Josef Meisinger

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SS-Staf Meisinger

Josef Albert Meisinger (* 14. September 1899 in Munich , † 7. March 1947 in Warsaw , Poland ) was a German Colonel of Police , standartenführer and war criminals .

Life

The son of Josef Meisinger and his wife Berta Volk attended four classes at the primary school in Munich in order to then complete the Luitpold-Gymnasium and Realgymnasium there. On December 23, 1916, he volunteered for a mine thrower replacement battalion. He moved to the western front on July 17, 1917, to be used there in the Reserve Infantry Regiment 30 and in the mine thrower company 230.

With a serious wound of 30 percent war-damaged, he was dismissed from army service on January 18, 1919 with the rank of vice sergeant. As awards in the First World War , he received the Iron Cross II. Class and the Bavarian Military Merit Cross. He was admitted to the Epp Freikorps on April 19, 1919, in which he fought the Munich Soviet Republic .

From July 1919 to September 30, 1920 he was employed by the Bayrische Handelsbank . He took part in the battles against the Ruhr as a volunteer in the Reichswehr from March 13 to April 20, 1920, which is why he said he could no longer work in his bank. He was employed as a stage manager at Munich II Regional Court from October 1, 1920 to September 30, 1922. He was transferred to the Munich Police Department on October 1, 1922. As leader of the 3rd platoon of the 2nd company of the Oberland Freikorps , he participated on the 8th and 9th. November 1923 on the Hitler putsch .

Promotion to SS and police apparatus

As an SS candidate , he joined the SS on March 5, 1933 (SS No. 36.134) and at the same time applied for admission to the NSDAP . He was transferred to the Bavarian Political Police (BPP) on March 9, 1933 and thus came into official contact with Reinhard Heydrich (Epp and Himmler also received management positions in the Bavarian police at the same time). Meisinger had previously adhered to custom . He became a member of the NSDAP ( membership number 3,201,697) on May 1, 1933. He was promoted to SS troop leader on June 28, 1933. He received the NSDAP Blood Order (No. 374) on November 9, 1933. On April 3, 1934, he married Martha Zirngibl (born on August 16, 1904 in Fürth ).

He was promoted to SS-Obertruppführer on April 20, 1934. When Heydrich went to Berlin, he took his trusted employees from the BPP with him: Heinrich Müller , Franz Josef Huber and Josef Meisinger, also known as the "Bavarian Brigade". Thus, on May 1, 1934, Meisinger moved to the Secret State Police Office (Gestapa) in Berlin, in order to be appointed criminal inspector on the same day. There he took over the management of Department II 1 H and II H 1 (NSDAP, abortions, § 175 and Rassenschande). This department had the following tasks:

With retroactive effect to May 1, he was promoted to SS-Untersturmführer on May 9, 1934. During the Katholikentag in Berlin on June 24th, 1934 he observed the leader of the Catholic Action Erich Klausener . He reported to Heydrich that Klausener had made "anti-subversive statements", whereupon Klausener von Heydrich was placed on a death list of Nazi opponents and was shot by an SS man in front of his office in the course of the Röhm murders on June 30, 1934.

In 1935 Meisinger also took over the management of the special department II S "Combating homosexuality and abortion". On December 16, 1935, he received the Julleuchter of the SS as recognition . From 1936, Meisinger took over as head of the departments PP II H (affairs of the NSDAP, its branches and affiliated associations) and PP II S (combating homosexuality and abortion) in the main office the security police . On April 23, 1936, he was promoted to SS-Sturmbannführer. Meisinger was repeatedly judged badly as an employee. Heydrich called him a "creep", Heinrich Müller repeatedly complained about him, and Werner Best judged him to be a primitive man with brutal methods.

