How Many Family Members Did Anton Ahlers Have Tonny Ahlers

The betrayal

The Cranium seen from the back.For eight Jewish people in hiding at Prinsengracht 263 in Amsterdam, a more than than 2 year period of hiding came to an end on the warm summer's day of August 4, 1944. The doors to the stockroom stood open, and the first to enter was the Austrian Nazi SS Oberscharführer Karl Silberbauer, followed past the Dutch NSB members (Dutch national socialists, allied to the Nazis) Gezinus Gringhuis, Willem Grootendorst and Maarten Kuiper. The hiders were taken away (and apparently their number was more than expected, as a second auto had to be chosen for), forth with ii of the four helpers present that day. The remaining staff was non interfered with. Click here to see a video extract in which Miep Gies recounts the 24-hour interval of the arrest.

Of the viii Jewish hiders, only Otto Frank returned later the war, equally did the two arrested helpers Johannes Kleiman and Victor Kugler. The Hush-hush Annex had been betrayed, but by who?

To this day, no-i has been able to answer that question with certainty, and the definite answer will probably never be known. The Political Investigation Section of the Amsterdam police force conducted an inquiry in 1948, and a second enquiry took identify in 1963. In 2003, the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation released a report. In addition to these official reports, there are besides the biographers of Anne Frank and of Otto Frank, Melissa Müller and Carol Ann Lee, who each try to identify the betrayer in their books published in 1998 and 2002, respectively. The question is also a thing of much speculation, with varying degrees of substantiation. Below follows an inventory of possible betrayers and the circumstances that could have brought them to the expose. Every reader volition take to draw his or her own conclusions.

The coincidence
As the menstruum of hiding went on for longer, the hiders became less careful. Curtains were opened beyond just a cleft, rooftop windows inadvertently stayed open up, accidental noises became more frequent, and and then on. All in all, the visible evidence mounted for the earth exterior that there were people in the building after office hours. People in the outside world may quite innocently have mentioned this in chat, which could have been overheard by the wrong persons. In this scenario, the proper noun of the nighttime watchman Martin Sleegers plays a prominent role. Post-obit the report of a break-in in the bounds in April 1944, he and a law officeholder went to investigate. They really fumbled with the bookcase that hid the entrance to the Cloak-and-dagger Annex. Anne describes this break-in in her diary entry of April 11, 1944. At that place is no concrete prove that Sleegers betrayed the hiders. While information technology is a fact Sleegers knew the NSB member Gringhuis (who was present at the arrest), this in itself does not constitute proof.

Tonny Ahlers
NSB fellow member Tonny Ahlers visited Otto Frank at his office in April 1941, to confront him with a alphabetic character addressed to the NSB that mentioned a conversation betwixt Frank and Chore Jansen, a former employee. In this conversation, Otto Frank had expressed negative views almost the German occupier. Ahlers said that he worked as a courier for the SD (Nazi security service) and for the NSB, and said that he had intercepted the letter by take a chance. Subsequent investigations showed that he was indeed a frequent visitor at the Security Service, only that his role as courier was simply made up. It is known that Frank twice gave money to Ahlers, though probably not more than 50 guilders altogether. It has not been established that Ahlers visited Frank regularly.

Tonny AhlersAhlers was notoriously anti-Semitic, for which he was also bedevilled after the war, just besides an inveterate liar and a braggart. This makes it difficult for researchers to distinguish fact from fiction. Can Ahlers have been the betrayer personally, or did he pass on information to the Nazi Security Service, for example? The latter is possible. Ahlers started a business in the aforementioned kind of commodities as Otto Frank's business. This would accept given him admission to the stockroom of Opekta / Pectacon, later Gies & Co., when coming to collect ordered goods at Prinsengracht. In this way he may also take had contact with the stockroom manager Willem van Maaren (more than about him later on). The three NSB members Gringhuis, Grootendorst, Kuiper and Sleegers and Ahlers all knew each other, but this doesn't actually show anything, certainly not given Ahlers' untrustworthiness. The facts are definitely striking and can exist used to construct a plausible theory, simply it volition never amount to hard evidence. It is regrettable that Ahlers' widow, Martha van Kuik, was not interrogated extensively. She was an heart-witness and may have known and seen a great bargain. She is still alive today. Ballad Ann Lee, biographer of Otto Frank (2002), was the get-go to nowadays this theory about Tonny Ahlers. In her book she works towards identifying Ahlers as the betrayer, yet without explicitly labeling him as such. It remains a speculative theory, woven into her pages. The Dutch television program Andere tijden, aired on March 12, 2002, explores Lee'south theory.

