Günter Riesen

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Günter giants actually Carl-Günther Giant (* 23. September 1892 in Breslau , † 21st December 1951 in Ruppichteroth ) had studied economics and law, worked as an officer in a bank, was a National Socialist, and increased after the seizure of power in 1933 for mayor of Cologne on.

Origin, education, profession

His father Carl Riesen (1854–1935) was Vice President of the Deutsche Reichsbahn and carried the title of privy councilor . Günter Riesen took part in the First World War and studied economics and economics in Cologne from 1919 to 1924 . Riesen received his doctorate in 1922 with an economics thesis. He also acquired practical knowledge as the operations manager of a machine factory. Günter Riesen was married to a sister of the wealthy Protestant Cologne manufacturer Otto Brügelmann. The Riesen family led an upper-class life. For example, the three children were not sent to school but received private tuition. In 1924/1925 Riesen joined the Jewish bank A. Levy & Co. in Cologne as an authorized signatory .

time of the nationalsocialism

Giant's wife Grete was a member of the NSDAP in Cologne from an early age . She financed the party during the rise of the NSDAP, the so-called fighting time , because as a manufacturer's daughter she had considerable financial resources. Riesen himself joined the party in 1932. Because of this and because of his doctorate, Gauleiter Josef Grohé considered Riesen suitable for a high post after the seizure of power.

After the local elections on Sunday, March 12, 1933, the NSDAP and the Black-White-Red fighting front only won an absolute majority among city councilors because the communists' votes were declared invalid. The Nazis decided to remove the incumbent Lord Mayor Konrad Adenauer from his post by force, although his term of office lasted even longer. On the evening of the election, Adenauer got a hint that the "SA wanted him to work on Monday, March 13th". The SA occupied the entrance to Adenauer's house with a few men. Adenauer did not wait for the attacks by the thugs, but fled to Berlin unnoticed. On Monday morning, a big ceremony to take power took place in Cologne. From the balcony of the town hall, the Gauleiter Josef Grohé declared Adenauer deposed and appointed Günter Riesen as acting mayor. Immediately after the NSDAP came to power in Cologne, a smear campaign started in Cologne, in which Adenauer was accused of corruption in the press. A leading figure was Günter Riesen. Adenauer wrote to him complaining about the slander. He complained that the Kölnische Zeitung of March 18, 1933 had read that, according to information from the city press service, witnesses and files had been examined and that he had not been heard before these allegations were published. The State Commissioner Riesen replied to him on March 21, 1933, among other things:

... In reviewing your official business, the Special Commissioner and I got further into the affair than you seem to assume. The published cases are just a start ... No prior hearing is required, the bare facts speak for themselves. .... You expect loyalty from me, which I unfortunately have to deny you; ... because you are a criminal, Mr. Adenauer, a criminal against the people who were entrusted to you, and who through your fault have brought you into terrible distress , a criminal on the city they ruined ... you are the accused, I am your accuser, and the people are your judge. That is the situation between us.
Giants.

On April 4, 1933, official criminal proceedings against Adenauer were initiated, which were set on June 4, 1934, without Adenauer's guilt being established.

Gravesite of the Riesen family

Riesen not only fought supporters of democracy, but he also stalked people he believed to be Jews. He was active as an anti-Semite. For example, on March 27, 1933, the new Lord Mayor of the City of Cologne issued a circular prohibiting newspaper advertisements from Jewish entrepreneurs. The Sal. Oppenheim jr. and Co. and A. Levy. It was spicy because Riesen had been A. Levy's authorized signatory.

Riesen lost his post in 1936 because of a foreign exchange violation. But in 1938 he was appointed district administrator of the Merseburg district , and in 1942 he was given a high position in Breslau. There he was released by the Allies in 1945 and lost his pension entitlement due to the denazification that was not granted.

Riesen died in 1951 at the age of 59. He was buried in the family grave at the Melaten cemetery in Cologne (hall 64a).

literature

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ His doctoral thesis read: The reorganization of cost accounting in a factory of agricultural machines . Economics and social science dissertation, Cologne 1922.
  2. ↑ Horst Matzerath: Cologne in the time of National Socialism 1933-1944 . Greven Verlag, Cologne 2009, ISBN 978-3-7743-0429-1 , p. 76.
  3. ^ Henning Koehler : Adenauer. A political biography. Propylaen, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-549-05444-0 , pp. 281f.
  4. ↑ Hans Peter Mensing (arrangement): Adenauer in the Third Reich. Schöningh, Paderborn 1991, ISBN 3-88680-415-1 , pp. 93f.
  5. ^ Ingo Köhler: The "Aryanization" of the private banks in the Third Reich. Repression, elimination and the question of reparation , 2nd edition, Verlag CH Beck , Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-406-53200-9 . P. 119
  6. ↑ See Personenlexikon, p. 450; Rügemer broadcast on March 1, 2003
personal data
SURNAME Giants, Günter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Riesen, Carl-Günther (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German local politician, National Socialist, Lord Mayor of Cologne
DATE OF BIRTH September 23, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH Wroclaw
DATE OF DEATH December 21, 1951
Place of death Ruppichteroth