During the Second World War, Kazimierz Moczarski was a prominent figure in the Polish Home Army, or Armia Krajowa. Usually known simply as the AK, this was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland; its allegiance was to the Polish government-in-exile in London, and it constituted the armed wing of what became known as the Polish Underground State. In 1944, Moczarski took part in the Warsaw Uprising.
The Armia Krajowa, however, stood for Polish independence. It not only resisted the Nazis; it also opposed Soviet rule. After the Red Army had taken Warsaw, the Soviet-imposed authorities carried out mass arrests and executions of AK veterans. Moczarski was arrested in 1945; he spent 11 years in prison and underwent severe torture.
As head (from October 1944) of the AK’s Information and Propaganda Department, Moczarski was well informed. He was probably not in the least surprised to be arrested. It is difficult, however, to imagine the horror he must have felt when, in 1949, he learned that he would be sharing a new cell with Jürgen Stroop, the SS general responsible for the total liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943. The third man in this cell was another German, a low-ranking ordinary policeman by the name of Gustav Schielke.
The Communist authorities may have wanted to show that they looked on Moczarski as no better than a Nazi executioner. Moczarski, however, was quick to grasp that, rather than simply being subjected to yet another ordeal, he had been granted an opportunity. This forced intimacy with Stroop might, he resolved, enable him to answer the question, “What historical, psychological, sociological mechanism led some Germans to come together into a gang of mass murderers who governed the Reich and did their utmost to introduce their ‘Ordnung’ – their Order – in Europe and the world?” There may never be a definitive answer to this question, but Moczarski’s well-ordered summary of his long discussions with Stroop, published as Conversations with an Executioner, certainly gives us some valuable insights. Stroop, for his part, was only too willing to talk, even to boast, about his achievements as a high-ranking Nazi.
Moczarski’s feelings during his 255 days with Stroop were, of course, profoundly contradictory. He writes, “I did my best, although at first it caused me some difficulty, to see Stroop merely as a man. He could sense this attitude, though I clearly emphasized my… hostility to the thoughts he held or the actions he had committed.” Inevitably, however, there were moments when Moczarski was unable to control his fury. On the other hand, it was sometimes cold at night, and the three cellmates would lie huddled together on the floor for warmth. Their shared predicament engendered a certain solidarity; when one of the three was taken away for interrogation, the other two would feel anxious. This inter-dependency is perhaps best described by the German noun Schicksalsgemeinschaft, meaning “fate community”. In the words of Moczarski’s excellent translator, Sean Gasper Bye, “Though mortal enemies, they had no choice but to find a way of living with one another. Their behaviour was guided by a prisoners’ code of honour that demanded equality, confidentiality and a degree of mutual respect.”
Schielke’s presence may also have been crucial. As a German patriot who was scornful of Nazi grandiosity and Stroop’s more outrageous claims, he sometimes, albeit unconsciously, played the role of a mediator. Without his occasional interventions, Stroop and Moczarski might not have been able to treat each other as politely and—for the main part—respectfully as they did.
Several reviewers of Conversations have seen Stroop as an embodiment of Hannah Arendt’s concept of “the banality of evil”. Stroop does indeed seem to have been remarkable chiefly for being unremarkable. At school, he distinguished himself only through precise penmanship. According to Moczarski, “He enjoyed reading anthologies of clichés, and looked down on his peers with intellectual talents and interest in humanistic thought.” And 30 years later, in May 1943, von Herff, one of Stroop’s SS superiors, wrote in a report, “As a political commander he is somewhat limited in range and intuition. Stroop seems to be more than he actually is.” As if feeling guilty about this making this all-too-accurate assessment, von Herff added a personal note at the very end, “Aber ein guter Mann!” (“But a good chap!”). Moczarski deftly uses these words as the title of the last of the horrific chapters devoted to Stroop’s account of his liquidation of the Ghetto.
Stroop does indeed seem to have been remarkable chiefly for being unremarkable
Reviewers have also described Stroop as an “unrepentant Nazi”. This over-simplifies. It is true that his worship of Hitler never wavers. It would be inaccurate, however, to describe Stroop as free of guilt. At one point, he speaks admiringly of the skill and courage shown by the Jewish fighters—especially the young women. He relates that, since these women often had grenades or firearms concealed on their body, he ordered his men not to go near them, even when they had surrendered, but to “blast them from a distance with submachine guns”. Moczarski then takes Stroop aback, asking, “Did you never pity their young lives?” Only after a very long silence does Stroop, almost chanting, reply, “Anyone wishing to be a true man in those days, meaning a strong one, had to act as I did. ‘Gelobt sei was hart macht!’”
