Aloysius Josef Elsen

Aloysius Josef Elsen (mostly called "Aloys" ) (born March 18, 1899 in Velbert ; † ibid) was a politician and mayor of the city of Cochem .

Life

Aloys Elsen was a son of the merchant Julius Albert (* 1861) and his wife Elisabeth Elsen born. Moritz. After completing his school education, he worked from 1914 to 1917 in the municipal administration at the district office in Vohwinkel . He performed his military service as a soldier from 1917 to 1919, where he was deployed at the front as a gunner in the Landwehr Field Artillery Regiment 252 from May to November 1918 during the First World War . He then worked for the mayor's offices of Neviges in Velbert from 1919 , in Benrath from 1920 , in Haan from 1921 and in Koblenz from 1921 to 1923, where he received his first position as city secretary. From 1924 to 1934 he was employed as city secretary in Bendorf , where in 1933 he took over the management of the student council and local authority in the Reich Association of German Civil Servants . Elsen was a member of the Stahlhelm from October 1, 1930 to 1932 and a member of the NSDAP (No. 672,324) from October 1, 1931 . However, as he later stated, this happened without his knowledge, since he was told by a Dr. Opladen had been registered in the party, who had taken over the contributions for him until the seizure of power and personally handed over his membership card.

According to a letter from District President Harald Turner dated March 27, 1934 and in agreement with the NSDAP regional leadership to District Administrator Carl Müller , Aloys Elsen was requested to be transferred to Cochem as the new mayor of the city. In a further letter dated April 3, 1934 to the district administrator and chairman of the district committee Carl Müller, the latter was informed that the mayor Elsen had started work on March 29, 1934. From April 15, 1934 Elsen took over the presidency of the district court of the NSDAP in Cochem.

On December 28, 1937, Elsen informed District Administrator Joachim Hohberg that he was planning a promotional tour to Copenhagen with the purpose of arranging flat-rate stays with the Danish state railways and some larger travel agencies. The reason for this was a decline in Dutch traffic in Cochem, a visit from English guests that could not be increased, with the potential for an increase in visitors from the Scandinavian countries.

Dated September 29, 1938, Elsen wrote to the regional tax office in Cologne that “The city of Cochem was bought by the widow Isaak Hein III. bought (has) a property in Cochem for the price of 36,000 RM . It has not yet been possible to overwrite it because the approval there is not yet available. The property is urgently needed to house the fire brigade and other formations of the security and emergency services. Ask for quick approval of the sale ” .

According to later records of the granddaughter Inge Kahn b. Hein (* 1927) from Cochem, her grandmother Johanna Hein (1856–1940), paralyzed on one side and bedridden after a stroke, was forced to sell the horse farm in the then Endertstrasse 557 in Cochem. With the proceeds from the sale of the property, the son Siegfried Hein, arrested in April 1938 after a house search by men of the SA, was to be ransomed from the Buchenwald concentration camp . Johanna Hein had signed the purchase contract, but at the time she had not received any money for it from the city of Cochem, instead - so said Ms. Kahn - the party (NSDAP) would have taken the money the next day and Siegfried Hein would have been after his murder returned on December 31, 1938 in an urn. The agreed purchase price - as stated in the draft contract according to this letter - was to be processed through a public bank at the time. It is no longer possible to understand where the money went afterwards. After the war, the property was returned to the two granddaughters Inge and Ruth Hein as part of the German reparation policy and then regularly sold to the city of Cochem.

On October 10, 1938, Elsen was sent an invitation to a course for ideological training measures at the NSDAP Gau School of the Office for Civil Servants in Kautenbachtal in Traben-Trarbach . His second trip abroad for advertising purposes for the city of Cochem, as he had announced in writing to District Administrator Hohberg on January 3, 1939, was to take Elsen to Sweden . He planned to have a special advertisement in Stockholm in conjunction with the Reichsbahnzentrale, referring to his visit to Denmark last year, according to which the proportion of travelers rose from 135 guests to 217.

From August 25, 1940 to May 1940, Elsen took over the role of executive district leader in Bernkastel for 2 to 3 days a week , as the previous incumbent had been called up to the army .

“Kochem, August 25, 1940.

Circulation by all officials and employees of the city administration of Kochem.

By order of the Gauleiter, I will take over the district director business of the Bernkastel district with immediate effect . I will retain my other offices. Since under these circumstances I can only be here and at the Amte Kochem Land 2 to 3 days a week, City Inspector Laux takes on full representation during my absence. I expect him and the heads of department to keep the most important matters and those of greater importance and to discuss them with me when I am present. Besides, I know that the officials and employees of the city administration are now making double efforts to keep the administration in order. In the event that Mr Laux is absent, an alderman must take over the representation.