From 1936 to 1938 Meisinger headed the " Reich Central Office for Combating Homosexuality and Abortion " in the Gestapa. Meisinger was promoted to SS-Obersturmbannführer on January 30, 1937. In the same year he was appointed to the government council. When the Commander-in-Chief of the Army Werner von Fritsch was accused of homosexuality in July 1936 and again in the Blomberg-Fritsch crisis in 1938, Meisinger was responsible for the relevant investigations. Some directions of investigation came to nothing. Meisinger was z. B. traveled to Egypt with Detective Inspector Eberhard Schiele to find out whether Fritsch had had homosexual contacts there during his vacation in November / December 1937. The main witness was an Otto Schmidt , who moved in the Berlin half- and underworld. Meisinger was in charge of Schmidt's interrogations. He wanted to seize the opportunity and deliver clear results to his superiors. During the interrogations, Meisinger disregarded the principles of police investigative work. For example, Fritsch presented photos of Fritsch to the witness for identification, whereby the latter was able to take data from the lettering on the photos, which he then woven into his statements. Ultimately, Meisinger, bypassing official channels, forwarded the investigation file directly to Himmler, who immediately presented himself to Hitler. In court, however, the charges against Fritsch, who fell victim to mistake, collapsed. With the failure against Fritsch, Meisinger's career in the Gestapa came to an end, he and others in his office were relieved, transferred to another post or dismissed. From 1938 to 1939 he was employed in the archive of the SD main office .

Use in Poland

With the attack on Poland and the beginning of the Second World War , Meisinger became deputy commander of Einsatzgruppe IV in Poland in September 1939 . From October 23, 1939 to March 1, 1941 he held the post of commander of the Security Police and the SD in the Warsaw district . On January 1, 1940, he was appointed SS-Standartenführer.

Meisinger succeeded Lothar Beutel , who was replaced because of corruption. Meisinger proceeded with all violence against Poles and Jews . He had mass shootings of 1,700 people carried out in the Palmiry forest . In retaliation for the murder of a Polish policeman, he shot all 55 Jewish residents of a house on November 22, 1939, and 107 Poles on December 20, 1939 in retaliation for the deaths of two Germans. Heydrich described the relevant instructions in July 1940 as "extremely radical". Meisinger became so notorious that he was called the "butcher of Warsaw". Walter Schellenberg writes in his memoirs that - in response to an intrigue by Meisinger against him - he sent information to the now Gestapo chief Heinrich Müller about the (according to Schellenberg) "bestial acts" by Meisinger in Warsaw. After the investigation was over, according to Schellenberg, Himmler decided to bring Meisinger to a court martial and shoot him. But he was saved by Heydrich, who sent him to Japan. In his later trial in Warsaw he claimed that he had not been in Warsaw by October 1940, but his involvement in the establishment of the Warsaw Ghetto is also likely around this time.

In February 1941 he married his secretary, who previously u. a. had worked for Himmler. In March 1941 he worked briefly in the Reich Security Main Office .

In the Far East

Spying, denouncing and arresting (former) German citizens

Taken out of the line of fire by Heydrich, Meisinger worked from April 1, 1941 to May 1945, as a police liaison leader and special representative of the SD at the German embassy in Tokyo . He was also the SD's liaison officer to the Japanese secret service. One of his tasks in Japan was to keep an eye on the correspondent (and Soviet agent) Richard Sorge , who was initially suspected in Berlin. However, Meisinger became his "drinking companion" and one of his best sources. Schellenberg noticed in his memories that instead of devoting himself to his task, he surrendered to a comfortable life and suddenly played the role of the honest man. He had only good things to say to Schellenberg about worry. After Sorge was arrested by the Japanese in October 1941, Meisinger and the German ambassador Eugen Ott tried to cover up the matter. When Ivar Lissner finally revealed the extent of the betrayal to Berlin, which led to the replacement of Ott, Meisinger was one of the driving forces behind blackening him with the Japanese and having him arrested. His ruthless methods of eliminating opponents quickly became known in the German communities in Shanghai and Tokyo. For example, he sent them on blockade breakers from Japanese ports to Germany, which was a high risk, and he also urged the captains to kill the delinquents if the ship was threatened with loss. Another method used by Meisinger was to hand over unpleasant opponents to the Japanese security authorities. The German Engels, who lives in Japan, was imprisoned and beaten for months at the instigation of Meisinger. When he was released on account of proven innocence, Meisinger threatened to arrest him again. Thereupon Engels hanged himself in the open street, carrying a sign that read: "I am ashamed to continue living as a German". In the case of the Jew Frank, who died while in custody, Meisinger had his family carry him home on a cart. During his activity in Japan, Meisinger conducted extensive telegram correspondence with the Reich Security Main Office . Most of the telegrams were inquiries about Germans in Japan who had recently arrived. Meisinger was also able - according to the former German ambassador Heinrich Stahmer - to apply for the expatriation of German citizens without the ambassador's approval. These went directly to the German security police who then brought the procedure to a close. One of Meisinger's most important informants was the German consul general in Yokohama Heinrich Seelheim .

