Interviews

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.

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.

May 10, 2010

Carolyn talks with Dr. Kriessmann about his book When I was a Schoolteacher’s Boy, a chronicle of his youth in Feistritz im Rosental (Austria) during the turbulent years between the World Wars. Topics include:

• A nationalist family
• School fraternities and the Hitler Youth
• The Austrian Anchluss, the culmination of hopes

0 hour 51 min.

June 14, 2010

Dr. Kriessmann gives his personal account of:

• Life in Berlin as pilot for the general staff
• Ninety-three bomber missions on the Eastern Front
• How and why he was put in a British detention camp after returning home
• Conditions and companions in Wolfsberg and Wetzelsdorf camps

Picture: Pen & ink drawing from 1946 by Dr. Kriessmann’s father: Inside the Wolfsberg British-run detention camp near Klagenfurt, where both were held after WWII. Click here to enlarge

0 hour 55 min.

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

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.

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.

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.

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