Max Husmann (9 March 1888 – 19 February 1965) was a
Swiss
Swiss may refer to:
* the adjectival form of Switzerland
* Swiss people
Places
* Swiss, Missouri
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*Swiss-system tournament, in various games and sports
*Swiss Internation ...
citizen who helped instigate and orchestrate
Operation Sunrise (by
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 Winston Churchill in the Second World War, dur ...
referred to as ''Crossword''), the secret negotiations that led to the surrender of German troops in Italy in 1945, the beginning of the end of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
.
Ending the war was a monumental task, largely because of the tenacity and loyalty of
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
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**Ger ...
officers who continued to fight on even when facing disaster. Max Husmann played a crucial role in persuading high-ranking officers of the
Wehrmacht
The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previous ...
and the
SS to force a surrender of German troops in spite of
Hitler's
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
orders.
Husmann was also central to ensuring the Operation kept going throughout the difficult months of spring 1945.
Max Husmann was a teacher who founded
Institut Montana, a residential school near
Zug
, neighboring_municipalities = Cham, Baar, Walchwil, Steinhausen, Unterägeri
, twintowns = Fürstenfeld (Austria), Kalesija (Bosnia-Herzegowina)
Zug (Standard German: , Alemannic German: ; french: Zoug it, Zugo r ...
in Switzerland, in 1926, based on the belief that education could help build a more tolerant and more peaceful world.
Biography
Max Husmann was born in
Proskurow, in current day
Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...
, but when he was ten years old his family emigrated to Switzerland, perhaps because of their Jewish origins. The Husmanns settled in
Zurich, where Max gained the Swiss Matura and went on to study mathematics at the
ETH
(colloquially)
, former_name = eidgenössische polytechnische Schule
, image = ETHZ.JPG
, image_size =
, established =
, type = Public
, budget = CHF 1.896 billion (2021)
, rector = Günther Dissertori
, president = Joël Mesot
, ac ...
and then earn his doctorate in 1915. Having helped to pay for his studies by giving private lessons, he set up a college, which was to merge with the Institut Minerva, to tutor students for entry to the ETH.
In 1925, Husmann bought the old Hotel Schönfels on the
Zugerberg
The Zugerberg is a mountain overlooking Zug and Lake Zug in the Zug. It lies approximately halfway between Lake Zug and Lake Ägeri
A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river ...
overlooking Lake Zug as a site where he could found a school. The Institut Montana opened the following year, and then expanded, acquiring the Felsenegg in 1937 making space to create sports grounds, dig a swimming pool, and equip science laboratories and workshops. By 1938 there were almost three hundred boys on the school roll.
Montana only just survived the war years, suffering severe losses in numbers of students and staff, and having its buildings requisitioned for troops and refugees. In 1946, Husmann handed day-to-day management to Dr Josef Ostermayer but also founded the Max Husmann Foundation to safeguard the principles on which he had founded the school. He lived much of the rest of his life in Rome, where he died of an
arteriosclerosis
Arteriosclerosis is the thickening, hardening, and loss of elasticity of the walls of Artery, arteries. This process gradually restricts the blood flow to one's organs and tissues and can lead to severe health risks brought on by atherosclerosis ...
in 1965. He was buried in Zug.
Husmann the Peace-Broker
In February 1945, an Italian baron,
Luigi Parrilli, contacted Max Husmann with information about an alleged German plan to scorch the earth of northern Italy, destroying agriculture, industry and homes as the Allied advance put the Wehrmacht into retreat. Parrilli claimed to have contacts among German officers ready to negotiate a surrender and avert this catastrophe.
Husmann passed the intelligence to
Colonel
Colonel (abbreviated as Col., Col or COL) is a senior military officer rank used in many countries. It is also used in some police forces and paramilitary organizations.
In the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, a colonel was typically in charge of ...
Max Waibel of the Swiss Nachrichtendienst, with whom he already had a working and friendly relationship.
Waibel contacted
Allen Dulles
Allen Welsh Dulles (, ; April 7, 1893 – January 29, 1969) was the first civilian Director of Central Intelligence (DCI), and its longest-serving director to date. As head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the early Cold War, he ov ...
of the American Office of Secret Services who was working quietly, given Switzerland's neutral status, out of Bern.
Husmann's role in the secret Operation was in part logistical, meeting and accompanying the German negotiators, Guido Zimmer,
Eugen Dollmann
Eugen Dollmann (8 August 1900 – 17 May 1985) was a German diplomat and member of the '' SS''.Richard BreitmanU.S. intelligence and the Nazis S. 317.
Early life and family
The son of Paula Dollmann (born Schummerer) and Stefan Dollmann, he was ...
and Obergruppenführer
Karl Wolff
Karl Friedrich Otto Wolff (13 May 1900 – 17 July 1984) was a German SS functionary who served as Chief of Personal Staff Reichsführer-SS (Heinrich Himmler) and an SS liaison to Adolf Hitler during World War II. He ended the war as the Supre ...
, on their discrete journeys from the Swiss-Italian border to meetings in Lugano, Ascona, Zurich and Lucerne. But he was also highly involved in the mediations that enabled Germans and Allies to find a point from which to pursue fruitful discussions. Max Waibel described several crucial stages of the Operation where Husmann's skills at reasoning were the key to unlocking negotiations that would otherwise have reached an impasse.