Meisinger was also a driving force behind the discrediting and later arrest of the Tokyo-based industrialist Willy Rudolf Foerster . Together with the Jewish Aid Committee, he helped a large number of Jews flee to Japan and employed them in his company. As a result, he had drawn the hostility of the local NS diplomatic missions and party offices. In particular at the consul general in Yokohama, Heinrich Seelheim , the NS party referee Alois Tichy and the police attaché Meisinger, he was considered a "persona non grata". I.a. Meisinger spread the false rumors about Foerster that he had a criminal record, a Comintern agent and a Jew, in order to sabotage his business. In May 1943 he arranged for Foerster's arrest as an alleged Soviet spy. So he hoped to end his anti-Nazi engagement for good. Meisinger was also personally involved in Foerster's torture in prison. After the Japanese authorities released Foerster from prison in 1944 for proven innocence in relation to espionage, Meisinger arranged for him to be arrested again in early 1945. He succeeded in doing this by handing over a list of “anti-Nazis” names to the Japanese, on which Foerster's name was also noted.

Meisinger was also known as a passionate poker player in Tokyo, but he used to force his teammates to continue playing with the pistol. In such a game he shot a German merchant marine captain, which he was able to cover up by bribing the investigating Japanese secret service officer (captain of the Kempeitai ). When this later became known, the officer took his own life ( seppuku ).

On the defensive after Richard Sorge's arrest, Meisinger denounced several people as alleged spies at the Kempeitai. In addition to the industrialist Foerster, journalists and a doctor were among his victims. Meisinger apparently worked with falsified evidence or confessions. This is particularly documented in the case of the journalist Karl Raimund Hofmeier , who was arrested in 1942 as the alleged “second Richard Sorge” and shot in 1944 as a result of Meisinger's intervention at the naval attaché Paul Wenneker .

Attempts at foreign policy, persecution of the Jews and intervention to establish the Shanghai Ghetto

Immediately after his arrival in Tokyo, Meisinger had so obviously demonstrated his ineptitude at the Foreign Office that Joachim von Ribbentrop used it to reduce the influence of the SD on the embassies. The police attachées in particular were a thorn in his side.

Meisinger always tried to advance his own career, also through activities that far exceeded his competencies. After he had established contact with the Buddhist "abbot" Ignaz Trebitsch-Lincoln in Shanghai , he suggested in Berlin that a people's uprising in Tibet be encouraged. Meisinger possibly knew that such considerations were also made in Himmler's circle, at the Ahnenerbe . However, he missed the fact that Trebitsch-Lincoln was known as a “political adventurer” with a need for recognition and by no means had any influence. Meisinger was then discredited at the Foreign Office, which complained to Himmler. In addition to his mistake in assessing Trebitsch-Lincoln, Meisinger had also passed over the German ambassador Eugen Ott in Tokyo by going it alone in Shanghai . Meisinger's telegrams from Tokyo to the Reich Security Main Office in Berlin were generally sent over the desk of the German ambassador. He received a copy of every letter and had to sign Meisinger's telegrams before they were sent to the Reich Security Main Office. This procedure served to inform the ambassador. However, Meisinger was not recalled. According to Freyeisen, he will “probably no longer” have transmitted presumptuous attempts to pursue foreign policy to Germany via the diplomatic missions. In fact, Meisinger was also able to contact the Reich Security Main Office by radio telephone. These phone calls were not monitored by members of the embassy and were probably addressed to Heinrich Müller and not directly to Heinrich Himmler . There was also the possibility of communicating directly with Berlin by means of a blockade breaker and submarine.

