Albrecht Schmelt

Albrecht Schmelt (* 19th August 1899 in Breslau , † 8. May 1945 in Warmbronn ) was a German politician ( NSDAP ), SS brigade leader and member of the Reichstag , known as "Special Representative of the Reich SS for foreign ethnic labor" the department Schmelt directed.

Career

Albrecht Schmelt was born into a farming family and spent his childhood and youth in Wroclaw. After training in agriculture, he became a technical officer at the post office and from 1925 went on “long voyages” as a radio officer on merchant ships. In 1930 he returned and joined the NSDAP (membership number 369.853).

In 1932 he became a member of the Prussian state parliament and in 1933 a member of the Reichstag . Schmelt served as police chief of Breslau from 1934 to 1942. From May 1941, Schmelt was also president of the government in Opole . In the NSDAP he was responsible for civil servants in the Gauleiter's staff as head of the office.

In 1939 Schmelt joined the SS (membership number 340.792) and on October 15, 1940, Heinrich Himmler appointed him “Special Representative of the Reichsführer-SS for foreign labor in Upper Silesia ” and in 1942 he was promoted to SS Brigadführer. The Schmelt organization , which he directed, organized the use of forced labor by Jews in road construction and in armaments factories. Schmelt was responsible for up to 177 labor camps and had more than 50,000 workers.

Destroyer responsible

Schmelt created working conditions in his camps, which were later taken over by the WVHA : The working time in the armaments factory was twelve hours, the employment contract was concluded collectively and the company paid 4.50 RM per day per unskilled worker. The slave laborer received only pennies of this wage.

Schmelt had forced laborers who were no longer able to work, as well as the old and sick, selected and transported to Auschwitz for extermination . The largest murder campaign to date began on May 12, 1942; By August 1942, almost 35,000 Upper Silesian Jews had been gassed. The selections were carried out independently by functionaries of the Schmelt office, namely Friedrich Karl Kuczynski and probably also by the deputy head Heinrich Lindner. The deportation of these "Schmelt Jews" was in no way related to the mass deportations carried out by Adolf Eichmann .

After 1943

The agency lost its importance in September 1943 and was soon closed. Schmelt was retired in March 1944. At the end of 1944 Schmelt had to answer to an SS court for enrichment in office. The course and outcome of the proceedings are not known.

Shortly after the war ended, Schmelt committed suicide . Ernst Klee names May 8, 1945 as the date of death and Warmbronn as the location. Sybille Steinbacher refers to a death certificate from the main registry office in Berlin and mentions May 17, 1945.

literature

Erich Stockhorst: 5000 people. Who was what in the 3rd Reich . Arndt, Kiel 2000, ISBN 3-88741-116-1 (unchanged reprint of the first edition from 1967).

Web links

Albrecht Schmelt in the database of members of the Reichstag
Andrea Rudorff: Arbeit und Vernichtung reconsidered: Organization Schmelt's camps for Polish Jews from the annexed part of Upper Silesia, Sozial.Geschichte Online , 7, 2012, pp. 10–39

Individual evidence

↑ Use of "Bunker 1" according to Longerich for the first time March 20, 1942, s. Peter Longerich : Heinrich Himmler. Biography. Siedler, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-88680-859-5 , p. 582.
^ Jan Erik Schulte : The Wannsee Conference and Auschwitz. The rhetoric and practice of Jewish forced labor as a prerequisite for genocide. In: Norbert Kampe , Peter Klein (ed.): The Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942. Documents, research status, controversies. Böhlau, Cologne et al. 2013, ISBN 978-3-412-21070-0 , pp. 216–238, here p. 235.
^ Robert-Jan van Pelt , Debórah Dwork: Auschwitz. From 1270 until today. License issue. Book guild Gutenberg, Frankfurt am Main et al. 1999, ISBN 3-7632-4897-8 , p. 335.
^ Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 (= Fischer 16048). Updated edition. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-596-16048-0 .
^ Sybille Steinbacher : "Model City" Auschwitz. Germanization policy and the murder of Jews in Eastern Upper Silesia (= representations and sources on the history of Auschwitz. Vol. 2). Saur, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-598-24031-7 , p. 306 with note 270 (also: Bochum, Ruhr-Universität , dissertation, 1998). The various dates are normal at the time of the end of the war in the destroyed city of Berlin, the registry office was only able to certify when it received reliable knowledge of the death, by whomever.

personal data
SURNAME	Schmelt, Albrecht
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German politician (NSDAP), MdR, MdL
DATE OF BIRTH	August 19, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH	Wroclaw
DATE OF DEATH	May 8, 1945
Place of death	Warmbronn

[1] Use of "Bunker 1" according to Longerich for the first time March 20, 1942, s. Peter Longerich : Heinrich Himmler. Biography. Siedler, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-88680-859-5 , p. 582.

[2] Jan Erik Schulte : The Wannsee Conference and Auschwitz. The rhetoric and practice of Jewish forced labor as a prerequisite for genocide. In: Norbert Kampe , Peter Klein (ed.): The Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942. Documents, research status, controversies. Böhlau, Cologne et al. 2013, ISBN 978-3-412-21070-0 , pp. 216–238, here p. 235.

[3] Robert-Jan van Pelt , Debórah Dwork: Auschwitz. From 1270 until today. License issue. Book guild Gutenberg, Frankfurt am Main et al. 1999, ISBN 3-7632-4897-8 , p. 335.

[4] Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 (= Fischer 16048). Updated edition. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-596-16048-0 .

[5] Sybille Steinbacher : "Model City" Auschwitz. Germanization policy and the murder of Jews in Eastern Upper Silesia (= representations and sources on the history of Auschwitz. Vol. 2). Saur, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-598-24031-7 , p. 306 with note 270 (also: Bochum, Ruhr-Universität , dissertation, 1998). The various dates are normal at the time of the end of the war in the destroyed city of Berlin, the registry office was only able to certify when it received reliable knowledge of the death, by whomever.