Alfred Schweder

Alfred Schweder (born June 28, 1911 in Parchim ; † January 14, 1992 in Bremen ) was a German lawyer , civil servant and SS leader and journalist.

biography

Schweder was the son of a sergeant and Parchim city watchman who had died in the First World War . After attending the Friedrich-Franz-Gymnasium (Parchim) he studied law and political science at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg , the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and the Universität Rostock from 1930 . He received his PhD in 1937 in Rostock to Dr. iur. and became a trainee lawyer in 1938 , a government councilor in 1941 and a senior government councilor in 1944 .

In 1930 he joined the NSDAP ( membership number 224,806) and the SS (membership number 2,485). By Reinhard Heydrich , he was in 1931 for the security service recruits of the SS (SD). In 1937 Schweder presented his dissertation , in which he deals with the change in the police system and the concept of the police from the Metternich period to the Nazi state. In general, Schweder sees the central function of the police in the protection of community values , which practically means the "elimination of all elements of separation among the people ". In comparison to the “progress” that the institution has made in the almost 100 years between the Metternich Police and the Secret State Police , Schweder highlights the “positive” (ie acting on its own) quality of the Gestapo compared to that of inefficient and the functioning of the political police in the 19th century, which was perceived as repressive and was content to function “negatively” (i.e. to react to attacks on the state that were already in progress). Referring specifically to the task and character of the Secret State Police under National Socialism, he explained:

“The political police of the National Socialist state is the central state combat instrument developed by the SS, which guarantees the protection of the people, party and state and their political and ideological development by breaking the resistance of forces dangerous to the state in the political and ideological field oppose each other in their development. "

To explain the broader protective tasks of the Nazi police, he explains:

“This is how the political police [also] proceed against malicious complainers who, without wanting to help themselves, only hinder the work of those who create in the name of the people as a whole. It takes hold of the ' hoarder ' who, by worrying only for himself, endangers the front of the other national comrades and overcomes the common difficulties. It attacks the price driver who enriches itself at the expense of the community. She fights against feelings of class arrogance or class hatred. It prevents or punishes disruptions in the major popular actions [...] through selfishness, which threatens the common work of the people or even just affects the willingness of the other people to cooperate. It intervenes when operators neglect their duty to their followers and thereby disturb the peace among the people, and vice versa, when unjustified measures on the part of myopic members of the followers occur. [...] So it intervenes against everything that is 'dangerous to the state', not just against the conscious 'public enemy' in the narrower sense. "

Schweder, who is described as an "uncompromising man with a firm will [...] [and] pronounced political sensitivity paired with a high level of intelligence", became deputy head of the Political Catholicism department in the Secret State Police Office in 1939 .

In 1941, as a government assessor, Schweder took over the management of Section II A 1 ( Organization of the Security Police and SD ) in Office Group II ( Organization, Administration and Law ) of the Reich Security Main Office and then as Government Councilor at Office IV (Gestapo), Head of Section B2 ( Church issues ). In August 1942 he was assigned as head of administration to the commander of the Security Police and the SD in Krakow . From 1943 to 1944 he was the representative of the commander of the Security Police of Lorraine in Metz and from February 1945 head of the state police in Bremen. In 1944 he became a senior government councilor and SS-Obersturmbannführer.

After the war ended, Schweder was in British and American captivity from 1945 to 1948. He then lived in Brundorf and Bremen - Huchting. From 1948 to 1953 he was a journalist for the Osterholzer Kreisblatt and from 1953 to 1974 he was an editor and later head of the archive at the Bremer Weser-Kurier .

Before and after the Second World War he worked in Parchim and in Bremen as a hobby archaeologist , mainly in the area of ​​the Stone Age.

He was married and had six children.

Promotions to the SS

• Untersturmführer: November 9, 1933
• Obersturmführer: November 9, 1935
• Hauptsturmführer: November 9, 1936
• Sturmbannführer: May 1, 1941
• Obersturmbannführer: June 21, 1944

Fonts

• Political Police. Nature and concept of the political police in the Metternich system, in the Weimar Republic and in the National Socialist state , (dissertation). Heymann , Berlin 1937. After the end of the Second World War, placed on the list of literature to be segregated in the Soviet occupation zone .

literature

• Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich . Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007. ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 . (Updated 2nd edition)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Registration of Alfred Schweder in the Rostock matriculation portal
2. ↑ Ronald M. Smelser : The Sudeten Problem and the Third Reich, 1933-1938 , 1980, p. 156.
3. ^ Alfred Schweder: Political Police . P. 187
4. ^ Alfred Schweder: Political Police . Pp. 171/172.
5. ↑ Martina Neumann: Theodor Tantzen , 1998, p. 360.
6. ^ ^{A b} Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 574.
7. ^ Herbert Schwarzwälder : History of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen Vol. IV . Edition Temmen , Bremen 1995, ISBN 3-86108-283-7
8. ↑ http://www.polunbi.de/bibliothek/1946-nslit-s.html