The affair surrounding the monk Chao Kung, alias Trebitsch Lincoln, in Shanghai led to a significant shift in power towards the Foreign Office. Ribbentrop, who at that time was in a power struggle with Himmler and Heydrich and defended himself against the police attachés who were not subordinate to the Foreign Office but who worked at the foreign missions, took his chance. Meisinger's failure resulted in the dispute being decided in favor of the Federal Foreign Office. On August 8, 1941, Ribbentrop and Himmler signed an agreement in principle. A little later, on August 28, 1941, an instruction was issued to all police attachés. These were assigned to the diplomatic staff of the embassy or legation and, with regard to their activities abroad, were subordinate to the head of mission. Thus the ambassadors in Tokyo Eugen Ott and later his successor Heinrich Georg Stahmer became direct superiors of Meisinger. According to the service instructions, the latter had to carry out orders even if these were outside of his actual scope of duties. All instructions from the offices of the Reichsführer-SS went through the Foreign Office and were forwarded to Meisinger by the ambassador. According to the service instructions, the purpose of this procedure was that the ambassador or envoy took on "political responsibility for the foreign policy expediency of these instructions". Both Meisinger and the ambassador were given a right of appeal. Apparently, however, not a single complaint exists. The ambassadors also lack critical comments on Meisinger's telegrams to the Reich Security Main Office. Thus his actions against anti-Nazi people and Jews in the Japanese sphere of influence seem to have been approved by the ambassador, if not (partly) initiated.

In Japan and Japanese-occupied China, Meisinger repeatedly devoted himself to the persecution of the Jews. In 1941 he intervened with Japanese authorities and asked them to murder the approximately 18,000 Jewish refugees from Austria and Germany in the Japanese-occupied Shanghai . His proposals included the establishment of an extermination camp on the island of Chongming Dao in the Yangtze Delta or killing by starvation on freighters off the Chinese coast. The Japanese admiralty, which administered Shanghai, did not give in to the German allies' plans to exterminate. However, the Japanese set up a ghetto in the Hongkou district for stateless (i.e. German, Austrian, Czech and Baltic) Jews.

Meisinger reported to Fritz Wiedemann that he had been commissioned by Himmler to persuade the Japanese to take measures against the Jews. Wiedemann later remarked in court that Meisinger could of course not have done this in the form of an order "with the self-confident people of the Japanese". However, he does not know how he “did it in detail”. To achieve his goal, Meisinger used the fear of espionage of the Japanese, who, with a few exceptions, were not anti-Semitic. In the autumn of 1942, for example, he held talks with the head of the foreign section of the Japanese Home Office and told him that he had been instructed by Berlin to report the names of all "anti-Nazis" among the Germans to the Japanese authorities. "Anti-Nazis" are primarily German Jews, 20,000 of whom emigrated to Shanghai. These "anti-Nazis" are also always "anti-Japanese". The Japanese accepted this thesis after some reflection. According to the former interpreter Meisinger Hamel, this led to a downright hunt for "anti-Nazis". In response to Meisinger's assertion, the Japanese demanded a list of all "anti-Nazis" be drawn up. As his secretary later confirmed, Meisinger had already had this since 1941. After consulting Heinrich Müller , Meisinger handed it over to both the Home Office and the Kempeitai at the end of 1942 . The list included the names of all Jews with a German passport in Japan. For the Japanese it became clear that especially those who had fled to Shanghai in large numbers from 1937 onwards from the National Socialists represented the greatest "danger potential". The proclamation of a ghetto was thus a logical consequence of Meisinger's interventions. For this "achievement" he was apparently promoted to colonel of the police on February 6, 1943 , despite the worry affair .

The population density in the ghetto was higher than in what was then Manhattan. Strictly sealed off by Japanese soldiers under the sadistic commander Kano Ghoya, Jews were only allowed to leave the ghetto with special permission. About 2000 Jews died in the Shanghai ghetto.

