ORIGINAL 1943 DOCUMENT SIGNED BY THE SD COMMANDER WHO ARRESTED ANNE FRANK

Offered for sale is a

VERY RARE ORIGINAL DOCUMENT SIGNED BY THE SD GROUP COMMANDER

WHO ARRESTED ANNE FRANK AND HER FAMILY IN 1944

SS-HAUPTSCHARFÜHRER KARL JOSEF SILBERBAUER

FULL MONEY BACK GUARANTEE FOR AUTHENTICITY

SS-Hauptscharführer Karl Josef Silberbauer (21 June 1911 – 2 September 1972) was an Austrian police officer, SS member and undercover investigator for the West German Federal Intelligence Service. He was stationed in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam during World War II, where he was promoted to the rank of Hauptscharführer (master sergeant). In 1963, Silberbauer, by then an Inspector in the Vienna police, was exposed as the commander of the 1944 Gestapo raid on the secret annex and the arrests of Anne Frank, her fellow fugitives, and their protectors.

Born in Vienna, Silberbauer served in the Austrian military before following his father into the police force in 1935. Four years later, he joined the Gestapo, moved to the Netherlands, and in 1943 transferred to the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) in The Hague. He was then assigned to Amsterdam and attached to “Sektion IV B 4”, a unit recruited from Austrian and German police departments, and which handled arrests of hidden Jews throughout the occupied Netherlands.

On 4 August 1944, Silberbauer was ordered by his superior, SS-Obersturmführer (lieutenant) Julius Dettmann, to investigate a tip-off that Jews were being hidden in the upstairs rooms at Prinsengracht 263. He took a few Dutch policemen with him and interrogated Victor Kugler about the entrance to the hiding place. Miep Gies and Johannes Kleiman were also questioned, and while Kugler and Kleimann were arrested, Gies was allowed to stay on the premises. She later surmised this was because she recognized and connected with Silberbauer’s Viennese accent. Both Otto Frank and Karl Silberbauer were interviewed after the war about the circumstances of the raid, with both describing Silberbauer’s surprise that those in hiding had been there for more than two years. Frank recalled Silberbauer confiscating their valuables and money, taking these spoils away in Otto Frank’s briefcase, which he had emptied onto the floor, scattering out the papers and notebooks which made up the diary of Anne Frank. Soon after, Kugler and Johannes Kleiman, together with Otto Frank, Edith Frank-Holländer, Margot Frank, Anne Frank, Hermann van Pels, Auguste van Pels, Peter van Pels, and Fritz Pfeffer, were arrested and taken to Gestapo headquarters in Amsterdam. From there, the eight who had been in hiding were sent to the Westerbork transit camp and then to Auschwitz concentration camp. Soon after, Margot Frank and Anne Frank were sent to Bergen-Belsen, where they died from typhus. Victor Kugler and Jo Kleiman were sent to work camps. Of the ten, only Otto Frank, Kugler, and Kleiman survived.

Silberbauer was investigated but it was found that he only followed orders and even Mr. Otto Frank said that he only did his duty and behaved correctly and therefore he was not prosecuted as a war criminal and died a free man in Vienna in 1972.

The document, dated 2 October 1943 and issued in Vienna is a letter that Silberbauer sent to the RSHA in Berlin, asking for the forms he needed to fill out in order to get married. Nice strong signature.

This item ships from one of our affiliates in Germany. It comes from a private collection and has never been offered for sale before. It was purchased directly out of a German archive. The seller gives a full money back guarantee for the authenticity of the document and signature. Includes shipping worldwide.