A new book containing statements from a cellmate of missing Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg proves that Russian officials deliberately withheld information about the fate of the man credited with saving thousands of Jews from the Holocaust, researchers allege. Soviets lied over Wallenberg death:…
The recent publication of two statements written for Soviet interrogators by Willy Rödel, Raoul Wallenberg’s cellmate in Soviet captivity, are the clearest sign yet that Russian archives still contain critically important documents in the Wallenberg case.
* Russian authorities are believed to have intentionally withheld at least fifity-seven pages from Rödel’s file
* The missing documentation most likely contains important information about Raoul Wallenberg
Since the beginning of the Swedish-Russian Working Group in 1991, researchers have tried to obtain as much information as possible about Raoul Wallenberg’s fellow prisoners during his time in Soviet captivity. Over the years, the Russian side provided a number of documents about Willy Rödel, Wallenberg’s long-term cellmate in Moscow Lefortovo prison from 1945-1947. However, we were never allowed to see these papers in the original, nor were we allowed to examine the file from which they had supposedly originated. Officials of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB, successor of the KGB) also routinely insisted that no records of Rödel’s interrogations had been preserved.
Therefore, we were enormously surprised when we came across a new book with a very long title, Secrets of the Third Reich Diplomacy: German Diplomats, Leaders of Foreign Military Missions, Military Policemen and Police Attaches in Soviet Captivity. Documents from Investigation Files. 1944-1955, just published in Russian as part of a series of publications by Aleksander Yakovlev Foundation (Moscow). It contains full texts of interrogation protocols of and statements written by a number of German diplomats captured by the Soviets at the end of WWII, including two statements from none other than Oberfuehrer SA Willy Rödel ! The included documents were selected, compiled, and commented on by two FSB archivists, Dr. Vasilii Khristoforov and Vladimir Makarov. In fact, Lt. General Khristoforov heads the FSB Directorate of Registration and Archival Fonds to which all FSB archives belong, including the FSB Central Archive from which we received answers to our research questions in the Wallenberg case, while Makarov is a researcher at this archive.
The two statements by Willy Rödel date from December 26, 1944 and January 14, 1945, respectively, before Rödel shared a cell with Raoul Wallenberg. Rödel, a former Political Adviser to the German Ambassador Manfred von Killinger in Bucharest, became Wallenberg’s cellmate in March 1945, mostly in Lefortovo Prison, one of three Moscow state security investigation facilities. The two men were held together at least until about March 1947, when both were transfered (separately) to Lubyanka Prison.
In the now released statement made in January 1945, Rödel describes the activities of Sturmbannfuehrer SS Gustav Richter, Police Attache at the German Embassy, Bucharest and a German consultant of the Romanian government on the so-called Jewish question. This is an interesting fact, since Soviet investigators placed Raoul Wallenberg in Richter’s cell in Lubyanka Prison, shortly after his arrival in Soviet captivity in February of 1945. While it does not have any bearing on our current discussion, the mere existence of Rödel’s statements in the FSB archives is more than noteworthy.
Khristoforov and Makarov indicate that the originals of Rödel’s two statements are kept in file PF-9653 at the FSB Central Archive. It appears that this file was also the source for materials that were presented to the Swedish Working Group back in April 1993, when Russian officials turned over a set of documents about Willy Rödel.
The documentation offered by Mr. Khristoforov’s predecessor, Konstantin Vinogradov, included Rödel’s prisoner card, an envelope containing personal items, such as his passport, a full copy of his death certificate and an autopsy report. The documents indicate that Rödel was held in Lubyanka Prison until October 1947, when he suddenly died of a heart failure (which is extremely suspicious) during a transfer to the Krasnogorsk Camp for POWs in the Moscow suburbs.
“One man can make a difference.” No one is so strong – for good or evil as a man with a goal and a conviction. This is written in the aftermath of the monstrous terrorist murder in Norway. These murders,…
Historical documents related to the capture of seven Swedes by the Gestapo in Poland in 1942 puts Sweden’s subsequent ball bearing deliveries to Nazi Germany in a new light, argue historians Susanne Bergerand Ingela Magner. Sweden’s Queen Silvia to probe family Nazi links…
…Der »Gefangene Nr. 7« Aus Kreisen des heutigen russischen Geheimdienstes FSB hieß es, dass der Schwede mit größter Wahrscheinlichkeit irgendwann im Jahr 1947 zum »Gefangenen Nr. 7« im Lubjanka-Gefängnis in Moskau geworden war. Und dass »Nr. 7« dort am 22.…
My mother, Elizabeth Thaler née Roth was living in Budapest in 1944, with her father, Eugene Roth, her mother Martha Roth, her sister Susan and her grandmother whose name I don’t know. My mother did not like to talk about…
The investigation conducted by a joint Swedish-Russian Working Group about Swedish ships lost during the Cold War leaves many important questions unanswered.
The Swedish Foreign Ministry has not disclosed the information publicly because the official Swedish-Russian Working Group formed in 1993 to investigate the disappearance of Swedish ships during the Cold War never produced a final report. Surprisingly, Swedish officals did not seek independent verification of the find, explore the cause of the sinking or ask Polish authorities about the fate of the crew. The newly discovered information also raises questions about other Swedish vessels that vanished off the coast of Poland from 1946-1955.
In August 1993 the Polish Foreign Ministry informed an official Swedish-Russian Working Group examining the cases of about seventeen Swedish vessels that had disappeared during the Cold War that the wreck of a ship that matches the description of the “DAN” had been discovered already in 1957 in Polish territorial waters. [Document 1] According to internal UD documents, the “Wreckbook” of the Polish Navyshows that the boat was found 3.5 km north of Jastrzębia Góra and was partially lifted already in 1964. The memo further states that since the debris was discovered at the bottom of the sea, it was assumed that the crew had gone down with the ship and that there were no survivors (UD Arbetspapper, 2001-9-27.) The suspected cause of the sinking was a mine. The “Dan” had originally been believed to have gone missing with a seven person crew somewhere outside of Latvia.
Den svenska eftergiftspolitiken mot Nazityskland gick för långt. Det hävdar historieprofessorn Klas Åmark i boken ”Att bo granne med ondskan” som utkommer i februari. Boken har tillkommet på ett regeringsuppdrag. I dag 27 januari är det förintelsens minnesdag. Och trots…
The Swedish policy of appeasement towards Nazi Germany went too far, history professor Klas Åmark argues in the book Living Next Door To Evil, which comes out in February. The book has come at a government commission. Today, 27 January,…
Det är nu tio år sedan en gemensam rysk-svensk arbetsgrupp lade fram sin rapport om Raoul Wallenbergs öde i Sovjetunionen efter att han arresterats av ryska trupper i Budapest i januari 1945. Trots arbetsgruppens ansträngningar förblir hela sanningen om Wallenbergs…