Since I cannot overlook whether I can be here in Cochem regularly, I have refrained from setting certain days now.

The mayor of the city of Kochem. "

- Alois Elsen :

In order to be able to continue to exercise both offices, Elsen refused to follow an official appointment to Luxembourg , which brought him massive criticism from the Cochem local group leader and deputy district leader Antz. Antz called for Elsen to be dismissed from the mayor's office, but he recognized the absurdity of his demand in view of the advanced circumstances caused by World War II . In March 1945, when the United States Army, under the command of General George S. Patton, began to liberate the Moselle region, Gauleiter Gustav Simon demanded that Elsen be let down, but this did not happen.

After the war, Elsen was interned from March 15, 1945 to November 22, 1948, first in Idar-Oberstein and then in Diez , and in the meantime, following a decision by the clean-up commission in Koblenz, he was released from service without a pension. On May 14, 1946, the deputy district administrator of the district of Cochem, Gerhard Friedrich Pütz, petitioned the French military government in Cochem, requesting that the interned district administrator Joachim Hohberg and the mayor Alois Elsen soon be released.

“Cochem, May 14, 1946

... There can be no doubt that both gentlemen were National Socialists. But I am convinced that neither of them were criminals and, in a fatal error, as civil servants, who they were both before 1933, believed they were obliged to join the party and then fully supported it. In the months of my present activity I have never been able to find out that they have selfishly exploited their positions for themselves or suppressed the employees and officials subordinate to them.

... But since I am convinced that my two predecessors in office - Mr Elsen, as I, as district deputy, represented the absent district administrator for a long time - always behaved properly in character, I may express the request mentioned at the beginning of my letter , especially since Mr Elsen is reported to be seriously ill in the camp. "

- Representing: signed Dr. Pütz :

After a complaint dated November 18, 1948, Elsen was initially classified as a minor offender after a court proceedings. After it became known, however, that he had reported the Conder pastor Jakob Ziegler in a letter from 1939 in order to avert claims for money from the city of Cochem and that in the summer of 1941 he had arranged a search of Ziegler's house, and the pastor thereupon on August 8, 1941 by the GeStaPo had been arrested, the public plaintiff of the Spruchkammer I. in Koblenz withdrew his application. Instead, an application was made to classify Elsen as the main culprit, but after a purge proposal of December 22, 1948 as a criminal on September 15, 1949, it was converted into a cleansing verdict as a minor offender. The reason given was that the letter to the GeStaPo was not a denunciation, as the pastor had already come under the attention of the GeStaPo and Elsen had only once again directed his attention to him. Elsen's positive behavior at the criminal court was also recognized as mitigating the penalty.

In the summer of 1950 Elsen submitted an application to the city of Cochem for reuse, but after a city council resolution of August 1, 1950, this was rejected on the grounds that no job would be free. A use by another authority was approved, however, if the city of Cochem would not incur any personnel obligations or any costs in the event of a possible reuse.

In a letter dated September 1, 1950, the district president informed the district administrator in Cochem that the dismissal of Elsen from civil servant status after an appeal had been lodged and that it had been revoked after the ruling by the judiciary on September 15, 1949 be. Therefore nothing stands in the way of the payment of the pension to Elsen as mayor of the city of Cochem after the cleansing verdict has become final. However, this would have to be reduced in the remuneration insofar as Elsen in his previous function as City Inspector of the City Administration of Bendorf - if he had been retired in this capacity on December 31, 1946 - to be reduced.

literature

• Beate Dorfey: “ Golden pheasants ” or high officials of the districts? The district leaders in the Koblenz-Trier district. In: Yearbook for West German State History. 29, 2003, pp. 297-424.

family

Elsen had a child from his first marriage to his wife, a born Neviges, and another child from his second marriage to Helene Baedorf.

Publications

• Aloysius Josef Elsen: “A newly discovered Veit Stoss”. The Mühlenbacher Mariengruppe, a youth work of the master. In: Illustrated Newspaper. No. 4791, Leipzig, January 7, 1937. gateway-bayern.de

Web links

• Entry on Aloysius Josef Elsen in the Rhineland-Palatinate personal database

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h} Landeshauptarchiv Koblenz / inventory 465 / District Office Cochem / Personnel files 360 - Elsen, Alois, running from 1923–1952
2. ↑ Angelika Schleindl and others: Traces of the past, Jewish life in the district of Cochem-Zell. Rhein-Mosel-Verlag, Briedel 1996, ISBN 3-929745-35-6 , family pp. 190–193. (mosella-judaica.de)
3. ↑ Federal archive inventory PK / C 56 Elsen / Landeshauptarchiv Koblenz / inventory 856 No. 80172 - Elsen, Alois
4. ^ Pütz, Gerhard Friedrich in the RPPD