Princess Michael of Kent’s father was cleared last night of any sinister role in Hitler’s SS.

His rank was only honorary and he was simply a ‘nominal’ member of the Nazi party, according to German documents released by Kensington Palace.

They also show that Baron Gunther von Reibnitz was ‘in conflict’ with the Nazis as early as 1934 before finally being thrown out of the SS in 1944 after infuriating the hierarchy with his devout Roman Catholicism.

At one stage, he only narrowly escaped ruthless punishment from the SS leadership for his defiance.

The papers, sent from relatives in West Germany, are the transcript of a judgment on the baron’s wartime activities by an appeal tribunal in Upper Bavaria in 1948. They provide the 40-year-old Princess’s final answer to last week’s allegations about his links with Hitler’s elite organisation.

They seem to back fully her claim in a subsequent TV-am Interview that he had nothing to do with wartime atrocities or concentration camps.

According to Princess Michael’s Press secretary, Colonel Mike Farmer, the hearing classified the baron ‘in the lowest grade possible without actually taking up arms against Hitler.’

The tribunal’s two-page Judgment was that the baron could not be regarded as a militarist or someone who benefited from Nazi rule. ‘He was to be regarded as falling within the category of nominal party members since he took only a nominal part in National Socialism and lent it only insignificant support,’ said the tribunal.

The baron was not in any organisation condemned as criminal by the Nuremberg war crimes hearings.

Evidence showed that the baron joined the Nazis in 1931, believed that their policies would revive Germany’s depressed economy. He obtained SS rank because, as a keen 
horseman, he was chief ranger responsible for hunting in his area.

After his promotion in the Wehrmacht, the regular German Army, he was appointed first as SS-Sturmfuhrer (captain) and later on as Sturmbannfuhrer (major). ‘The accused never served with the SS in such rank,’ said the tribunal. ‘As such he had no authority to give orders of any kind and had merely the right to wear uniform and hold his rank.’

The papers reveal that, as chief ranger he permitted Jews to take part in hunting and concerned himself with the well-being of foreign workers - going beyond ‘normal limits’ in helping victims of Nazi racial persecution.

He made no secret of his disillusion with the Third Reich and found himself ‘in difficulties’ with Nazi officials. By 1940 he was saying openly that he wanted Germany to lose the war.

His religious and political views enraged SS leaders. When he was dismissed in 1944, say the documents, he was consigned to the infamous Dirlewanger Detachment, a rogue punishment unit of thugs and criminals.

The Nazis used it against anyone they distrusted politically and its members guarded Polish concentration camps. The baron escaped ‘sentence’ only by taking refuge with his regular Army regiment.

Baron von Reibnitz had asked the appeal tribunal to exonerate him completely from Nazi involvement but this was rejected.

The tribunal ruled that his acts ‘were insufficient to meet the concept of active resistance’ required by de-Nazification laws passed in March 1946.

Before the baron died in 1983, the Princess spent a year with him on the citrus estates he then ran in Mozambique. But she says she had no idea of his SS connections.

Lecturer and researcher Philip Hall, who unearthed the baron’s past and told the Daily Mirror newspaper, was not available for comment on the latest revelations.