His career began on October 7, 1931. On that day, Karl Wolff left his seven-room house at Am Priel 10, in Bogenhausen, Munich’s upper-class neighborhood, to go into the city; and its no less distinguished Briennerstrasse. There, in a much larger building, was where the Reich’s NSDAP leadership was now operating. Among Party comrades, and the people at large, Hitler’s residence was called “the Brown House,” not only because of the color of the paint, but also because the uniforms of the Party and its units—something new, incidentally, in the political landscape of the Weimar Republic—also used that color. The advertising agent Karl Wolff wanted to join Hitler’s ambitious party only there, at headquarters, and not anonymously in an ordinary cigar store or in some right-wing bookstore.
In Berlin in those days Chancellor Heinrich Brüning, head of the Catholic Center Party, was attempting to govern the country. More than four million Germans were already unemployed and the number was increasing daily. Three months before, in mid-July 1931, one of the country’s four major banks had collapsed. As a result, all money-lending institutions had to remain closed for several days because too many of their customers wanted to withdraw their funds. In a wave of bankruptcies, old established companies disappeared, world-renowned breweries failed, insurance agencies closed their branch offices and worse still, the smaller businesses of tradesmen and craftsmen were wiped out. The majority of Germans had lost faith in the government and many considered the parliamentary system incapable of handling the crisis. For this reason, the National Socialists had become the second strongest party at the Reichstag elections more than a year before. But the Communists also gained a considerable number of seats. Many believed that Germany had to decide between these two extremes because all the other parties had been unable to provide solutions to fight the awful misery.
Because Karl Wolff wanted to save his Fatherland, and naturally himself as well, from both misery and Communism, he “joined the ranks of the brown battalions,” according to the official party slogan. In those days he was only one of many new recruits. His party card was number 695131. To veterans of the Nazi party that number labeled him as an opportunist and a “September recruit” because it was only after the sensational growth of the Party at the elections in September 1930 that he decided to join. Once he reached a high-level position, he felt he had to apologize for this shortcoming. He would customarily say that in 1922 he and his new wife moved to Munich because even then he expected to see Germany’s revival coming from that city and Adolf Hitler. Only his promise to remain politically inactive during his first year of marriage for the sake of blissful togetherness kept him from taking part in the now historic beer hall putsch of November 9, 1923, and therefore in the march on the Hall of Generals. For love, he sacrificed the Medal of Blood that party veterans were allowed to wear.
This was the reason why his career did not begin until October 1931. Besides signing his application for membership in the Nazi party, he actually signed another form at the same time: two pages in the standard A4 format, which was an “SS Acceptance and Commitment Certificate.” Young, strapping youths who were acting as both guards and porters at the same time had placed this paper in front of him in the foyer of the “Brown House.” They were wearing brown shirts, black breeches and black
boots, a black leather belt and shoulder straps, a black tie and a high black cap that had a miniature skull shining martially above the visor.
In the space indicating: “2. Occupation:” of the form, Wolff wrote, “retired lieutenant, businessman.” The reverse word order would have been closer to the truth because as the owner, along with a few employees, he earned his living from the “Karl Wolff-von Römheld Advertising Company.” The small company was going through hard times and had been dragged into the economic crisis when many clients whose advertisements were already published could no longer pay and the newspapers passed the bills along to the agency. Wolff’s house served as both the family’s residence and the company office. The business was, in spite of everything, more apt to secure income than the carefully laundered peacetime uniform of a lieutenant of the guards in the Kaiser’s army that was neatly hanging in the closet.
Even as a schoolboy, after he had seen an infantry regiment on maneuvers in the Hessian town of Butzbach where his father was district court judge, Karl Wolff had wanted to lead brave soldiers into battle as an officer riding a steed. Alas, this wish was never granted. He did reach the rank of lieutenant in the First World War, the springboard for a military career and he even ended his career in 1945 as a general, but the romantic, heroic pose was to remain a dream. Understandably, when he was filling out the form, he let his precarious middle-class lifestyle take a back seat to the retired officer.
