The Witness House: Nazis and Holocaust Survivors Sharing a Villa during the Nuremberg Trials

by Christiane Kohl

Autumn 1945 saw the start of the Nuremberg trials, in which high ranking representatives of the Nazi government were called to account for their war crimes. In a curious yet fascinating twist, witnesses for the prosecution and the defense were housed together in a villa on the outskirts of town. In this so-called Witness House, perpetrators and victims confronted each other in a microcosm that reflected the events of the high court. Presiding over the affair was the beautiful Countess Ingeborg Kálnoky (a woman so blond and enticing that she was described as a Jean Harlowe look-alike) who took great pride in her ability to keep the household civil and the communal dinners pleasant.  A comedy of manners arose among the guests as the urge to continue battle was checked by a sudden and uncomfortable return to civilized life.
   The trial atmosphere extends to the small group in the villa.  Agitated victims confront and avoid perpetrators and sympathizers, and high-ranking officers in the German armed forces struggle to keep their composure. This highly explosive mixture is seasoned with vivid, often humorous, anecdotes of those who had basked in the glory of the inner circles of power. Christiane Kohl focuses on the guilty, the sympathizers, the undecided, and those who always manage to make themselves fit in.   The Witness House reveals the social structures that allowed a cruel and unjust regime to flourish and serves as a symbol of the blurred boundaries between accuser and accused that would come to form the basis of postwar Germany.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Holocaust, World War II, Germany, War, Memoir

272 pages, Paperback

First published October 10, 2005

Reviews

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

At the risk of offending family members,Brits, and anyone else here goes.

A few years ago, my brother question why Germany was upset about bailing out certain EU countries (I believe the group is refered to as the PIGS, but since Italy has joined perhaps it is PIIGS). After all, he continued, look at the two wars that Germany had started. I wasn't there, but immeditnately my mother and a family friend pointed out that it was the aftermath of WW I that directly led to WW II, and did he (my brother) want to do that all over again. The discussion raises questions about collective guilt. After all, if Germany should pay, then shouldn't the British and Russians pay for Afghanstain, and the whole Western World pay China for the Opium War? And that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Germany and collective guilt always seem to be a touchy topic. It is one of the reasons why I can understand the German's legal system's stance on Holocaust Denial, even though I agree with Lawrence Evans' "Freedom for Thought that We Hate". Additionally, to find the German people guilty as a collective disregards those Germans who stood aganist the Nazi party, such as the White Rose Group, which is even remembered in US Holocaust Museum. Such groups are hardly ever mentioned in US History programming or classes, at least general classes.

Yet how does a country, a country once split in two, deal with such guilt at more than 60 years removed. How do a people acknowledge, deal, and move, perhaps not forward, but on in life dealing with a past? Even today, in the United States, we are still dealing with the effects of slavery and lynching, and that didn't occur in reccent history (at least legally). Think of the debate over Gunter Grass when he released Peeling the Onion.

The Witness House seems to me to be a book that could've only been written by a German. The title house was used by Americans during the Nuremberg trials to house witnesses. This meant that, as the title shows, Nazis and Survivors not only shared a house but ate in the same room, even talked. Included as guests were Diels, former Gestapo head; Hoffman, Hitler's photographer; Resistance members,a woman imprisioned for having relations with a Jew; one of the judges who sentenced her, and, of course, survivors of the camps. The house included as staff, the owner and her son (the father was missing when the house was opened). The house was run, at one point, by a Countess who looked like Jean Harlow.

Today, it is hard of us to grasp how something seemly so insentative could have been seen as acceptable. We are far more aware, at least obiviously so, of mental impact.

There are several aspects of the book that make a worthwhile read. The first is the introduction which relates how Kohl was moved to research and then to write the book. It started simply, a conversation with her father and a family friend, who at one point ran the house. This conversation also shows the impact of the war on generations,

Another aspect that makes the book worth reading is the details about the son of the homeowner. He was 13 when the house was used for the Witnesses. Part of the story centers around his growing knowledge of what the Nazis actually did.

Kohl did an immense of amount of work, interviewing guests, staff, witnesses and lawyers. The look is emcompassing though a step removed because of the lack of material and the gulf of years. Yet, Kohl's prose is both sparse and rich, a paradox perhaps, but it is truth.

