Alfred Streim

Alfred Streim (born January 1, 1932 in Neu-Isenburg ; † August 17, 1996 in Heilbronn ) was a German public prosecutor . From 1963 he worked as an investigator, from 1984 as head of the central office of the state justice administrations for the investigation of National Socialist crimes in Ludwigsburg .

Life

After studying law and political science from 1952 to 1956 at the University of Hamburg and passing the 2nd state examination, Streim worked as a court assessor and public prosecutor at the Hamburg public prosecutor's office, before he was seconded to the central office of the state justice administration in Ludwigsburg in 1963 to investigate national socialist crimes . In 1966 he became head of department there, in 1975 as senior public prosecutor deputy head and in 1984 as Adalbert Rückerl's successor head of the central office. During his three decades in Ludwigsburg, Streim carried out several thousand preliminary investigations into alleged perpetrators during the National Socialist era . The results of his investigation contributed in particular to the exposure of SS perpetrators at the Majdanek extermination camp in Poland , for which he received a high Polish award.

On the question of the prosecution of Wehrmacht crimes , Streim positioned himself as a critic in 1995 and criticized the fact that, despite "over 1000 preliminary investigations against a large number of members of the former Wehrmacht , especially the army , which were initiated by the law enforcement authorities at the initiative of the Central Office," in no case was there a charge ”. The reasons for the termination of the proceedings were "only partially understandable". The criminal prosecution of crimes by members of the armed forces was "not carried out, especially for political reasons". During his entire activity as a public prosecutor specializing in Nazi crimes, Streim opposed an amnesty for perpetrators or tendencies not to start investigations because of the presumed limitation of crimes.

His research on the treatment of Soviet prisoners of war in custody of the Wehrmacht and on the question of whether there was an explicit order from Adolf Hitler to exterminate the Jews during the German attack on the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 are historically significant . While Christian Streit assumes 3.3 million Soviet Red Army soldiers perished in German captivity in his dissertation based on Wehrmacht files, Streim estimates the number of Soviet prisoners of war perished at "at least 2,530,000" with additional litigation files from the post-war period. On the question of the murder of Jews in the German-Soviet War , Streim took the position against Helmut Krausnick that there had been no murder order from Hitler before June 22, 1941 and that the perpetrators were not to be regarded simply as recipients of orders. According to the historian Annette Weinke , the "Krausnick-Streim controversy" had a positive effect on the development towards a "knowledge transfer between justice and history" and contributed to developing "a significantly greater awareness of the historiographical value of the investigation documents".

In the 1990s, after the foreseeable end of the public prosecutor's investigation, Streim endeavored to bring the more than 100,000 investigation files into a Ludwigsburg institute he was seeking to research violent Nazi crimes instead of transferring them to the Koblenz Federal Archives. Streim wanted to make the research documents available to the public as part of a “documentation and meeting center”. Alfred Streim died in 1996 after a stroke. Five years after his death, the Ludwigsburg Research Center was founded in 2001 .

Publications

The treatment of Soviet prisoners of war in the "Barbarossa case". A documentation taking into account the documents of German law enforcement authorities and the materials of the Central Office of the State Judicial Administrations for the investigation of Nazi crimes . CF Müller Juristischer Verlag, Heidelberg u. Karlsruhe 1981, ISBN 3-8114-2281-2 .
Soviet prisoners in Hitler's war of extermination. Reports and documents 1941–1945 . CF Müller Juristischer Verlag, Heidelberg u. Karlsruhe 1981, ISBN 3-8114-2482-3 .
On the opening of the general order to exterminate the Jews against the Einsatzgruppen , in: Eberhard Jäckel u. Jürgen Rohwer (Hrsg.): The murder of the Jews in the Second World War. Decision making and realization . Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt / Main 1987, ISBN 3-596-24380-7 , pp. 107-119.
Clean Wehrmacht? The prosecution of war and Nazi crimes in the Federal Republic and the GDR , in: Hannes Heer u. Klaus Naumann (ed.): War of extermination. Crimes of the Wehrmacht from 1941 to 1944 . Hamburger Edition , Hamburg 1995, ISBN 3-930908-04-2 , pp. 569-597.

literature

Annette Weinke: A society determines against itself. The history of the central office Ludwigsburg 1958-2008 ( Forschungsstelle Ludwigsburg ; 13), Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2008, ISBN 978-3-534-21950-6 .

