Othmar Trenker, aka Alfred Trenker

A few weeks ago, a discussion arose across social media regarding the issue of the “following orders” defense in 1945. Most Gestapo agents were let off with a relatively light sentence as they faced Allied judges in Nürnberg.

Their “following orders” defense was crafted by a Gestapo agent and SS-man named Othmar (“Albert”) Trenker. That signature appeared multiple times in White Rose Gestapo transcripts, especially pertaining to strategies and tactics the agents and prosecutors would take. Agent Trenker first appeared in a February 5, 1943 memorandum.

To be completely transparent: It is possible that the agent in question was a different Trenker, since he did not sign the memo with his first name. However, because of the deference granted “Dr. Trenker” by the Munich Gestapo agents, he was most likely identical to Othmar Trenker, aka Alfred Trenker.

That Gestapo/SS-man had been an “assistant commander” of the Munich Gestapo in its initial years. He was born in Vienna – hence his initial interest in a possible Viennese suspect – son of a regular police officer. He had become a Nazi early in his career, resulting in a high-ranking position in Munich at a relatively young age.

In 1940, Trenker was promoted to deputy head of the Gestapo in Posen (Poznań). In that capacity, he worked with SS-Sturmführer and Kriminalrat Herbert Lange in the development of “gas vans” used to murder Jews in Poland before extermination camps were established for that purpose. Though he tried to improve his image in the eyes of his superiors, there were problems with the gas vans in his district, causing the operation to be scrapped.

Between the end of his assignment in Posen and March 1944, he acted as a “roving ambassador” for the Gestapo, filling in where his special talents were most needed. It was probably during this time that he resurfaced in Munich, perhaps following a mission in Vienna.

In March 1944, Trenker received the promotion of a lifetime, placed in charge of Gestapo headquarters in Budapest. Officially Trenker retained his designation as an employee of Reich Security Bureau IV A3 (another indication that this is the same Trenker, because of reference to that Bureau in his memorandum), supposedly concentrating on apprehending “all men known for their hostility to Hitler, transferring them to Germany” for trial. Off the books, Trenker cooperated with Adolf Eichmann in the liquidation of the Jewish population in Hungary.

He did such a good job in Budapest that when arrests were made in connection with the “July 20, 1944” resistance movement, Kaltenbrunner (supreme head of the Gestapo in greater Germany) personally requested that Trenker be reassigned to Berlin.

Again Trenker proved himself beyond his bosses’ expectations. He demonstrated that he could get confessions from the most recalcitrant sinner. His torture of Peter Graf Yorck von Wartenburg became the stuff of Gestapo legend, though he deemed such work too menial for his exalted rank. After all, he was a Hauptsturmführer and Lieutenant Colonel. “Torture” was something that grunts took care of.

During a 1988 interview with Alexandre Szombati, Trenker was asked how he could have tortured people. He replied, “They are ‘people’ to you? Criminals who tried to assassinate the head of State! They got what they deserved.”

After the war, Trenker used his brilliant legal mind to cultivate the defense strategy used by most (if not all) Gestapo agents in the Nuremberg Trials. While imprisoned in the American POW camp at Glasenbach, and together with another Gestapo jurist named Siegel, Trenker posited that the Gestapo was nothing more or less than a “publicly and legally recognized police department” that had been incorporated into the Nazi hierarchy, “just as train and postal employees had been.”

Trenker and Siegel managed to formulate their description of the Gestapo’s “duties” in such a way that Bureau IV B4 (the Gestapo bureau that worked out the details of Eichmann’s contribution to the “Final Solution”) was excluded from their narrative. Allied jurists bought the lie. Many of the worst offenders such as Trenker and Schaefer escaped relatively unscathed.

While Robert Mohr hardly can be portrayed as an innocent bystander in the unfolding of the White Rose affair, it is fair to say that if Trenker had remained on the scene, the events of February 18 through July 13, 1943 would have been far bloodier and more brutal than they were in actual fact. The psychological battles the offenders waged with the interrogators would have been replaced with broken bones and agony beyond belief. Because in Trenker’s eyes, these were not people. They were criminals who had no rights.

Note #1: In 1903, a young Jewish JD student in Augsburg wrote his dissertation on the topic of Ministerial Responsibility. Although he focused on Bavarian constitutional law, Arthur Teutsch also pointed out similarities between Bavarian and Prussian constitutional law.

Teutsch clearly defined when “following orders” may and may not be used under Bavarian – and Prussian – law. If the king were to order a servant to illegally shut down a newspaper that printed unflattering articles about the king, that servant could present “following orders” as defense. He would be acquitted on that basis.

However, if the king told his servant to murder the newspaper’s editor for publishing an unflattering cartoon or article, and the servant did so, the servant could not present “following orders” as defense. That concept did not apply to criminal acts. And murder is a criminal act, not political.

The reason Teutsch’s dissertation is critical in the misrepresentation of German constitutional law by Trenker: The Weimar Republic essentially adopted the Prussian constitution after World War I. Although Adolf Hitler singlehandedly amended the German (Weimar) constitution, contravening every precedent on the books, that section apparently was never rescinded or revised.

Therefore, had Allied jurists known German law a bit better, Trenker’s arguments would have failed and justice would have been served on far more felons from 1945-1950. Trenker’s defense was not based on Allied law, but rather on German constitutional law.

Note #2: Perhaps gaps like this – verification of which Trenker wrote the February 5, 1943 memorandum – will convince you that there is far more work to be done regarding White Rose resistance. It should not be all Scholl all the time. Gaps like this matter.

COMMENT WORTH KEEPING

I expect we will see many more examples of the only following orders defense as the political machinations of our time are uncovered. It may take a while, but “the truth will out”.

--Gwen Miertschin, January 21, 2025.

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Image credit: Judges bench, Nürnberg trials. Raymond D'Addario, 1945. This file is a work of a U.S. Army soldier or employee, taken or made as part of that person's official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, it is in the public domain in the United States.

The above information is fully footnoted in our White Rose histories. Please purchase them for access to that material! To order digital version of White Rose History, Volume I: Coming Together (January 1933-April 30, 1942), click here. To order digital version of White Rose History, Volume II, click here. WRH1 is © 2002, 2003, 2007 by Denise Elaine Heap. WRH2 is © 2002, 2007 by Denise Elaine Heap.

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