Kohl's book not only chronicles a little know aspect of the War's aftermath, but also touches on Germany and the War, widening knowledge not only for Germans, but for any reader who picks up this book.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

The publisher’s blurb:
Autumn 1945 saw the start of the Nuremberg trials, in which high ranking representatives of the Nazi government were called to account for their war crimes. In a curious yet fascinating twist, witnesses for the prosecution and the defense were housed together in a villa on the outskirts of town. In this so-called Witness House, perpetrators and victims confronted each other in a microcosm that reflected the events of the high court. Presiding over the affair was the beautiful Countess Ingeborg Kálnoky (a woman so blond and enticing that she was described as a Jean Harlowe look-alike) who took great pride in her ability to keep the household civil and the communal dinners pleasant. A comedy of manners arose among the guests as the urge to continue battle was checked by a sudden and uncomfortable return to civilized life. The trial atmosphere extends to the small group in the villa. Agitated victims confront and avoid perpetrators and sympathizers, and high-ranking officers in the German armed forces struggle to keep their composure. This highly explosive mixture is seasoned with vivid, often humorous, anecdotes of those who had basked in the glory of the inner circles of power. Christiane Kohl focuses on the guilty, the sympathizers, the undecided, and those who always manage to make themselves fit in. The Witness House reveals the social structures that allowed a cruel and unjust regime to flourish and serves as a symbol of the blurred boundaries between accuser and accused that would come to form the basis of postwar Germany.

I think here we have one of the rare cases in which only the book in combination with the film really work. Each on its own were not entirely satisfactory.

The book is certainly meticulously researched but it seems to me to be distant and somehow hastily written, and altogether far too short. Probably from the sources there was not much more to be pulled and the author didn’t want to make something up. With interest I read about the facts as they are presented here, but I would have preferred a much more detailed discussion. Maybe the publisher was not willing to finance a larger work.

The film, on the other hand, picks out the most important facts and figures and makes up an exciting chamber game. However, after reading the book, people were also brought together in the film, who probably never met in the witness house. The dialogues in the film are completely fictitious, but plausible. In any case, I found it exciting, even though, for example, Alan Poznaner from Die Welt criticized the film pretty harshly.

Since there are no names mentioned in the book’s blurb here are some of the witnesses that left the greatest impression (positive or negative) on me:

Rudolf Diels (1900-1957), first head of the Secret State Police (Gestapo) 1933-34, protégé of Hermann Göring, later arrested after the assassination plot of 20 July 1944.

Heinrich Hoffmann (1885-1957), Hitler’s official photographer and member of his intimate circle; he kept a quasi monopoly on photographs of Hitler and became an important witness by providing the prosecutors with photos from his big archive.

Eugen Kogon (1903-1987), historian and a survivor of the Holocaust, as a strong opponent of the Nazi party he had to spend six years in the Buchenwald concentration camp (not featured in the film).

General Erwin von Lahousen (1897-1955), former defensive officer under Admiral Wilhelm Canaris and first witness of the prosecution during the main trial in Nuremberg, member of the German Resistance and key player in attempts to assassinate Hitler in 1943 and 1944.

Henriette von Schirach (1913-1992), wife to Baldur von Schirach (one of the accused in the first trial), and daughter of Heinrich Hoffmann.

Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier (1912-1996), member of the French Resistence whose description of the conditions in the concentration camp was most impressive.


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The true story of a villa in Nuremberg commandeered by the Americans immediately after the finish of WWII, where witnesses for the Nuremberg Trials (trials held to determine the innocence or guilt of various Nazi officials for crimes against humanity) were housed. Due to the circumstances of the trials and the times, the persecuted were often housed in this villa with the persecutors. Imagine concentration camp survivors who had to share a dinner table with Heinrich Hoffmann - Adolf Hitler's photographer and close personal friend, who always had sympathetic stories to tell of the Fuehrer (and who claimed that neither he nor Hitler knew the full extent of the Holocaust)! How any meal passed in this house without people coming to blows is something of a mystery, especially when wounds both physical and emotional were still so fresh.

I found this account truly fascinating. The author, whose father was friends with the man whose wife was the second woman placed in charge of the witness house, first heard the tale in the early 80s and spent 20 years researching it. Due to that, she was able to interview many of the key players involved, including: Countess Ingeborg Kalnoky, the first woman placed in charge of the villa; Gerhard Kruelle, son of the woman who actually owned the villa and who was a teenager at the time it was commandeered; Robert Kempner, one of the major prosecutors in the trials; and many more. I found that her account was well researched and put together.

