Articles and Interviews

By carolyn , 10 March 2013

Confessions of a Young Nazi

Dawn of the Reich

Confessions of a Young Nazi

by Wilhelm L. Kriessmann

copyright Carolyn Yeager 2013

 

I was a follower of Adolf Hitler without being a member of his party, the NSDAP. It started very early. Growing up as the son of a teacher in a village in Austria’s southernmost Bundesland, Kärnten [Carinthia], I was from a young age exposed to ethnic strife.

By carolyn , 28 June 2010

Detention Years - Camps Wolfsberg and Wetzelsdorf

VoR_The_Heretics_Hour_wlk detention_20100628.mp3 (10.84 MB)

June 28, 2010

Wilhelm Kriessmann answers Carolyn’s questions about Wolfsberg. Topics include:

  • Life as a detainee under the British at Wolfsberg and Wetzelsdorf is detailed; was it really worse at Auschwitz?
  • The difference lies in the quality of the prisoners, not in the treatment
     
  • Dr. Kriessman’s report from Austria: Immigration top concern
Wolfsberg main gate
Auschwitz main gate
By carolyn , 5 April 2015

Education in the Third Reich

VoR_wlk_education _11-7-11.mp3 (21.94 MB)

Nov. 8, 2011

Wilhelm Kriessmann joins Carolyn to share his first-hand knowledge of German and National Socialist education policies and practices. Discussion ranges from the traditional levels of schooling in Germany and Austria to the additional N-S focus on instilling national pride and self-confidence, fitness, racial hygiene, and the "New Germany." The distinctions between the Napola schools, the Adolf Hitler Schools and Ordensburg elite schools is explained. 1hr36min

Image: German girls with their Hitler Jugend escorts and Japanese guides prepare to visit Japan. enlarge

By carolyn , 15 March 2010

Interview with Wilhelm L. Kriessmann

VoR_The_Heretics_Hour_20100315.mp3 (11.91 MB)

March 15, 2010

Carolyn talks with World War II Wehrmacht veteran and Luftwaffe bomber pilot Wilhelm Kriessmann (pictured right in 1940 enlarge) about the political climate in Austria during his youth in the 1920s and ’30s; then his wartime and post-war experiences. Kriessmann was incarcerated in the British concentration camp for political prisoners at Wolfsberg for nine months after his return to his family home in Sept. 1945; then for a further eight months at Camp Wetzelsdorf before being released in 1947 and continuing his education.

By carolyn , 6 March 2013

Life of WLK

Editor's Note: This is a somewhat expanded version of the original “life story” written in English by W.L. Kreissmann for his family, which he completed when he was 88 years old. It was 34 pages with added picture pages, spiral-bound, with a cover designed by Willi in his own inimitable way. He sent it to me in that same year, 2008, because I had asked him for more information about himself on the German World Alliance forum. I was thrilled to receive it and, after reading it, asked if he minded if I edited it. He answered that he wouldn't mind, in fact he would appreciate it. Over the period of time that I worked on it, we naturally corresponded quite a lot. From what I discovered in our conversations and some pictures he sent me, I noticed that he barely mentioned his most dangerous bombing missions, especially the tragedy at Welikije Luki, and the beginning of the Battle of Kursk when he successfully crash landed his damaged plane in a wheat field. He had not even mentioned his two Iron Crosses, I and II! He agreed to write more about those wartime events and we added it into the narrative. He also provided more pictures which he identified for me.

Considering some of the evolution of his political views that is apparent from earlier to later life, the reader can appreciate that Willi, married to his American-born 2nd wife and with his children born or growing up in the USA, was under the usual pressure to conform to, or at least not challenge, the American popular beliefs about history, even the history he lived through and participated in. This was more true before his retirement than after. Because I was more interested in his early life experiences with his parents and sisters and as a Hitlerjugend than I was in his later life, he sent me two additional essays titled “Confessions” and "Marching Conquerors," which I'm also publishing now for the first time. ~CY

By carolyn , 25 October 2011

Painting and Music in the Third Reich

VoR_wlk_paint-music_10-24.mp3 (10.09 MB)

October 25, 2011

Wilhelm Kriessmann joins Carolyn Yeager for a discussion of the thriving and varied art and music life of National Socialist Germany. Dr. Kriessmann was in Austria during the 1930s, and stationed in Berlin from Dec. 1940 to March 1942, thus able to experience all of the culture that was available.

Image: Liepzig Symphony performance conducted by Wagnerian C. Muck, attended by Adolf Hitler. Enlarge

44 min. This audio has been edited from an original 2-hour program, so the transitions are sometimes abrupt in places.

By carolyn , 12 April 2010

Polish air disaster at Katyn commemoration

VoR_The_Heretics_Hour_Katyn crash_20100412.mp3 (11.75 MB)

April 12 , 2010

Dr. Wilhelm Kriessmann returns as Carolyn’s guest to discuss:

  • The crash of the airliner carrying Polish dignitaries to the Katyn commemoration
  • The causes of the start of the war between Poland and Germany
  • The murders at Katyn by the NKVD, and the wrongful blaming of Germany for the crime

51 min.

From AFP, April 8, 2015: The military pilots blamed for the deadly 2010 crash of a Polish presidential jet in Russia were pressured into landing in thick fog by their superior, according to new transcripts of cockpit recordings leaked on Tuesday. Transcripts from one of the plane's black boxes show that the then Polish air force commander General Andrzej Blasik was in the cockpit alongside the pilots. "The fact is, we have to get it (the landing) done," Blasik told the pilots six minutes before the crash, repeating the words of a senior foreign ministry official who had been in the cockpit earlier. Despite several attempts, pilots failed to evict "third persons" from the cockpit, according to the transcripts.

By carolyn , 31 October 2011

Sculpture & Architecture in the Third Reich

VoR_wlk_sculp-arch_10-31-11.mp3 (14.7 MB)

November 1, 2011

Wilhelm Kriessmann, who spent a year and a half in Berlin during the war, discusses with Carolyn the very high achievements in these two branches of the arts, so much of which was wantonly destroyed by the Allies during and after the war. Major sculptors were Breker, Thorak, Kolbe and Klimsch. Leading architects were Troost, Bonatz, Giesler, March and Speer. 1hour 5min 
 

Right: Honor Court entrance to new Reichs Chancellery in Berlin designed by Albert Speer, with Arno Breker sculptures Die Partei and Die Wehrmacht, reflects the strict classical style preferred for National Socialist architecture.

By carolyn , 23 August 2010

Who started WWII?

VoR_The_Heretics_Hour_Suvorov_20100823.mp3 (10.93 MB)

August 23, 2010

Dr. Wilhelm Kriessmann returns as Carolyn’s guest to discuss the ideas and important data presented in Viktor Suvorov’s book, The Chief Culprit: Stalin’s Grand Design to Start WWII. Topics include:

  • Goal of Soviet Union was to communize Europe through Germany;
  • Offensive military build-up in USSR began in 1939;
  • Massive movement of Red Army troops and material to western border was completed in June 1941:
  • Operation Barbarossa narrowly beat a devastating attack from Soviet Union;
  • Who was behind Rudolf Hess’ peace mission to Britain?

0 hour 48 min.