18. The SS Officer Who Captured the Franks Bought Anne’s Diary to See If It Mentioned Him
SS Officer Karl Josef Silberbauer is the man who found and arrested the Frank family, after acting on a called-in police tip regarding hidden Jews. He was finally exposed as a former SS agent in 1963, and made the chilling comments, “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.”
