Karl Silberbauer

Karl Silberbauer

(Silberbauer during World War 2.)

Karl Silberbauer was a Schutzstaffel (SS) Member who led the 1944 Gestapo Raid on the Anne Frank House and arrested 15 year old Anne Frank, her 18 year old Sister Margot, her Parents Edith and Otto, the Van Pels (Herman, Auguste and 18 year old Peter), Fritz Pfeffer and two of her Helpers (Johannes Kleiman and Victor Kugler) on August 4, 1944.

Silberbauer was born in Vienna, the Austro-Hungarian Empire (Present Day Vienna, Austria) on June 21, 1911.

He served in the Austrian Military.

He became a Member of the Austria Nazi Party in 1931 despite it being illegal in Austria.

In 1935, he joined the Vienna Police Force.

In 1938 the Germans annexed Austria and in 1939 Silberbauer joined the Gestapo.

Silberbauer was sent to the Eastern Front in 1941, where he served as a Platoon Leader and Company Commander in the SS Division Wiking.

The Division fought on the Eastern Front and participated in the invasion of the Soviet Union.

He received the Iron Cross, Second Class, for his bravery in Combat.

In 1943 Silberbauer joined the Schutzstaffel (SS), given the SS Number 460.059 and was then assigned to Amsterdam, the netherlands and attached to "Sektion IV B4", a Unit recruited from Austrian and German Police Departments and which handled arrests of hidden Jews throughout German-Occupied the Netherlands.

On the morning of August 4, 1944 Silberbauer was investigating a tip-off that Jews were being hidden in the upstairs rooms at 263 Prinsengracht which was the Dutch Branch of the German “Opteka” Company that was run by Otto Frank until 1941.

Silberbauer took some Collaborating Dutch Policemen with him. They removed the sliding bookcase that hid the Hiding Place and found Anne Frank and the other 7 People inside.

Initially told to leave immediately, Silberbauer noticed a German Military Trunk and asked Otto Frank if he had served in the German Military during World War 1.

Otto Frank replied that he had and so they were given a little more time to collect a few belongings.

Silberbauer was taking some of the Valuables and Money they had and needed something to put it in so found Otto Frank’s Briefcase, emptied it out (with Anne’s Diary, Notebooks and other Papers) and used it to carry the Valuables out of the Hiding Place.

Here is what happened to the Franks, the Van Pels and Fritz Pfeffer:

All 8  were kept in a nearby Prison before being sent to the Huis van Bewaring (House of Dentention) and deported to the Westerbork Transit Camp in northern Netherlands on August 8, 1944.

At Westerbork, the 8 were declared Criminals for having hidden instead of reporting for Deportation and lived in the Punishment Block where they worked at a Battery Dismantling Plant.

On September 3, 1944 the last train to leave Westerbork for the Auschwitz Death Camp in German-Occupied Poland left with all 8 People on it.

They arrived at Auschwitz on September 6, 1944 and all 8 were Selected to do Forced Labor in Auschwitz and the Men were separated from the Women.

Margot, Anne and Edith were forced to cut Sod and carry heavy Stones.

After sometime in Auschwitz Margot and Edith were selected to go to the Liebau Labor Camp in Upper Silesia, but Anne wasn’t allowed to go because she had Scabies and so Margot and Edith stayed behind in Auschwitz with her.

On October 30, 1944 Margot and Anne were Selected to go to the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp in Germany and forced to leave their Mother behind in Auschwitz.

Edith was selected for the Gas Chambers, but managed to escape to another part of Auschwitz where she died on January 6, 1945 (Auschwitz was liberated by the Soviets on January 27, 1945.)

At Bergen-Belsen Margot and Anne contacted Typhus. In February or March 1945 19 year old Margot died and a few days later 15 year old Anne also died.

Both Sister were buried in a Mass Grave.

Herman Van Pels had injured his thumb and asked to go to the Sick Barracks where a Selection was held by the Germans and he was sent to the Gas Chambers and murdered three weeks after his arrival in Auschwitz.

Auguste Van Pels went on the same Train as Anne and Margot to Bergen-Belsen before she was transferred to a Subcamp of Buchenwald and then, while being sent to the Theresienstadt Camp in German-Occupied Czechoslovakia, she died sometime between mid April and May 8, 1945.

Peter Van Pels went on the Forced Death March from Auschwitz in January 1945. He arrived at the Mauthausen Concentration Camp in Austria on January 25, 1945 where he worked in an Outdoor Labor Group. He died May 10, 1945 – a few days after Mauthausen was liberated by the Americans.

Fritz Pfeffer died at the Neuengamme Concentration Camp in Germany on December 20, 1944.

Only Otto Frank survived the Holocaust out of the 8 People in Hiding.

Otto Frank managed to stay in Auschwitz when it was evacuated in January 1945 and was liberated by the Soviets on January 27, 1945.

He returned to Amsterdam, the Netherlands and published Anne’s Diary in 1947.

In 1953 he married a fellow Auschwitz Survivor Elfriede Geiringer (who had knowns the Franks in Amsterdam before the War) in Amsterdam.

The Anne Frank House was opened in 1960.

Otto Frank died on August 19, 1980 in Switzerland. He was 91 years old.

Here is what happened to Karl Silberbauer after the War:

(Silberbauer towards the end of his life.)

Silberbauer returned to Vienna in April 1945.

He served 14 months in jail for “using extensive force” against Members of the Communist Party of Austria.

Silberbauer was recruited by the West German Gehlen Organization, and spent 10 years as a Mole, or Undercover Operative for Gehlen and its Successor the Federal Intelligence Service (BND).

In 1952, he was charged with being a Nazi, but acquitted.

In 1954 he was allowed to work at the Vienna Police (Kriminalpolizei or Kripo) again.

In 1963, Holocaust Survivor and Nazi Hunter, Simon Wiesenthal, found Silberbauer in Vienna, but a new Court Case against him in 1964 was closed since he was found to “only be following orders.”

As a result, the Viennese Police Review Board exonerated Silberbauer of any official guilt. His unpaid suspension was lifted and the Vienna Police assigned him to a desk job in the "Identification Office" (Erkennungsamt).

When asked about Anne Frank's Diary, Silberbauer stated: "I bought the little book last week to see if I am in it. But I am not."

Upon being told by a Reporter that he "could have been the first to read it", Silberbauer chuckled and said, "Maybe I should have picked it up off the floor.”

He retired from the Police Force in 1972.

Karl Silberbauer died in Vienna, Austria on September 2, 1972 (28 years to the day that Anne Frank and the other 7 People were deported on the last Cattle Train from the Netherlands to Auschwitz.)