Despite his involvement in the Sorge affair (for the failure of which Ambassador Ott blamed him for a large part of the blame), he was appointed Colonel of the Police on January 25, 1943. Arrested by a US agency in Yokohama on September 6, 1945 , he was extradited to Poland in 1946. On December 17, 1946, he and Ludwig Fischer , Ludwig Leist and Max Daume were charged with war crimes in Warsaw. The Supreme National Tribunal sentenced Meisinger on March 3, 1947 to death , whereupon he on March 7, 1947 Warsaw mokotów prison by the train executed was.

literature

  • Astrid Freyeisen: Shanghai and the politics of the Third Reich. Königshausen and Neumann, Würzburg 2000, ISBN 3-8260-1690-4 (also: Würzburg, University, dissertation, 1998).
  • Karl-Heinz Janßen , Fritz Tobias : The fall of the generals. Hitler and the Blomberg-Fritsch crisis in 1938. Beck, Munich 1994, ISBN 3-406-38109-X .
  • Josef Meisinger: The fight against abortion as a political task , In: German magazine for the entire judicial medicine [0367-0031], 1940 vol: 32, iss: 4, pg: 226–244.
  • Janusz Piekałkiewicz : World history of espionage, agents - systems - actions. Weltbild, Augsburg 1993, ISBN 3-89350-568-7 .
  • Walter Schellenberg : Notes of the last head of the secret service under Hitler (= Moewig 4112 memoirs ). Edited by Gita Petersen. Foreword by Klaus Harpprecht . In the appendix, using previously unpublished documents, newly commented by Gerald Fleming . Moewig, Rastatt 1981, ISBN 3-8118-4112-2 .
  • History of the United Nations War Crimes Commission and the Development of the Laws of War. HM Stationery Office, London 1948, p. 532.
  • Seniority list of the NSDAP Schutzstaffel (SS-Oberst-Gruppenführer - SS-Standartenführer). Status as of November 9, 1944. SS-Personalhauptamt, Berlin 1944.
  • Clemens Jochem: The Foerster case : The German-Japanese machine factory in Tokyo and the Jewish auxiliary committee Hentrich and Hentrich, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-95565-225-8 .
  • Clemens Jochem: Your murderer - I am innocent! On the fate of the journalist Karl Raimund Hofmeier in Japan . In: OAG Notes . No. 04, April 1, 2020, ISSN  1343-408X , pp. 8-36.