Web links

Literature by and about Alfred Streim in the catalog of the German National Library
Heidrun Holzbach-Linsenmaier: Make forgetting more difficult. The Nazi investigation center is to become a historical institute , in: Die Zeit from December 6, 1996 (portrait of Streim's person and work).
Heiner Emde: No winning justice in Nuremberg . Ludwigsburg NS investigator Alfred Streim on the motives of the Allied prosecutors in 1945 and the International Court of Justice in 1995 , in: Focus , November 13, 1995 (interview)
Alfred Streim , in: Der Spiegel No. 7, February 13, 1995
Died. Alfred Streim , in: Der Spiegel No. 35, August 18, 1996
Alfred Streim, Nazi-Hunting Prosecutor, 64 , in: New York Times , August 21, 1996

Individual evidence

^ Alfred Streim: Clean Wehrmacht? The prosecution of war and Nazi crimes in the Federal Republic and the GDR , in: Hannes Heer u. Klaus Naumann (ed.): War of extermination. Crimes of the Wehrmacht from 1941 to 1944 . Hamburger Edition, Hamburg 1995, p. 578; see also Wolfram Wette: Die Wehrmacht. Enemy images, war of extermination, legends. Frankfurt 2005, p. 239 f.
^ Alfred Streim: Clean Wehrmacht? The prosecution of war and Nazi crimes in the Federal Republic and the GDR , p. 581.
^ Alfred Streim: Clean Wehrmacht? The prosecution of war and Nazi crimes in the Federal Republic and the GDR , p. 593.
^ Christian Streit: No comrades. The Wehrmacht and the Soviet prisoners of war 1941–1945. Publishing house JHW Dietz. Nachf., Bonn 1997 (first Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, Stuttgart 1978), p. 10 u. P. 244.
^ Alfred Streim: The treatment of Soviet prisoners of war in the "Barbarossa case". A documentation taking into account the documents of German law enforcement authorities and the materials of the Central Office of the State Judicial Administrations for the investigation of Nazi crimes . CF Müller Juristischer Verlag, Heidelberg u. Karlsruhe 1981, p. 244 ff. (Emphasis on "at least" p. 246)
^ Alfred Streim: On the opening of the general Jewish extermination order to the Einsatzgruppen , in: Eberhard Jäckel u. Jürgen Rohwer (Hrsg.): The murder of the Jews in the Second World War . Fischer Taschenbuch, Munich 1987, pp. 107–119.
^ Annette Weinke: A society determines against itself. The history of the central office in Ludwigsburg 1958-2008 (Forschungsstelle Ludwigsburg; 13). Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2008, pp. 149–154, quotation p. 154.
↑ Heidrun Holzbach-Linsenmaier: Making forgetting more difficult. The Nazi investigation center is to become a historical institute , in: Die Zeit from December 6, 1996.

personal data
SURNAME	Streim, Alfred
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German public prosecutor
DATE OF BIRTH	January 1, 1932
PLACE OF BIRTH	Neu-Isenburg
DATE OF DEATH	17th August 1996
Place of death	Heilbronn

[1] Alfred Streim: Clean Wehrmacht? The prosecution of war and Nazi crimes in the Federal Republic and the GDR , in: Hannes Heer u. Klaus Naumann (ed.): War of extermination. Crimes of the Wehrmacht from 1941 to 1944 . Hamburger Edition, Hamburg 1995, p. 578; see also Wolfram Wette: Die Wehrmacht. Enemy images, war of extermination, legends. Frankfurt 2005, p. 239 f.

[2] Alfred Streim: Clean Wehrmacht? The prosecution of war and Nazi crimes in the Federal Republic and the GDR , p. 581.

[3] Alfred Streim: Clean Wehrmacht? The prosecution of war and Nazi crimes in the Federal Republic and the GDR , p. 593.

[4] Christian Streit: No comrades. The Wehrmacht and the Soviet prisoners of war 1941–1945. Publishing house JHW Dietz. Nachf., Bonn 1997 (first Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, Stuttgart 1978), p. 10 u. P. 244.

[5] Alfred Streim: The treatment of Soviet prisoners of war in the "Barbarossa case". A documentation taking into account the documents of German law enforcement authorities and the materials of the Central Office of the State Judicial Administrations for the investigation of Nazi crimes . CF Müller Juristischer Verlag, Heidelberg u. Karlsruhe 1981, p. 244 ff. (Emphasis on "at least" p. 246)

[6] Alfred Streim: On the opening of the general Jewish extermination order to the Einsatzgruppen , in: Eberhard Jäckel u. Jürgen Rohwer (Hrsg.): The murder of the Jews in the Second World War . Fischer Taschenbuch, Munich 1987, pp. 107–119.

[7] Annette Weinke: A society determines against itself. The history of the central office in Ludwigsburg 1958-2008 (Forschungsstelle Ludwigsburg; 13). Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2008, pp. 149–154, quotation p. 154.

[8] Heidrun Holzbach-Linsenmaier: Making forgetting more difficult. The Nazi investigation center is to become a historical institute , in: Die Zeit from December 6, 1996.