After the routine questions 3-7 (birthday, address and such), he gladly filled in the next space of the form. In number “8. In the field from____ until___ ” he could write that he was with the fighting troops at the front from September 5, 1917, to the end. Before that he had gone through four months of basic training in Darmstadt, his birthplace. He began training the day after his high school graduation, and he was not quite seventeen years old when he got into uniform. Due to his bravery and ambition, wartime volunteer and officer cadet Wolff was noticed so many times that he was promoted unbelievably quickly. Before the war had ended, he was wearing the uniform of a lieutenant and was decorated with the Iron Cross First and Second Class on account of his bravery.
Who knows how far he would have gone back then, if the top army leadership had not requested an immediate ceasefire in the face of an impending collapse of the western front, and if the supreme war commander, Kaiser Wilhelm II, had not left for neutral Holland on November 9, fearing a mutiny by the front line soldiers.
The next question on the form “with which unit” he had fought, Wolff answered in the glorious words filled with tradition: “Bodyguard Infantry Regiment 115 of the Grand Duke of Hesse.” Those lucky enough to serve in this unit could feel particularly chosen. For the ranks and for the non-commissioned officers’ corps, only the healthiest farmers’ sons of Hesse were good enough, and to be chosen as an officer basically meant that one came from a noble family. The regiment was so exclusive that the Social Democrats in the Reichstag under the Kaiser were outraged because there were no middle-class soldiers in the entire officer corps.
The commander of this regiment was His Highness, the Grand Duke of Hesse-Darmstadt himself. Like the Kaiser, he was a grandson of Queen Victoria. The military, however, was not necessarily a priority for Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig, as it was with his cousin the Kaiser in Berlin, who was nine years older. He was instead the proud sponsor of seventeen scientific and musical societies in Darmstadt and founder of the artists’ colony in Darmstadt which, because of the internationally famous exhibits, is thought to be the predecessor of the “Bauhaus.” The Ernst Ludwig Press exists thanks to his initiative. Among experts, their book-lover’s prints are still sought-after rarities in the art of book printing. The duke was a patron of painters, sculptors, and architects, an all-around aesthete, with the ambition of making Darmstadt the Weimar of the twentieth century, a spiritual center of the “other Germany” for poets and thinkers. His family relations also placed Darmstadt closer to the big world: an uncle and cousin (at a later time) were kings of England, a sister was the tsarina of Russia, a sister-in-law was the queen of Romania, another cousin was the crown princess of Greece.
The flags of almost all the European dynasties flew at different times above the castle in Darmstadt and its people enjoyed basking in this light.
Next to the castle and the Grand Ducal Theater stood the barracks of the Bodyguard Infantry Regiment, whose officer corps considered themselves not only of equal birth to the Prussian Guard but secretly felt they were more universal, more worldly and, as an elite, more aristocratic. And even if Karl Wolff served the regiment only in battle dress, enough of the Grand Duke of Hesse’s self-awareness rubbed off for him to convey the sense of his elite exclusive status, without ostentation and as modestly as humanly possible, but impressively nonetheless.
The high school graduate was only admitted as an officer cadet thanks to special recommendations: a laudatory report from the “National Youth Brigade,” for whom the grammar school boy brilliantly proved himself
during the two-year volunteer pre-military training, and a guarantor and supporter in the person of his brother-in-law, who was a real count. His family’s reputation also played a role. Wolff’s father, who died very early, was a regional director of the court; and, therefore, the family belonged to the dignitaries of Darmstadt. Lastly, a great uncle on his father’s side had served many years before in the same regiment, and had been promoted to the rank of general.
In such an illustrious unit Lieutenant Karl Wolff marched back to his homeland after the armistice in November 1918. In the barracks he had left less than a year before as a private, the lieutenant now hoped to continue wearing the uniform in peacetime. But the victorious Allies, as they were to do once more twenty-five years later, put an end to his profession and career. The Treaty of Versailles reduced the army to 100,000 men. For a time, Wolff was able to sneak into a unit called the “Hessian Independent Corps,” which attempted to by-pass the dictates of the Allies, but there was neither a purpose nor a legal explanation for their continued existence. In May 1920, at just 20 years of age, he was forced to wear civilian clothes. The demobilization hit him first as the youngest officer of the regiment. Later, when he was older, he would be glad to have earned the right to a modest pension through the officer’s commission, but, more importantly for his future, he had acquired the perfect manners and the appearance of an active officer while serving in that feudal regiment.