Willem van Maaren
Stockroom director Willem van Maaren was suspected of the expose for many years, although he never sided with the Nazis. He stole appurtenances and was generally considered dishonest. In Anne'due south diary information technology becomes articulate that the Annex occupants likewise did not trust him. However, inquiries conducted after the war did not plough up any evidence that he was the betrayer. On the other hand, his eager inquisitiveness was very striking. In all sorts of ways, he tried to establish whether people had entered the stockroom in the evening or during the night. From what he noticed, he must have concluded that this was indeed the case. Some other very unusual moment occurred when he asked the employees whether at that place had previously been a Mr. Frank at the part. Information technology is unknown how he came to that proper name, or why he asked that question. Van Maaren supplied appurtenances to diverse customers, only it cannot exist determined whether Ahlers was one of these. That Ahlers and Van Maaren knew each other, so that Van Maaren may accept tried to obtain data for Ahlers, is yet another theory that sounds plausible but that cannot be proven.

Lena Hartog-van Bladeren
She is the least likely candidate for the office of betrayer. Her husband Lammert worked in the stockroom on Prinsengracht until the raid in 1944, while she worked as a cleaner at the same address (amid others)— something that she initially denied, by the way. A second contradiction is Lammert'due south statement that he continued to work at the stockroom for several days following the raid, while according to the helpers he immediately ran off when the arrest took place. Information technology can furthermore not be explained why Lena Hartog claimed that in that location were Jews hiding in the bounds at number 263. Where could she have got this information? From her husband or from Van Maaren? The latter declared after to take had simply a suspicion. So was there information trickling through a grapevine? Perchance, only hard to show. Finally, Lena said that she feared for her husband, who worked in a place where Jews were hiding. But then why did she not warn her husband on the solar day the raid took place to avoid his arrest, and notify the Security Service afterwards? The Germans refers to their source as a 'reliable' source. Was it Lena? Anne Frank's biographer Melissa Müller first pointed to Lena Hartog equally possible betrayer, in her 1998 book Anne Frank, The biography. Yet it remains unlikely, as she would have wanted every bit much as possible to avert drawing attention to her family, given her husband's precarious position (he hadn't responded to the Arbeitseinsatz, the summons to piece of work).

Headline "The silent betrayal of Anne Frank" in Dutch newspaper after the NIOD study was published, April 28, 2003. To conclude
The in a higher place demonstrates that there is no indubitable proof for who betrayed the Secret Annex. There is something well-nigh all the persons and circumstances that brand them suspicious, just precisely considering this is so, all argumentation falters here. It could be that a number of persons suspected the presence of the hiders, and that a number of persons involved with the Prinsengracht address knew each other, just this does not add up to any grade of testify. Pure coincidence must moreover non be ruled out every bit a contributing factor. Possibly neighbors sympathetic to or member of the NSB, who looked out on the rear facade of the bounds, saw people moving past curtains that were not fully airtight, and notified the authorities.

A few more 'loose ends' remain. For example, in belatedly 1943 Victor Kugler was summoned to the local headquarters of the Nazi Party in his hometown of Hilversum, on the aforementioned dark that the hiders on Prinsengracht were alarmed by an insistent ringing of the front doorbell. Kugler had plainly ignored the starting time summons, as the existence of the second summons demonstrates. Why was he summoned there, and what was discussed? And did the Austrian Silberbauer, who supervised the abort, really non know who had tipped off the Amsterdam Security Service headquarters about the Jewish hiders, as he claimed during the investigation of 1963?

Practically everyone that had anything to do with the expose was interrogated after the war, without producing whatever definitive respond to the question, 'Who betrayed the occupants of the Hugger-mugger Addendum on Prinsengracht 263?'

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Source: https://www.miepgies.nl/en/the%20betrayal/

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