of the NSDAP then raged in his daily dictates: "It is scandalous when the celebrities in the state, party and armed forces behave so sabotaging the war." this applies to my district;
because everything that is tolerated here among the celebrities in the form of intolerance, again strikes against the mood in the capital of the Reich. "
But nobody wanted to take action, especially not the responsible head of the Reich Chancellery, Hans-Heinrich Lammers.
After all, he himself was one of the special Nöthling customers.
So Goebbels decided to take the matter to Hitler personally.
The dictator was "quite affected".
Nonetheless, he ordered "this matter not to be turned into a state action."
Rather, Reich Justice Minister Otto Thierack should personally take over the matter, "on the one hand to satisfy the law, on the other hand to maintain the point of view of the raison d'état".
The former President of the People's Court, otherwise not known for its mildness, soon reported that the affair had meanwhile become the "talk of the town" in Berlin and that the names of some of the ministers involved had also been openly mentioned.
Otto Thierack was Reich Minister of Justice in the spring of 1943
Source: Federal Archives, Image 183-00627-0504 / CC-BY-SA 3.0
The domestic secret service of the SS, the SD, even had to deliver a special report;
In it, the informers quoted, among other things, the question of a worker: “What will happen to the bigwigs who got their ham and sausages from Nöthling?” Another outraged Berliner even threatened when an SD employee spoke to him about the affair: “We now finally want to hear that these bigwigs are treated like Müller or Schulze, otherwise it will be a decent hail in the booth! "
In view of this explosive nature, Thierack offered to question the accused personally, but added that "regardless of the result, in view of the large number of celebrities he considers it politically unacceptable to carry out criminal proceedings against the named customers or even against their wives".
It makes more sense to put down the criminal proceedings and impose high fines.
With the exception of Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz, however, all of Nöthling's former preferred customers wriggled out of responsibility: Some did not appear for a personal conversation with Thierack because of alleged “flu”.
Others responded “sluggishly” to written questions and denied all allegations or blamed either the supplier or their employees.
The trials of the major war criminals
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Repair work at the Berlin Court of Appeal in Kleistpark after the end of the Second World War.
The preliminary hearing against the main Nazi war criminals took place in this building in October 1945.
Source: National Archives
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The judges of the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at the opening session in the Berlin Superior Court: John J. Parker, Francis A. Biddle, Alexander F. Wolchkow, Iola T. Nik ... itschenko, Henri Donnedieu de Vabres, Robert Falco and Sir Geoffrea Lawrence (from left).
Source: National Archives
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From November 20, 1945, the trial took place in room 600 of the Nuremberg justice building.
Source: National Archives
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Hermann Göring on the witness stand in room 600.
Source: Nuremberg City Archives
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The accused were granted all rights: Guarded by a military policeman, Goering speaks through a grille with his lawyer Stahmer.
The photo by the Soviet photographer Yevgeny Chaldej was - like the following ones - published in the 2008 illustrated book "The Significant Moment".
Source: picture alliance / ZB / dpa-Zentralbild
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The Nazi war criminals Hermann Göring (from left), Alfred Rosenberg, Baldur von Schirach and Karl Dönitz at a wooden table with tin dishes and slices of bread, taken in 1946 during the Nuremberg Trial.
Source: picture alliance / ZB / dpa-Zentralbild
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Main defendants before the International Military Court in Nuremberg in 1946 (from left): Rudolf Hess, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Hermann Göring, Wilhelm Keitel.
Source: picture alliance / ZB / dpa-Zentralbild
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The defendant Hermann Göring during breakfast in his cell in the Nuremberg city prison.
Source: picture-alliance / akg-images
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The defendants before the International Military Court: First row below (from left): Hermann Göring;
Rudolf Hess, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Wilhelm Keitel, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Alf ... red Rosenberg, Hans Frank, Wilhelm Frick, Julius Streicher, Walter Funk, Hjalmar Schacht.
Second row above (from left): Karl Dönitz, Erich Raeder, Baldur von Schirach, Fritz Sauckel, Alfred Jodl, Franz von Papen, Arthur Seys-Inquart, Albert Speer, Konstantin von Neurath, Hans Fritsche.
The photo was taken by the Soviet photographer Yevgeny Chaldej.
Source: picture alliance / ZB / dpa-Zentralbild
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American tanks secured the Nuremberg Palace of Justice from attacks.
Source: picture-alliance / akg-images
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Even today justice is spoken in room 600.
Source: City of Nuremberg / Press and Inform / City of Nuremberg / Press Office
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Windows allow the view from the exhibition of the memorium ...
Source: Nuremberg City Press Office
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... to the historic jury room.
Source: dpa / DPA
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View of the attic above Hall 600, which has been expanded into the memorium of the Nuremberg Trials.
Source: Müller-Rieger office
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In the center of the exhibition: an original of the verdict of the major war criminals trial.
Source: dapd / DAPD
Lammers alleged that his wife had "expressly received the goods and therefore assumed that they could be delivered".
In addition, although he had the wedding dinner for his older daughter von Nöthling hosted, he revoked the order for the marriage of his younger daughter when he heard of the delicatessen's arrest in February 1943.
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Finally, the affair ended with Nothling's suicide;
after two prevented suicide attempts, he hanged himself on May 9, 1943 in the Moabit remand prison.
That was the simplest solution for the select clientele, but Goebbels was dissatisfied: "Of course, this fact opens the door to bad rumors."
A month later he discovered that the Nöthling case was “unfortunately not going as I had actually wished.
The celebrities will get away with reprimand. ”This is exactly what happened: Hitler had no interest in clearing up the nepotism at the top of his regime.
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This article was first published in 2018.