This particular piece of postwar history was largely unknown to me before. Reading this book prompted me to look up many of the people it mentioned to find out more about them, especially Erwin Lahousen, one of the star prosecution witnesses. It also made me want to learn more about the Nuremberg Trials.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating study of a house used during the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials in 1945-47 in which both perpetrators, victims, and other witnesses and participants in the trials were housed. Frequently refers to Richard Sonnenfeldt, the soldier-translator whose book is on my upcoming list of to-read.

[Les Wolf · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you are looking for a juicy historical narrative filled with zingers, guilt and angst as the title of the book may seem to suggest, you may be disappointed with this account which lacks a sense of immediacy with regard to the dynamics of life in the Witness House.
If you are interested in the verifiable, factual information regarding the occupants, their roles during the war and, or, with regard to the Nuremburg trials, and their lives after the trials, then this may be the book for you.
I learned a number of things about the Nazi inner workings and some obscure personal information about the Reichsmembers yet struggled to immerse myself in this sad, but compelling story. There were a few poignant moments and some odd collusions but nothing so extraordinary as to cause me to read this book with feverish intensity.
Nevertheless, C. Kohl's carefully researched account has undoubtedly made a significant contribution to the historical record.

[Natira · Rating 2 out of 5]

2,5*
In der Gesamtschau - Titel, Vermarktung ("ungeheurlichen Vorgänge im Haus und ... von der dramatischen Verstrickung jedes Einzelnen" (ich lese dann gedanklich "im Haus" weiter)), meine Erwartung, Inhalt des Buches - hat "Das Zeugenhaus" mich leider nicht überzeugt. Dabei will ich auf keinen Fall das Engagement und die Recherchebemühungen der Autorin abwerten. Beides spiegelt sich in dem Buch wieder. Ich bekam - neben durchaus interessanten Einblicken in Teilbereiche des Prozesses, Zeugenaussagen, den Anklägern etc. - für meinen Geschmack zu den Ereignissen im Zeugenhaus Vieles präsentiert, was ich als Füllmaterial empfand. Mich interessieren Frauengeschichten z.B. des Herrn Diels, Bälle in der Villa Faber-Kastell, ob und wer die Gräfin von Kálnoky verehrt hat etc. einfach in diesem Zusammenhang nicht und mit jeder weiteren Erwähnung solcher Dinge wurde ich genervter.

[Abbey Roedel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not exactly the type of WW2 historical non fiction book I’m interested in. If you read more for historical facts than you do to get invested in the characters, this book is right up your alley. Lots of names to remember, most of them don’t stick in the story for too long.

It is very interesting, but took me a while to get through it.

[Sem · Rating 4 out of 5]

The highlight of this book was the moment when, after the first sentences had been announced on the radio, Baldur von Schirach's wife, Henriette, said "Isn't it wonderful? Now he'll have twenty years to play chess with Albert Speer."

[Alisha · Rating 3 out of 5]

-"It was dangerous," Blaha told the court, "to have good skin or good teeth in Dachau."

[Vicki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Slow going. Abandoned about 1/3 through.

[Ella · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oddly slim and shallow look at an interesting footnote about housing during the Nuremberg trials.

[Mk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very enjoyable book. I highly recommend to History Fans. Review planned. Got other things to do now.

[Relstuart · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting reading about the different witnesses, holocaust survivors, and Nazis living in a villa together for the Nuremberg trials. Some of them are a reminder that monsters walk among us. And that some of us can survive terrors beyond what we could ever imagine.

This book opens talking about the main character, the beautiful Countess Ingeborg Kalnoky and her story and how she came to be the matron of the villa. The book then focuses turn by turn on the people that came to be members of the villa and their experiences and impressions of their stay and experience waiting for their part in the Nuremberg trials.

