Alfred Leitgen
Alfred Leitgen (born September 1, 1902 in Rixdorf near Berlin , † 1977 or 1988) was a German political functionary ( NSDAP ).
Life and activity
Earlier career
Leitgen was the son of a police officer. He attended the Kaiser-Friedrich-Gymnasium in Neukölln up to the upper prima, without acquiring the Abitur. In 1920 he began as a volunteer at the liberal-conservative newspaper Die Post , the sister paper of the German daily newspaper in Berlin.
After the aforementioned newspaper was received in 1921, Leitgen became the commercial editor of the night edition belonging to Scherl-Verlag . In the early 1930s he reached the rank of deputy chief of the service. Politically, he belonged to the German National Youth Association in the 1920s.
As a journalist, Leitgen got to know a number of prominent Nazi politicians such as Joseph Goebbels , Ernst Lippert and Walter Funk in the early 1930s . At the same time, developments in his own professional field, journalism, caused him to adopt an anti-communist and anti-Semitic stance, while the conditions of the global economic crisis led him to an anti-bourgeois attitude in questions of economic and social policy, so that the social features of NS Program and Nazi propaganda had a strong pull on him. After he said he had already sympathized with the NSDAP before 1930, he applied for membership in 1933.
Activity in the "Staff of the Deputy Leader" (1933–1941)
Through the mediation of Walter Funk, at that time Reich Press Chief and State Secretary in the Propaganda Ministry, Leitgen was allowed to conduct an interview with Rudolf Hess in autumn 1933 for a series of portraits of leading men of the NSDAP and the government that appeared in the night edition . This encounter was decisive for Leitgen's further life: Martin Bormann , the Hess staff leader, contacted him shortly afterwards and pointed out that Hess would like to win him over as a press officer. Following a second conversation with Hess, Leitgen then transferred to Hess' newly created office. He then acted from autumn 1933 to May 12, 1941 as Hess's press officer. In addition to Bormann and Gustav Adolf von Wulffen, Leitgen was one of the first three employees of von Hess, to whom Adolf Hitler had entrusted the central control and supervision of the party apparatus of the NSDAP after the Nazis came to power, in its new office, which was to include several hundred employees which was later called the NSDAP Party Chancellery .
In the years that followed, Leitgen's main task was to give Hess a daily overview of the German and international press (especially the Anglo-Saxon press) and the incoming mail, which he summarized in short presentations. Particular interest was given to the echo that National Socialist policy found abroad.
From this cooperation, a close relationship of trust developed between Hess and Leitgen, which resulted in Leitgen soon being appointed Hess's personal adjutant. As an adjutant, Leitgen was Hess' constant companion and a witness to numerous politically significant events of these years. Most recently, Leitgen held the rank of Reichsamtsleiter within the leadership corps of the NSDAP.
As a press representative for Hess, Leitgen was sent on trips all over Europe in the 1930s in order to influence the local population in the interests of the Nazi regime through public lectures in important cities such as London, Oslo, Stockholm or Helsinki.
After Hess was flown to Great Britain in a loner operation in May 1941 during the Second World War in an attempt to broker peace between the United Kingdom and the German Reich and was captured there, Leitgen, together with Hess' other adjutant, brought Karl Heinz Pintsch Hitler, who had not been informed of this plan by his deputy, the news about Hess's flight and the intentions he was pursuing with it. Hitler, who (at least officially) assessed Hess 'action as a foolishness, had Leitgen and Pintsch - who were probably the only people who had known about Hess' plan in advance - arrested and sent to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp . A letter to Heinrich Himmler , in which Hess had asked not to punish his employees for his actions, was ignored. In addition, Leitgen was expelled from the NSDAP by Bormann with effect from May 12, 1941.
Leitgen, who suffered heart damage in the concentration camp, was finally released in 1944 and forced to take part in the war with a probation battalion of the Waffen SS .
After the Second World War, Leitgen was interned in custody until 1948. He took part in the Nuremberg trials as a witness. In the 1950s Leitgen lived in Percha on Lake Starnberg and worked for the Münchner Merkur .
Fonts
- Rudolf Hess. Conversation with the "Deputy of the Fuehrer ," in: Adolf Hitler and his loyal people at work Berlin undated (brochure)
literature
- Ulrich Schlie : Albert Speer: the Kransberg Protocols 1945; his first statements and records , 2003, p. 462.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Uwe Werner: Anthroposophists in the time of National Socialism: (1933–1945) , 1999, p. 114 gives the year of death 1977; John Costello: Ten Days to Destiny: The Secret Story of the Hess Peace Initiative and British Efforts to Strike a Deal with Hitler , 1991, p. 422, mentions 1988 as the year of death.
- ↑ Helmut Heiber (editor): files of the party chancellery of the NSDAP. Reconstruction of a lost stock. Regesten , 1983, p. 926 (event 27234).
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Leitgen, Alfred |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German political functionary (NSDAP) |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 1, 1902 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Rixdorf near Berlin |
| DATE OF DEATH | 1977 or 1988 |