Mauthausen-Studien 12: Bernhard Kathan

Prominent Austrian journalist Nikolaus Hovorka, who had made an enemy of the National Socialists as early as 1932 as editor of the book ‘Zwischenspiel Hitler’, experienced the Nazi era from two different perspectives. Arrested in 1938 on political grounds, he was interned in the Dachau and Mauthausen concentration camps for four years before being ‘released’ to serve in the Wehrmacht in 1942. Hovorka reflected on both his concentration camp imprisonment and his time as a soldier in numerous letters. The fact these letters survived can be viewed as an extraordinary stroke of luck.

In the letters, his concentration camp experiences form a clear reference framework for his perceptions and actions.

In Mauthausen, Hovorka counted among the ‘privileged’ prisoners and therefore moved within the so-called grey zone. He was assigned to the SS infirmary where he massaged SS leaders, work that brought him into direct contact with the main perpetrators of mass murder, for example Aribert Heim. Like others, he was forced to become a collaborator in the extermination programme. Although very few of the many references to Dachau and Mauthausen go into any detail, in many respects they are still revealing.

The violence experienced and witnessed by Hovorka, and the conflicts he documented during the war, were experienced by many other people who, like him, were imprisoned on political grounds and then released from concentration camps to serve in the Wehrmacht, where they were once again subordinate to members of the SS. Hovorka’s descriptions of his dealings with these SS men point to strategies developed in Mauthausen that helped him survive the concentration camp.

This unique collection of letters, now available to the public for the first time, has been edited by Bernhard Kathan, a cultural historian, social scientist and artist.