A critical episode, according to Waibel's report, was Wolff's journey to Zurich to meet Allen Dulles for the first time. Husmann accompanied the Germans across the Alps, ensuring that the presence of high ranking Nazi officials on Switzerland's neutral territory remained undiscovered. Waibel described in detail the dialogue shared between the Obergruppenführer and the school-master in a curtained compartment of the train. The words reflect those later used by Wolff about his move from absolute belief in Hitler to recognition that it was against the interests of the German people to continue the war. Husmann again acted as an intermediary at Ascona on March 19, when the Allied Generals Lemnitzer and Airey were sent from headquarters at Caserta to meet with the Germans to discuss the surrender.
The following weeks, as March turned into April and Allied troops launched a fierce offensive against the German troops still holding on to Italy, the Operation met and overcame a series of setbacks - the danger that Himmler and Hitler were picking up on Wolff's covert visits to Switzerland,
increasing tensions between the Anglo-American and Soviet Allies
and strenuous arguments between Wolff and the German Generals in command of the troops in northern Italy about the laying down of arms. When Allied headquarters sent orders to Dulles to call off the Operation, Waibel and Husmann held the situation together with the German emissaries at Waibel's home near Lucerne.
Their decision was vindicated when the order was rescinded and arrangements made for the signing of the surrender document on April 29, 1945. It was the first surrender of WWII and the only capitulation before the death of
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
was announced on May 1.
On Husmann's contribution to the Operation Waibel wrote –
No one was better qualified for such a task than Dr Husmann, an excellent schoolmaster who possessed not only a rare ability to enter the mind of his interlocutor but also had an exceptional facility and promptness of speech in a discussion. With no exaggeration, Dr Husmann deserves all the credit for exerting a decisive intellectual influence over the SS leaders who took part in the various negotiations. This Swiss teacher would complete his task with astonishing success; in fact, he, a civilian, managed to convince high and very high-ranking SS officers that their ideal world and their position of power were actually founded on error and would therefore soon collapse. ( p38)
After some initial publicity in 1945, details about Operation Sunrise were kept out of the public eye, especially in Switzerland where, for a complex set of reasons concerning the politics of neutrality and war-time economics (
pp 274–286) Husmann and Waibel were commanded not to speak or write anything about the Operation. Waibel's report was published in 1981, the first account in which Husmann's role was fully described. On the 60th anniversary of Operation Sunrise, in 2005, the significance of Switzerland to the negotiations, and roles played by Waibel and Husmann, was officially recognised by the Swiss government.
Husmann defends Karl Wolff at
Nuremberg
Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...
On May 12 Karl Wolff was arrested and transferred to Nuremberg to face charges for his involvement in Nazi atrocities. Max Husmann appeared in court on behalf of Wolff as did the other members of the Sunrise coterie – Allen Dulles,
Lyman Lemnitzer
Lyman Louis Lemnitzer (August 29, 1899 – November 12, 1988) was a United States Army general who served as the fourth chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1960 to 1962. He then served as the Supreme Allied Commander Europe of NATO from 1 ...
, Gero von Gaevernitz,
Terence Airey
Lieutenant General Sir Terence Sydney Airey (9 July 1900 – 26 March 1983) was an officer in the British Army.
Family and education
Airey was the son of Sydney Airey. He was educated at Gresham's School, Holt, and the Royal Military College, S ...
. Dulles and the rest of the Anglo-American team denied that deals had been made with Wolff during the course of the Operation, although he had shown courage and commitment to ending the war and so deserved leniency. Husmann (like Parrilli) maintained that immunity to war crime prosecution had been discussed and agreed. In August 1947, he wrote a letter at the request of
Telford Taylor
Telford Taylor (February 24, 1908 – May 23, 1998) was an American lawyer and professor. Taylor was known for his role as lead counsel in the prosecution of war criminals after World War II, his opposition to McCarthyism in the 1950s, and his o ...
, chief counsel of the U.S. prosecution, stating that such promises had been made although Dulles was unable to confirm this in writing because of the delicate political situation. Although Operation Sunrise involved making “a pact with the devil”, the advantages of securing the surrender were given precedence (
pp179/80). Research has since demonstrated that it is most likely that deals were made that traded working towards surrender against protection in war crimes trials, and that this accounts for the lenient sentence eventually served on Karl Wolff.
Husmann the Educator
Documents from the 1920s and 1930s describing the early years of Institut Montana show that Max Husmann founded the school with specific aspirations about education and its goals. These were summarised in a paper given to educators at Harrow College in 1938 by Husmann's colleague, Huldreich Sauerwein.
In Husmann's vision, an international boarding school housing a community of learners would help develop in young people the tolerance of and respect for other cultures that would guard against war; attention to the skills of thinking would help build a generation that would be strong against the evils of propaganda; and the teachings of
Pestalozzi Pestalozzi is the surname of an Italian family originally based in Gravedona and Chiavenna who settled in Switzerland during the Counter-Reformation. Members of this family include:
* Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746–1827), Swiss pedagogue an ...
about attention to the individual child would help create a more thoughtful society.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Husmann, Max
1888 births
1965 deaths
Swiss people of World War II
Emigrants from the Russian Empire to Switzerland
People from Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine
Swiss academic administrators