The Kindly Ones

Crossing the border took place without incident: by the roadside, customs officials or soldiers of the Honvéd, glum or indifferent, watched us pass, showing nothing. The morning turned into a luminous one. The column paused in a village to breakfast on coffee, rum, white bread, and Hungarian wine bought on the spot. Then it started up again. We now drove much more slowly, the road was congested with German vehicles, troop trucks and tanks, which we had to follow at a crawl for kilometers before we could pass them. But it didn’t look like an invasion, everything happened in a calm, orderly way; the civilians by the side of the road lined up to watch us pass, some even made friendly gestures at us.

We arrived in Budapest around the middle of the afternoon and settled in quarters on the right bank, behind the castle, on the Schwabenberg where the SS had requisitioned the big hotels. I was temporarily assigned a suite at the Astoria, with two beds and three sofas for eight men. The next morning I went to find out what I could. The city was swarming with German personnel, officers from the Wehrmacht and from the Waffen-SS, diplomats from the Auswärtiges Amt

, police functionaries, engineers from the OT, economists from the WVHA, agents from the Abwehr whose names were always changing. In all this confusion I didn’t even know to whom I was subordinate, and I went to see Geschke, who told me he had been named BdS, but that the Reichsführer had also appointed an HSSPF, Obergruppenführer Winkelmann, and that Winkelmann would explain everything to me. But Winkelmann, a plump career policeman with a crew cut and a jutting jaw, hadn’t even been informed of my existence. He explained to me that, despite appearances, we hadn’t occupied Hungary, but had come at Horthy’s invitation to advise and support the Hungarian services: despite the presence of an HSSPF, a BdS, a BdO, and all the related structures, we had no executive function, and the Hungarian authorities preserved the full prerogatives of their sovereignty. Any serious dispute should be submitted to our new ambassador, Dr. Veesenmayer, an honorary SS-Brigadeführer, or to his colleagues at the Auswärtiges Amt

. Kaltenbrunner, according to Winkelmann, was also in Budapest; he had come in Veesenmayer’s special train car, which had been linked up to Horthy’s train on his return from Klessheim, and he was negotiating with Lieutenant General Döme Sztójay, the former Hungarian ambassador to Berlin, about the formation of a new government (Kállay, the fallen prime minister, had sought refuge in the Turkish legation). I had no reason to go see Kaltenbrunner, so instead I went over to introduce myself at the German legation: Veesenmayer was busy, and I was received by his chargé d’affaires, Legationsrat Feine, who took note of my mission, suggested I wait for the situation to become clearer, and advised that I stay in contact with them. It was a fine mess.

At the Astoria, I saw Obersturmbannführer Krumey, Eichmann’s deputy. He had already held a meeting with the leaders of the Jewish community and had emerged from it very satisfied. “They came with suitcases,” he explained to me with a big laugh. “But I reassured them and told them no one was going to be arrested. They were terrified of far right hysteria

. We promised them that if they cooperated, nothing would happen, that calmed them down.” He laughed again. “They must think we’re going to protect them from the Hungarians.” The Jews were to form a council; so as not to frighten them—the term Judenrat, used in Poland, was known here well enough to provoke a certain anxiety—it would be called the Zentralrat. In the days that followed, as members of this new council brought mattresses and blankets to the Sondereinsatzkommando—I requisitioned several for our suite—then, in response to various requests, typewriters, mirrors, cologne, lingerie, and some very pretty little paintings by Watteau, or at least his school, I held meetings with them, especially with the president of the Jewish community, Dr. Samuel Stern, and had a series of consultations so that I could form an idea of the resources available. There were Jews, men and women, employed in Hungarian armaments factories, and Stern could provide me with approximate figures. But a major problem arose immediately: all the able-bodied Jewish men, who were without essential jobs and of working age, had for several years already been drafted into the Honvéd, to serve in labor battalions behind the lines. And it was true, I remembered, when we had entered Zhitomir, which was still held by the Hungarians, I had heard talk of these Jewish battalions; they infuriated my colleagues in Sk 4a. “Those battalions have nothing to do with us,” Stern explained. “You’ll have to see about that with the government.”