Alfred Meyer (Gauleiter)

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Alfred Meyer (November 1941), a person who was "rather small and delicate, rather reserved with regard to personality"
Meyer (front right) and Alfred Rosenberg (large in the center of the picture) in Kiev in June 1942.
Gauleiter Meyer first on the list of participants at the Wannsee Conference

Gustav Alfred Julius Meyer (born October 5, 1891 in Göttingen , † April 11, 1945 in Hessisch Oldendorf ) was a National Socialist functionary. He joined the NSDAP in 1928 and was Gauleiter of Gaus Westfalen-Nord from 1931 to 1945 and Reich Governor in Lippe and Schaumburg-Lippe from 1933 to 1945 . After the beginning of the war against the Soviet Union , he became State Secretary in the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories .

Life

Meyer was born into a Protestant family. His father was active as the Prussian government building officer in Göttingen at the time and, after further positions, became district building officer in Soest . After graduating from the Archigymnasium in 1911, Alfred Meyer embarked on the career of an officer, in 1912 he became a flag squire, in 1914 company and later battalion commander. During the First World War he was wounded twice and awarded the Iron Cross, 2nd and 1st class; subsequently he received the wound badge . In April 1917 he was taken prisoner by the French , from which he was not released until 1920. The Reichswehr had no use for him and released him as captain.

At the age of thirty Meyer worked as a student trainee and studied law and political science as well as economics at the universities in Lausanne , Bonn and Würzburg . In 1922 he obtained his doctorate in political science under Christian Meurer on the subject of "The Belgian People's War" (Dr. rer. Pol.). From 1923 to 1930 Meyer was a colliery official in the legal department of the Graf Bismarck colliery in Gelsenkirchen . On April 1, 1928, he joined the NSDAP and immediately became the party's local group leader in Gelsenkirchen. In 1929/30 he was promoted to head of the Emscher-Lippe district. In November 1929 he was elected to the Gelsenkirchen City Council as the only NSDAP member.

In September 1930 he moved to the Reichstag for the constituency of North Westphalia. His seat in the Reichstag, resigned on December 31, 1932, was continued on January 1, 1933 by Heinrich August Knickmann . Later in 1933 Meyer returned to the now National Socialist Reichstag and remained a member until 1945.

After the NSDAP Gau Westphalia had been divided, Meyer became NSDAP Gauleiter for Westphalia North in Münster in 1931 , from May 16, 1933 Reich Governor of Lippe and Schaumburg-Lippe and in 1936 leader of the Lippe state government . In 1932 and 1933 he was a member of the Prussian state parliament . In 1938 Meyer was appointed Upper President of the Province of Westphalia and promoted to SA Upper Group Leader.

In 1941 Alfred Meyer was appointed "permanent representative" of Alfred Rosenberg in his capacity as head of the " Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories " created by secret decree in July 1941 and thus reached the high point of his career. In this function, which he owed to his many years of probation as a "follower" Rosenberg, Meyer headed the three main departments of the Ministry of Politics, Administration and Economics from summer 1941 to November 1942. He was thus directly involved in the exploitation and looting of the occupied Soviet territories and in the oppression, deportation and murder of their residents, especially the Jewish population , in a responsible position.

Meyer was invited to the Wannsee Conference because the Holocaust had already begun in the administrative area of ​​his ministry through the task forces of the security police and the SD . At the conference, Meyer called for “certain preparatory work” to be carried out on the spot, but without worrying the population. In a letter dated July 16, 1942, he proposed that the same measures be taken against " mixed Jewish people " in the Soviet Union as against Jews. Meyer saw the advantage of his proposal in the precautionary effect of the measure to stabilize German rule:

"However, this does not justify fears that these half-breeds, as a result of their related blood impact, will give rise to particular dangers against German rule in the east."

Since Meyer sent his proposals to the party chancellery, the Reich Ministry of the Interior, the four-year plan authority, the Foreign Office, the Race and Settlement Main Office of the SS and the chief of the security police and the SD, according to his biographer, the historian Heinz-Jürgen Priamus, " can also be attributed to the authority-oriented, bureaucratic, hasty 'efforts' of Meyer that the definition of the Jew was taken extremely broadly in the extermination in the East. "

In November 1942 Meyer also took over the role of " Reich Defense Commissioner " as Gauleiter for Westphalia-North , which at that time was assigned to all Gauleiter in order to end disputes over competence.

On April 11th, 1945 Meyer committed suicide at the foot of Hohenstein in which belonging to Hessisch Oldendorf district Zersen in Süntel suicide .

Honors

Meyer was in 1936 by the city Bückeburg the honorary citizenship bestowed. At the beginning of January 2016, the city council of Bückeburg posthumously revoked his honorary citizenship. Although the honorary citizenship expires with death, the mayor of Bückeburg justified this step with the words: "We do not want this name to remain in the city's books."

literature

  • Heinz-Jürgen Priamus: Meyer. Between loyalty to the emperor and Nazi criminals: Biographical contours of a German citizen. Klartext Verlag , Essen 2011, ISBN 978-3-8375-0592-4 .
  • Frank Werner (Ed.): Schaumburg National Socialists, perpetrators, accomplices, profiteers. 2nd edition, Bielefeld 2010, ISBN 978-3-89534-877-8 .
  • Ernst Kienast (Ed.): Handbook for the Prussian Landtag. Edition for the 5th electoral term, Berlin 1933, p. 364.

Web links

Commons : Alfred Meyer  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Heinz-Jürgen Priamus: Gauleiter of the NSDAP in the Ruhr area. Dr. Alfred Meyer (1891-1945). In: Hagen Historical Center.
  2. ^ A b c Alfred Meyer - Officials of the National Socialist Reich Ministries . In: Officials of National Socialist Reich Ministries . January 30, 2018 ( ns-reichsministerien.de [accessed March 29, 2018]).
  3. ^ A b c Andreas Zellhuber: "Our administration is heading for a catastrophe ..." The Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories and the German occupation in the Soviet Union 1941–1945. Vögel, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-89650-213-1 , p. 73.
  4. ^ Frank Werner (ed.): Schaumburg National Socialists, perpetrators, accomplices, profiteers. 2nd edition, Bielefeld 2010, p. 34.
  5. ↑ Reichstag protocols 1932.3. Changes in the alphabetical list of the members of the Reichstag occurred during the 7th electoral term in 1932.
  6. ^ Heinz-Jürgen Priamus: Meyer. Between loyalty to the emperor and Nazi perpetration. Biographical contours of a German citizen. Klartext Verlag, Essen 2011, p. 377.
  7. ^ Heinz-Jürgen Priamus: Meyer. Between loyalty to the emperor and Nazi perpetration. Biographical contours of a German citizen. Klartext Verlag, Essen 2011, p. 387.
  8. ↑ Heinz-Jürgen Priamus: Dr. Alfred Meyer (1891-1945) . Biographical article in the series: Gauleiter of the NSDAP in the Ruhr area , online publication by the Historisches Centrum Hagen on June 17, 2006 (accessed on June 17, 2016); see. ders .: Meyer. Between loyalty to the emperor and Nazi perpetration. Biographical contours of a German citizen. Klartext Verlag, Essen 2011, p. 388.
personal data
SURNAME Meyer, Alfred
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Meyer, Gustav Alfred Julius
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (NSDAP), MdR, MdL and State Secretary
DATE OF BIRTH October 5, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Goettingen
DATE OF DEATH April 11, 1945
Place of death Hessian Oldendorf