The author located and interviewed the main character and as many other people that she could find that were there. This results in many little notes from people that were there that add well with the story. This is not a story that could have been written well without this kind of research. The Countess wrote a book about her time at the Villa but the author here points out things the Countess left out by purposeful omission or perhaps because she did not see the significance of people or events at the time. The guest book of the Countess for the house was a good record of who was there and seeing the comments of the people there as they left certainly give a small picture about how they felt about their stay there. Very interesting book but a bit fragmented as it starts out almost as a biography of the Countess and then talks of the people at the villa, talks about the trial, moving a bit to the next matron, and then ends with a brief focus back on the Countess and where she went after the war and where she ended up. Worth reading.

[Catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book paints a picture of the little known history examining the guests who were housed at a villa near Nuremberg. These guests were defendants, witnesses and victims of the holocaust living under the same roof and eating at the same table during the Nuremberg trials.

Hungarian Countess Kálnoky was assigned by the Americans to be the first house manager at the witness house. She had just given birth to her fourth child, her husband was missing, and she had no other way of supporting her children. She managed to run the household peacefully, and with her gift of calmness and social skills, remarkably made the guests’ experiences, for the most part, under the most difficult of circumstances imaginable, enjoyable.

Due to the fact that little documentation and only small snippets remain, the author was forced to leave a lot of missing pieces. There are numerous characters with significant stories. I thought the author did an excellent job of winding his reader through each individual’s story without creating confusion between each person. There was also a summarized account of the primary characters at the end of the book, which I found helpful. Despite the fact that there was some lack of depth at points, this book is still a highly impactful piece of post World War II history.

[Dt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish that I could rate this somewhere between a 3 and a 4. The Witness House is a very interesting read, even with its somewhat misleading subtitle. Not to say that the story doesn't talk about a house where holocaust survivors and Nazi's shared a house, it's just that the survivors are more of the political prisoner or exiled former-nazi variety than they are former death camp residents. Not that that is a bad thing mind you. In fact, The Witness House is a compelling story that chronicles the interactions between lesser Nazi figures and them coming to terms with a decade of the Nazi regime. This ranges from flat denials and pleads of ignorance to acceptance and admission of what had taken place, although there is certainly more of the former than the later. The story centers around the female head of the Witness House, and the narrative focuses on her skill in keeping order while tangentially delving into the stories of the other characters. In all, The Witness House provides an interesting insight into the Nazi regime through the lens of mid-level officials that, by and large, are removed from the high-profile Nazis discussed in the history books. For that alone, this is a valuable chronicle of the times and a worthwhile read.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

(German e-book version)

I saw 'Das Zeugenhaus' as TV-movie a few days ago and was intrigued by the idea of this wild mixture of people living under one roof. However, the movie left me wanting; I though there should be more to it than was shown and hoped to find it in the book.
Alas, I did not. The book certainly contains more, but is an assemblage of rather superficial little anecdotes. A part of the reason for this may lie in the time span between the events and their recording: Christiane Kohl interviewed the Countess Kálnoky forty years after she had first set foot into said witness house, others were interviewed even later. Some part may be due to Countess Kálnoky having a rather selective memory. Yet, I believe, some of the superficial feeling is also created through the disruptedness of the book. It jumps from one little detail to the next. The chapters do not really seem to have a golden thread. Had the author instead, for example, focused chapters on the different personalities (one for Diel, one for Hoffmann etc.), they might have provided a more complete, a more satisfying picture.

[Miranda · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was well-written and the author managed to piece together a semblance of a narrative told in sequence. Due to the story being told several decades after the events at The Witness House occurred, there was a vague sense of incompleteness to the book. I was left wanting to know more about most of the key figures mentioned. It is a good stepping stone to get one interested into remarkable people of the Third Reich and of the Resistance so I'll be doing my own research.

My one criticism is how difficult it was to juggle everyone mentioned. Sometimes hundreds of pages would go by and someone would be mentioned again after their brief introduction. It was difficult to keep track. Perhaps the author assumed people who were already well-versed in the who is who of the Nuremberg Trials would be reading this.

3/5

[Carrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

An impressively researched book about a humble building in the vicinity of Nuremberg commandeered by Americans to house witnesses scheduled to testify at the Nuremberg trials. Some "guests" were witnesses for the prosecution, some for the defense, some would themselves be on trial, and some were survivors of Nazi work or death camps. The unusual story probably would remain untold if not for the author's parents' friend, who one night casually mentioned the house in conversation and brought out a historical treasure -- the guest book. I found it a quick, fascinating read, with its subtle commentary on collective guilt and the extraordinary glimpses of life in Germany immediately after World War II.