This phrase from Nietzsche’s Also sprach Zarathustra means “Praised be what hardens us!” Stroop’s recourse to these words—a standard element of Nazi propaganda—well illustrates the role that memorable adages, slogans and half-truths can play in enabling someone guilty of inhuman behaviour to fend off troublesome human emotions.
Stroop admits that, to his astonishment, he recognised in the Jewish fighters the same “will to fight… fortitude, persistence [and] firmness” that had been instilled in him and his fellow Nazis. When Moczarski suggests that the fighters’ courage came from their understanding that they were “defending human dignity and the future memory of their community”, Stroop again falls back on dogma that directly contradicts the experiences he has so vividly related: “Jews do not have, are incapable of having, a sense of honour and dignity. After all, a Jew is not a complete human being. Jews are subhumans. They have different blood, different tissues, different bones, different thoughts than we Europeans, Aryans, and especially than we Nordics.”
Stroop also admits to a deep admiration for the Polish general Stefan Rowecki. Stroop met Rowecki (known by his nom de guerre “Grot”, meaning “spearhead”) soon after he was captured by the Germans in June 1943. Moczarski quotes Stroop’s words, “Mr Moczarski, maybe I shouldn’t tell you this, but General Grot, who was then our prisoner, exuded a sort of majesty. We all fell under his spell.… He was so composed, that Grot of yours. Though he was our mortal enemy, I looked at him just as I had at Field Marshal August von Mackensen in 1918.”
Yet more surprisingly, Stroop tell us that, in 1944, the Germans were systematically studying the methods of the Polish underground state in case they lost the war and needed to organise a resistance movement of their own.
Given his apparent ordinariness, how was it that Stroop—a low-ranking policeman during most of the 1920s—climbed so high up the ladder of power? In one of the flashes of poetry that enliven his clear, sober prose, Moczarski sums up the first decade of Stroop’s career, “From 1922 to 1931, he did his best to get along with everyone and rarely ended up on anyone’s bad side. Sometimes he flickered like a little flame, sometimes he slithered like a snake, sometimes he pushed his way up to higher rungs on the community, social and civil service ladder.”
Throughout these years, Stroop attended meetings of right-wing First World War veterans, but it was only in July 1932 that he joined the SS and in September 1932 that he joined the Nazi Party. And then he chanced to be in the right place at the right time. In late 1932, Nazi support was starting to wane; the Party polled two million fewer votes in the November national election than in the July’s. Alarmed by this, the Nazis contrived to turn what would normally have been an insignificant regional election, in Stroop’s tiny home state of Lippe, into an unofficial referendum on who should govern Germany.
By then head of the local SS, Stroop presided over a campaign of terror in Detmold, the state capital. In what now seems like a rehearsal for Kristallnacht, people were beaten up and shops burnt down. Hitler himself spoke at several rallies and the Nazis poured huge resources into the election. Their eventual victory greatly strengthened Hitler’s hand in his ongoing negotiations with von Papen (the former chancellor) and von Hindenburg (the country’s ageing president). Two weeks after the Lippe election, Hitler was appointed chancellor. And after two more weeks, Stroop was promoted to SS-Truppführer, two ranks higher than his previous position.
Perhaps because of the failed Munich putsch in 1923, we tend to think of Nazism as rooted in Bavaria. Stroop’s testimony suggests otherwise. I was struck by how often and with what intense feeling he spoke about Hermann der Cherusker, the German tribal leader who annihilated three Roman legions in the year 9 CE in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. This was one of the crucial turning points of European history, putting an end once and for all to the northward expansion of the Roman Empire. Unsurprisingly, Hermann has long been an inspiration to German nationalists. In 1875, a vast statue of him was unveiled on a hilltop in the Teutoburg Forest, only a few miles from Detmold. The statue’s pedestal is 27 metres high, the figure of Hermann 26 metres high, and Hermann’s sword, pointing up to the sky, is 7 metres in length.
As it happens, my father served in the British Army and I spent around five years of my childhood in north Germany. Aged around eight, I was taken to see this statue, on a high hill in the midst of dense forest. I was impressed; for several years I kept a small gold-painted souvenir replica. I also half-remember feeling vaguely confused. Hermann—also known by the more Roman name of Arminius—looked more like an imperial Roman soldier than the leader of a Germanic tribe. And my old-fashioned education had placed great emphasis on “the glories of Rome”—so why was an enemy of Rome being so honoured?
Stroop, however, had no such doubts. He proudly tells Moczarski that “My first walk after returning home [from the First World War] was a pilgrimage to the feet of the great Germanic soldier.” He also speaks reverentially about his participation in the meetings of secret or semi-secret military associations that were held throughout the 1920s at the foot of this monument.
