Vincenz’s Traumatic Experience with the Gestapo

Mülbert, by no means a resistance fighter, denied having made any of the defamatory remarks and rejected any additional accusations that had made been made against him. For example, he was accused of having said in his own home, “Adolf Hitler is the protector of prostitutes.” During the investigation Vincenz made his wife appear in an unfavourable light, whom he describes as a notorious liar and whom he made responsible for cooking up all these intrigues. He claimed that she was pursuing an irregular lifestyle, was unfaithful, was not looking after the children and had offered herself to whoredom and to ‘free love’. Amalie, having become more cautious, spoke only of a hopelessly shattered marriage and of her husband’s jealousy. “I am going through a divorce with my husband and have been badly treated by him. Nevertheless, I must say that my husband has never said anything bad about Adolf Hitler. As much as I know, he has a positive attitude about Hitler.”

Vincenz also provided the Gestapo a similar statement as recorded in his files, “I would like to remark that before 19 August 1934 (plebiscite on Adolf Hitler’s Title ‘Führer of the Reich’) Loni Bitsch had asked me what she should vote. And I replied, ‘Loni, you vote for Adolf Hitler, just as we do.” With this emphatic declaration – what else could he have done before the Gestapo? – Mülbert smoothly slipped out of the trap that had been set to catch him.

During the on-going marital crisis, his Amalie, incessantly agitating against her husband, was swinging like a pendulum back and forth between the SA-Office, the SA-Organization ‘Mother and Child’, and the NS-Teachers’ Association. Through these agencies, which could not deal with her case, she hoped to gain access to Mülbert’s salary, thus securing her own apartment in the city. The NS-trustee was following via the office of the NS-Teachers’ Association the run-afoul machinations of a colleague’s wife. Of course, Mülbert’s marital problems and the sticky criminalization at the NSDAP and Gestapo were making the rounds in the school’s rumour mills. The personal and academic reputation of the until now impeccable Mülbert threatened to head towards total ruin.

The evil machinations of the triple constellation Friedrich-Bitsch-Mülbert appeared in the end too banal even to the Gestapo. The facts just did not jive. On 26 October 1934, the Mannheim Gestapo came to the succinct conclusion to return the entire file without comment to the Minister of Culture and Education and to the court in Karlsruhe. The minister did nothing. No disciplinary measures, no letter of warning and no reprimand have been recorded in his file.

On 1 March 1935, the couple was officially divorced. Amalie moved to her brother or her parents Schmitt in Würzburg.

To be continued …