Web links

Commons : Josef Meisinger  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Freyeisen: Shanghai and the politics of the Third Reich. 2000, p. 463.
  2. ^ Diagram showing the breakdown of the Secret State Police Office (Gestapa) .
  3. ↑ Janßen: The fall of the generals. 1994, p. 95.
  4. ↑ Janßen: The fall of the generals. 1994, p. 160.
  5. ↑ Michael Wildt : Generation of the Unconditional. The leader corps of the Reich Security Main Office. Updated new edition of the 2002 edition. Hamburg 2003, ISBN 3-930908-87-5 , p. 478 (also habilitation thesis, University of Hannover 2001).
  6. ↑ Based on the memoirs of the musician Eta Harich-Schneider : Characters and catastrophes. Eyewitness accounts of a traveling musician. Ullstein, Berlin a. a. 1978, ISBN 3-550-07481-6 , he was secretly referred to in Tokyo as the “executioner of Warsaw” . She further characterizes him as a "two hundredweight man with pale eyes in a fat face" and writes that he got on very well with Ott (p. 203).
  7. ^ Walter Schellenberg: Records. 1981, p. 182 f.
  8. ↑ Freyeisen: Shanghai and the politics of the Third Reich. 2000, p. 466.
  9. ↑ Piekalkiewicz: World history of espionage. 1993, p. 369.
  10. ^ Memories of Schellenberg, quoted in Piekalkiewicz: World history of espionage. 1993, p. 369.
  11. ^ Schellenberg: records. 1981, p. 183.
  12. ↑ Freyeisen: Shanghai and the politics of the Third Reich. 2000, p. 469.
  13. ↑ Clemens Jochem: The Foerster case: The German-Japanese machine factory in Tokyo and the Jewish auxiliary committee Hentrich and Hentrich, Berlin 2017, p. 74, ISBN 978-3-95565-225-8 .
  14. ↑ Jochem: Der Fall Foerster , Berlin 2017, p. 256, note no. 336.
  15. ↑ Jochem: Der Fall Foerster , Berlin 2017, p. 169.
  16. ↑ Jochem: Der Fall Foerster , Berlin 2017, p. 16.
  17. ↑ Jochem: Der Fall Foerster , Berlin 2017, p. 107 f.
  18. ↑ Jochem: Der Fall Foerster , Berlin 2017, p. 19.
  19. ↑ Jochem: Der Fall Foerster , Berlin 2017, p. 224, note no. 122.
  20. ↑ Jochem: Der Fall Foerster , Berlin 2017, p. 183.
  21. ↑ Jochem: Der Fall Foerster , Berlin 2017, p. 75.
  22. ↑ Jochem: Der Fall Foerster , Berlin 2017, p. 82.
  23. ↑ Heinz Höhne , epilogue to Ivar Lissner : My dangerous way. Forgotten but not taken (= Knaur 396). Complete and revised paperback edition. Droemer-Knaur, Munich a. a. 1975, ISBN 3-426-00396-1 , p. 253.
  24. ↑ Clemens Jochem: Your murderer - I am innocent! On the fate of the journalist Karl Raimund Hofmeier in Japan . In: OAG Notes . No. 04, April 1, 2020, ISSN  1343-408X , pp. 8-36.
  25. ↑ Freyeisen: Shanghai and the politics of the Third Reich. 2000, p. 467.
  26. ↑ Heinz Eberhard Maul: Japan and the Jews. Study on the Jewish policy of the Empire of Japan during the time of National Socialism 1933–1945 Bonn 2000, p. 205, footnote no. 9, PDF (12.2 MB) .
  27. ↑ Jochem: Der Fall Foerster , Berlin 2017, p. 255, note No. 332.
  28. ↑ Freyeisen: Shanghai and the politics of the Third Reich. 2000, p. 474.
  29. ↑ Jochem: Der Fall Foerster , Berlin 2017, pp. 255 f., Note No. 333.
  30. ↑ Clemens Jochem: Your murderer - I am innocent! On the fate of the journalist Karl Raimund Hofmeier in Japan . In: OAG Notes . No. 04, April 1, 2020, ISSN  1343-408X , pp. 8-36.
  31. ↑ Heinz Eberhard Maul: Why Japan did not persecute Jews. The Jewish policy of the Empire of Japan during the time of National Socialism , Iudicium, Munich 2007. ISBN 978-3-89129-535-9 .
  32. ↑ Jochem: Der Fall Foerster , Berlin 2017, p. 88.
  33. ↑ Jochem: Der Fall Foerster , Berlin 2017, p. 85 f.
  34. ↑ Jochem: Der Fall Foerster , Berlin 2017, p. 86.
  35. ↑ Jochem: Der Fall Foerster , Berlin 2017, p. 86 f.
  36. ↑ Jochem: Der Fall Foerster , Berlin 2017, pp. 232–233, note no. 164.
  37. ↑ Jochem: Der Fall Foerster , Berlin 2017, p. 86 f. and pp. 232-233, note No. 164.
  38. ↑ Jochem: Der Fall Foerster , Berlin 2017, p. 87.
  39. ↑ Jochem: Der Fall Foerster , Berlin 2017, p. 88.
  40. ^ Ernest G. Heppner: Shanghai Refuge. A Memoir of the World War II Jewish Ghetto. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln et al. a. 1995, ISBN 0-8032-2368-4 .
  41. ↑ Freyeisen suspects that Meisinger was able to present the establishment of ghettos in Shanghai, which took place a little later, in Berlin as a success of his own. Freyeisen: Shanghai and the politics of the Third Reich. 2000, p. 475.
personal data
SURNAME Meisinger, Josef
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Meisinger, Josef Albert (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German police colonel, SS-Standartenführer and war criminal
DATE OF BIRTH September 14, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich
DATE OF DEATH March 7, 1947
Place of death Warsaw