From then on, he was convinced that he belonged to the elite. Hadn’t he always been drawn to higher and greater things? He had been educated in the most distinguished gymnasium in the royal seat of Darmstadt, he was close friends with a classmate from the house of Countess Dohna, and he took dancing lessons with a former ballet soloist of the Grand Ducal Royal Theater, together with the young people of the cream of Darmstadt society. Among them was the daughter of a baron, with whom he shared the joys of young love. Was this not evidence enough that this young man was destined to a brilliant future?
This elitist feeling made the businessman and retired lieutenant easy prey for the trained SS recruiters (who were on the lookout for new comrades to form what was to become the Guard of the Party) at the “Brown House” on that October day in 1931. Soldiers with experience at the front, even better those from a Bodyguard Regiment, were especially welcome to foster military virtues. It was incumbent upon the bodyguard of the National Socialist movement to physically protect the leadership, and especially Adolf Hitler, at meetings and marches. They were also called to
gather the Germanic-Nordic men as the elite of the nation and the “new nobility of blood and soil” to influence the people and its fortunes. Wolff, with his appearance and six-foot frame, blond hair, blue eyes, light skin complexion, was the perfect specimen of a man, and his soldierly achievements showed that his character also placed him among the national elite.
Enchanted with the prospects of such a task and its ideals, he signed the forms. This time he even had to provide references. Again he first named his brother-in-law, now a retired lieutenant as well. Second, he listed a former comrade from the Bodyguard Regiment, Captain Julius von Bernuth, an officer of the German army and member of the Military Academy in Munich, who was already prepared to march on Berlin with the revolutionary Hitler in November 1923. At that time, von Bernuth was serving in a branch of the ministry of the German army and had, therefore, reached one of his goals.
What Karl Wolff had gotten himself into became clear on the second sheet of the form, in the paragraph under the heading “Commitment,” which he had to sign again separately. There it was stated, “I commit myself to support Adolf Hitler’s ideas, to observe the strictest party discipline, and to conscientiously carry out the orders of the Reich SS leader and those of the leaders of the Party. I am German, of Aryan descent, I do not belong to any Masonic Lodge or secret societies, and I promise to promote the movement with all my strength.”
We can see from the stamps and annotations on the form that it had traveled the official channels, from a Sturmführer to a Standartenführer, to an Oberführer, and a Brigadeführer and all the way up to the Reichsführer SS, Heinrich Himmler. No one viewed this progression as being anything special. In any case, within three weeks he went from being an SS candidate to a full, low-ranking SS private.
Wolff felt that he had been admitted below his true level. Later he complained, “As in 1917 with the army, they had me start from the very bottom a second time!” He referred to his comrade, Reinhard Heydrich, who, upon joining the SS, received three stars for his collar patch, allowing him to be inducted as a Sturmführer with the rank of officer.
However, the SS private Karl Wolff was not treated all that badly. The SS muster roll recorded his first promotion to company leader two months after joining the “Black Corps,” passing ahead of many others who had been serving for a longer period. After another five weeks, a second star on his collar patch made him squad leader. At the same time he was named Sturmführer of a group of one hundred SS because no leader of higher
rank was available. As a result he was already in line for another promotion, but because it involved a third star that was tied to admission to the Officer Corps, it required a ritual that the National Socialists had lifted from military tradition.
On January 20, the Führer of Company 1, Heinrich Hoeflich, wrote a “Service Report on SS Troop Leader Wolff, Karl,” who had only been promoted to that rank the previous day. This task was performed with a great deal of effort because Hoeflich was much more eloquent with his fists than with a pen. Wolff’s personal characteristics were confirmed as “mature in appearance, very well versed in social situations, and well liked by his subordinates.” His performance in service was praised as “very satisfactory to date,” while “no exact information” could be gathered about his political education and “overall knowledge” as he “has only been with the SS for a short time.” Regarding his military discipline, “his unit is very good.” His promotion was approved.