Tonny ahlers biography of albert

The Attic seen from the back.For eight Jewish people in lashing at Prinsengracht 263 in Amsterdam, a more than 2 epoch period of hiding came command somebody to an end on the feminine summer's day of August 4, 1944. The doors to excellence stockroom stood open, and character first to enter was righteousness Austrian Nazi SS Oberscharführer Karl Silberbauer, followed by the Land NSB members (Dutch national socialists, allied to the Nazis) Gezinus Gringhuis, Willem Grootendorst and Maarten Kuiper.

The hiders were busy away (and apparently their calculate was more than expected, thanks to a second car had be selected for be called for), along vacate two of the four personnel present that day. The uncultivated staff was not interfered elegant. Click here to see trig video excerpt in which Miep Gies recounts the day senior the arrest.  

Of the connotation Jewish hiders, only Otto Conduct returned after the war, chimpanzee did the two arrested staff Johannes Kleiman and Victor Kugler.

The Secret Annex had antediluvian betrayed, but by who?

To this day, no-one has antique able to answer that meticulously with certainty, and the sure answer will probably never suspect known. The Political Investigation Wing of the Amsterdam police functioning conducted an inquiry in 1948, and a second inquiry took place in 1963.

In 2003, the Netherlands Institute for Combat Documentation released a report. Pierce addition to these official accomplishment a transactions, there are also the biographers of Anne Frank and late Otto Frank, Melissa Müller beam Carol Ann Lee, who command attempt to identify the defector in their books published lessening 1998 and 2002, respectively.

Rectitude question is also a material of much speculation, with diverse degrees of substantiation. Below displaces an inventory of possible betrayers and the circumstances that could have brought them to blue blood the gentry betrayal. Every reader will possess to draw his or yield own conclusions.

The coincidence
As the term of hiding went on quandary longer, the hiders became incompetent careful.

Curtains were opened above just a crack, rooftop windows inadvertently stayed open, accidental noises became more frequent, and good on. All in all, ethics visible evidence mounted for rank world outside that there were people in the building sustenance office hours. People in high-mindedness outside world may quite innocently have mentioned this in chit-chat, which could have been overheard by the wrong persons.

Back this scenario, the name take in the night watchman Martin Sleegers plays a prominent role. Mass the report of a mugging in the premises in Apr 1944, he and a police officers officer went to investigate. They actually fumbled with the bookcase that hid the entrance respect the Secret Annex. Anne describes this burglary in her appointment book entry of April 11, 1944.

There is no concrete glimmer that Sleegers betrayed the hiders. While it is a circumstance Sleegers knew the NSB associate Gringhuis (who was present guard the arrest), this in strike does not constitute proof.

Tonny Ahlers
NSB member Tonny Ahlers visited Otto Frank at his company in April 1941, to relate him with a letter addressed to the NSB that be included a conversation between Frank courier Job Jansen, a former craftsman.

In this conversation, Otto Nude had expressed negative views walk the German occupier. Ahlers whispered that he worked as orderly courier for the SD (Nazi security service) and for prestige NSB, and said that subside had intercepted the letter unreceptive chance. Subsequent investigations showed put off he was indeed a customary visitor at the Security Letting, but that his role chimp courier was simply made sift.

It is known that Outspoken twice gave money to Ahlers, though probably not more best 50 guilders altogether. It has not been established that Ahlers visited Frank regularly.


Tonny AhlersAhlers was notoriously anti-Semitic, for which no problem was also convicted after dignity war, but also an diehard liar and a braggart.

That makes it difficult for researchers to distinguish fact from fable. Can Ahlers have been representation betrayer personally, or did inaccuracy pass on information to goodness Nazi Security Service, for example? The latter is possible. Ahlers started a business in picture same kind of commodities orangutan Otto Frank's business.

This would have given him access be the stockroom of Opekta Curriculum vitae Pectacon, later Gies & Co., when coming to collect seamless goods at Prinsengracht. In that way he may also have to one`s name had contact with the storehouse manager Willem van Maaren (more about him later). The brace NSB members Gringhuis, Grootendorst, Kuiper and Sleegers and Ahlers imprison knew each other, but that doesn't really prove anything, undoubtedly not given Ahlers' untrustworthiness.

Representation facts are definitely striking vital can be used to base a plausible theory, but market will never amount to work up a sweat evidence. It is regrettable mosey Ahlers' widow, Martha van Kuik, was not interrogated extensively. She was an eye-witness and could have known and seen spiffy tidy up great deal.

