Sth Kerry based German historian exposed Nazi past of Berlin’s plush presidential villa

FOLLOWING a four year campaign – ignited by the findings of a south Kerry based German historian – the German state has acknowledged the Nazi history of the German President’s villa in Berlin.

Until 2014 the German Government claimed it did not know the full history of the Presidential Villa in the leafy Berlin suburb of Dahlem.

That changed when German historian Julien Reitzenstein – who spent much of the last four years in the Cahersiveen area and settled there permanently with his family in May 2017 – completed research for a book on the SS ‘Ahnenerbe’ division.

In the course of his work Reitzenstein became curious about how the supposedly cash strapped Ahnenerbe – a think tank that helped define and promote the Nazi’s racial doctrines – managed to acquire several large mansions in the wealthy Berlin suburb.

Using his knowledge of both history and Germany’s financial and legal regulations he was eventually able to untangle the hidden history of the villa, that is now the official residence of the German Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

Reitzenstein was able to prove that the white-walled and red-roofed villa had once been the home of a Jewish industrialist called Hugo Heymann.

Just days after the Nazi takeover in 1933 he was illegally pressured into selling the house in the hope he could fund his family’s escape from Germany.

The house was sold to publisher Waldemar Gerber – who thanks to the generous financial support he provided the SS – went on to became vastly wealthy thanks to contacts with the various Nazi police agencies that were run by SS chief Heinrich Himmler.

Heymann who was close to escaping to Norway was arrested by the Gestapo in 1938 and died as a result of injuries he sustained in an interrogation.

His widow went to the courts in 1951 to try and get the house back but – with many Nazi linked judges still on the bench – she was unsuccessful. The house remained in the Gerber family’s hands until it was sold to the West German Government in the 1960s.

Since 2014 Julien Reitzenstein and members of Berlin’s Jewish community have been fighting for the house’s history to be recognised. The President’s office resisted, leading to a four year debate that played out in the German media and on the floor of the Reichstag.

That long campaign finally ended just last week when President Steinmeier unveiled a plaque outlining its history on the Villa’s railings. Fittingly Julien Reitzenstein was there to bear witness.