[Brigitte · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a wonderful book about the witnesses who played a part in the Nuremberg trials at the end of World War II. The story centers on the house where witnesses stayed, and it didn't matter who they had been during the war. Concentration camp survivors stayed in the same house with people like Heinrich Hoffman who had been Hitler's photographer. Everyone seemed to get along in large part due to the women who ran the Witness House, first Countess Kalnoky and then Annemarie von Kleist, both of which were from the aristocracy. The book has been very well researched and truly makes one feel as if you were in Nuremberg at the time the story takes place. Highly recommend to World War II buffs and those who like a good piece of non-fiction narrative.

[Michael Lewyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

The subtitle of the book says it all: during the Nuremberg trials, the U.S. government hosted a variety of witnesses (including high-ranking Nazis and German generals, former concentration camp inmates, and a few others) in a house in Nuremberg. Surprisingly, not much seems to have happened; people who hated each other stayed out of each other's way- a fact that made this book a bit less exciting than I expected.

Why was the atmosphere so laid-back? If I read the book correctly, the Nazi witnesses tended to stay the longest (perhaps because they were on "double duty" as potential defendants and as witnesses against people who were more clearly guilty of atrocities), while non-Nazis and non-Germans tended to come in for a few days, testify and then leave.

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having read Countess Kalnocky's book of the similar story and was mesmerized by her story and the story of the witnessed, I decided to read this book too. Chriatiane Kohl meticuously researched to write this book by meeting the Countess who was living in the USA, as well as des cendants of many of the people who were in the Witness house. The people in the witness house, former nazi's, Nazi sympathizers, Holocaust survivors and everyday people who lived during the time was a fascinating story of these diverse people who stayed there during the trials. Good book,

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting account of the villa where both Nazi and concentration camp survivors stayed during the Nuremburg Trials. The author stumbled upon this story while talking to a family friend one night and in the course of the next decade or so she researched and wrote this book. A former countess was put in charge of maintaining, running, and keeping the peace of the villa and her visitor book and memories are the basis of many of the snapshots of history within this book's cover.

A must read for ever World War II history aficionado, I would highly recommend it.

[Jeanette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Started this book in January and picked up yesterday(June) and finished reading. It is a compelling story about a villa used in Nuremberg during the Nuremberg trials to house both survivors of concentration camps and those who were part of Hitler's regime. For me, I feel I have to read more to truly understand the "characters" in this book. The trials are always in the background; she could not do both. It is a good book about an uncomfortable time and the results are not always what one would expect.

[April B · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Witness House is a very interesting book and a part of post WWII history that you don't often hear about.

It was not what I would call a quick read. There is a whole lot of very specific information crammed into this book. And while I certainly appreciate Kohl's extensive research on the house and its varied occupants, it was easy to get bogged down in all the dry details.

All in all though, it was definitely worth the read.

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was not what I was hoping for. It was sooooooo hard to get into. I love historical non-fiction and fiction alike, but this was probably the most boring non textbook I've ever read. The only reason for the 2 stars vs. 1 was that the book was well researched and I did learn a lot about the trials that I never knew.

[B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting stories of the various witnesses that were quartered in one house as they were used by either the defending or prosecuting lawyers at the World War II Nuremberg Trials. It helps to have a pretty good knowledge of the major Nazi figures at the time because alot of German names are thrown around. This was researched and written by a German journalist.

[Ebb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book!! Focused mostly on Countess Kalnoky and the way she handled the different types of people who stayed at the Witness House. It also has a good amount of information about the reasons why the witnesses were staying at the Witness House as well as interesting information about the Nuremburg trials as well.

[Ryan Suskey · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think a lot of the enjoyment of this book comes from the subject matter itself being interesting. I didn't find it particularly well written, and it felt a bit dry.

Overall not a bad read, but unless you are interested in a rather esoteric bit of history you won't really find much to keep you engaged in this book.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

The information presented was very interesting, but I found it to be a little hard to follow at times (perhaps a translation issue?) and the ending was not even an ending. I finished one chapter, then was surprised to find I was starting the afterword.

[Mar · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this premise would make a terrible fiction book and then I realized it was non-fiction, proving reality really can be more strange than what we dream up. Its a very different way of tracking what happened during the Nuremberg Trials.