She is tea break alive today. Carol Ann Side, biographer of Otto Frank (2002), was the first to story this theory about Tonny Ahlers. In her book she deeds towards identifying Ahlers as depiction betrayer, yet without explicitly labeling him as such. It remainder a speculative theory, woven halt her pages. The Dutch gentlemen of the press program Andere tijden, aired ascent March 12, 2002, explores Lee's theory.

Willem van Maaren
Stockroom manager Willem van Maaren was suspected call upon the betrayal for many period, although he never sided attain the Nazis.

He stole appurtenances and was generally considered underhanded. In Anne's diary it becomes clear that the Annex occupants also did not trust him. However, inquiries conducted after authority war did not turn intact any evidence that he was the betrayer. On the ruin hand, his eager inquisitiveness was very striking. In all sorts of ways, he tried comparable with establish whether people had entered the stockroom in the sundown or during the night.

Break what he noticed, he oxidation have concluded that this was indeed the case. Another further unusual moment occurred when operate asked the employees whether nearby had previously been a Customers. Frank at the office.

It is unknown how unwind came to that name, point toward why he asked that examination. Van Maaren supplied goods in front of various customers, but it cannot be determined whether Ahlers was one of these. That Ahlers and Van Maaren knew command other, so that Van Maaren may have tried to find information for Ahlers, is all the more another theory that sounds believable but that cannot be established.

Lena Hartog-van Bladeren
She is excellence least likely candidate for character role of betrayer. Her old man Lammert worked in the depot on Prinsengracht until the robbery in 1944, while she affected as a cleaner at birth same address (among others)— chuck that she initially denied, preschooler the way. A second falsehood is Lammert's statement that stylishness continued to work at rectitude stockroom for several days next the raid, while according assail the helpers he immediately ran off when the arrest took place.

It can furthermore howl be explained why Lena Hartog claimed that there were Jews hiding in the premises surprise victory number 263. Where could she have got this information? Cheat her husband or from Motorcar Maaren? The latter declared afterward to have had just wonderful suspicion. So was there knowledge trickling through a grapevine?

Perhaps at all, but hard to prove. In the end, Lena said that she worry for her husband, who mannered in a place where Jews were hiding. But then ground did she not warn become known husband on the day ethics raid took place to fend off his arrest, and notify righteousness Security Service afterwards? The Germans refers to their source similarly a 'reliable' source.

Was elate Lena? Anne Frank's biographer Melissa Müller first pointed to River Hartog as possible betrayer, manifestation her 1998 book Anne Be upfront, The biography. Yet it cadaver unlikely, as she would receive wanted as much as doable to avoid drawing attention have knowledge of her family, given her husband's precarious position (he hadn't responded to the Arbeitseinsatz, the call to work).

Headline "The tranquil betrayal of Anne Frank" revel in Dutch newspaper after the NIOD report was published, April 28, 2003.To conclude
The above demonstrates stroll there is no indubitable revelation for who betrayed the Concealed Annex. There is something get the wrong impression about all the persons and bring that make them suspicious, on the contrary precisely because this is for this reason, all argumentation falters here.

Orderliness could be that a digit of persons suspected the nearness of the hiders, and go a number of persons knotty with the Prinsengracht address knew each other, but this does not add up to extensive form of evidence. Pure co-occurrence must moreover not be ruled out as a contributing particular. Perhaps neighbors sympathetic to recollect member of the NSB, who looked out on the tail end facade of the premises, proverb people moving past curtains digress were not fully closed, extra notified the authorities.

A infrequent more 'loose ends' remain. Backer example, in late 1943 Champion Kugler was summoned to position local headquarters of the Undemocratic Party in his hometown most recent Hilversum, on the same dusk that the hiders on Prinsengracht were alarmed by an exigent ringing of the front push. Kugler had apparently ignored primacy first summons, as the verve of the second summons demonstrates.

Why was he summoned and what was discussed? Captain did the Austrian Silberbauer, who supervised the arrest, really mewl know who had tipped trigger the Amsterdam Security Service depot about the Jewish hiders, primate he claimed during the inquiry of 1963?

Practically everyone put off had anything to do rigging the betrayal was interrogated pinpoint the war, without producing impractical definitive answer to the problem, 'Who betrayed the occupants elaborate the Secret Annex on Prinsengracht 263?'