Nazi propaganda consistently drew parallels between Hermann and Hitler. Just as Hermann had united fractious tribes to throw off the yoke of the Roman Empire, so Hitler was bringing Germany together to “break the chains” of the shameful Treaty of Versailles. In a speech to future Wehrmacht officers in 1942, Hitler referred to Hermann as a model of military leadership.
A recurrent question with regard to Nazism is whether or not it was merely a brief aberration in the history of an otherwise sane and cultured nation. The importance of the Hermann statue suggests that there is indeed an unusually militaristic element in the worldview of some Germans. Nowhere in western Europe has a statue of remotely comparable size been put up to any military leader. And the date of its unveiling—1875—tells us that German militant nationalism did not develop merely because of the humiliations of the Versailles Treaty. In the Lippe election, Hitler, Himmler and Stroop were able to connect to something deep-rooted in German culture. It is not merely that the Nazis managed to win the largest share of the vote; what matters more is that their victory appeared important enough to sway von Hindenburg and von
As historical testimony, Conversations is unique. It is yet more precious, however, as a model of how to behave when we are confronted—literally and inescapably—with our enemies. The respect with which all three men treat one another is moving. Moczarski’s profound horror at Stroop’s actions—and his eventual admission that he had, six years earlier, planned to assassinate Stroop—make this mutual respect yet more extraordinary.
The inevitable outbreaks of conflict resolve themselves in a variety of ways. More than once, Stroop backs down when he realises that Moczarski and Schielke are united against him. On one occasion, what restores calm is the arrival of lunch. On another occasion, Moczarski throws a dirty rag at Stroop; he misses—but, more importantly, apologises immediately and sincerely. The most striking moment of all is when Moczarski, “seized by demons”, attempts to bring home to Stroop the number of Jews murdered at Treblinka. Stroop almost interrupts, but Schielke encourages Moczarski to keep speaking. Moczarski then begins to tell the two Germans about Dr Janusz Korczak, the Jewish teacher, writer and community worker who refused several offers of safe conduct out of the Warsaw Ghetto and chose instead to accompany to Treblinka the Jewish children under his care. Too overwhelmed to say more, Moczarski breaks off. The narrative continues laconically: “Silence. I go to scrub the floor with a rag, but Stroop tears it out of my hands. He cleans without a word. We slowly regain our composure.”
The only remotely comparable book is Gitta Sereny’s Into That Darkness, an account of Sereny’s 70 hours of interviews with Franz Stangl, the former commandant of the Treblinka and Sobibor death camps. This ends with Stangl saying to Sereny, “My guilt is that I am still here. That is my guilt... I should have died. That is my guilt.” Within24 hours of pronouncing these words, Stangl dies of a heart attack.
Stangl’s repentance is articulate. Stroop’s scrubbing the floor can be seen as a brief gesture in the direction of repentance. It is the most he can manage.
Stroop’s scrubbing the floor can be seen as a brief gesture in the direction of repentance
Stroop was executed on 6th March 1952. Moczarski was released under a general amnesty only four years later, in April 1956. In December that year, he succeeded in having his conviction overturned.
One more, no less remarkable, feature of Conversations is that it was written entirely from memory. Moczarski was not allowed pen and paper while he was in prison. Sean Gasper Bye tells us that Moczarski explained how “his years in prison allowed him to train his memory to a remarkable level.… He described writing Conversations in his mind, visualising the page as he ‘wrote’ on it, even able to ‘mark’ a point in the text and return to it for revision later.” And on his release Moczarski did all possible fact-checking in archives. His feat of memory is hard to imagine, but I know no reason to doubt it.
A censored version of Conversations was serialised by a Polish magazine in the early 1970s. After being published in book form in 1977, it was adapted for the theatre; the director was the great filmmaker Andrzej Wajda. A complete Polish version was first published in 1992, after the fall of Communism. This has been translated into at least 15 languages.
The censored version was translated into English in 1981. Why we have had to wait 45 years for a complete translation is hard to imagine. We should, however, be deeply grateful to Bye and his publishers for this scrupulously edited and entirely convincing rendering. He does not put a foot wrong.
In his moving “Translator’s Note”, Bye writes, “As I worked, I found that Moczarski offers light as well: the light of truth both historical and moral.… He insisted on truthfulness, even under the harshest circumstances.… The pain – and yes, at times, the joy – I have felt with this book have come at the moments when the light of his truth shines into me. When the puzzles of complex sentence structure or tricky vocabulary fall away and I meet this book heart-to-heart.”
As a fellow-translator of books relating to the Shoah and the Second World War, I understand Bye’s words about meeting such a book “heart-to-heart”. I too shall remember Conversations with an Executioner, above all, for what Bye refers to as “the supreme integrity of Kazimierz Moczarski’s life, struggle and witness”.
