Anton von Hohberg and Buchwald

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Anton Adolph Erdmann Wilhelm Heinrich Freiherr von Hohberg and Buchenwald (* 21st September 1885 in Wismar , † well 2. July 1934 in Dulzen at Eylau ) was a German army and SS - officer .

Live and act

Youth and First World War

Anton Freiherr von Hohberg and Buchwald was the third of four sons of the East Prussian landowner Hans Erdmann Heinrich Bruno Gottlob Christoph von Hohberg and Buchwald (* March 8, 1849 in Striegendorf ; † June 10, 1901 in Görlitz ) and Anna von Lowtzow (* 1 May 1857 in Rensow ; † April 2, 1940 in Pilzen ). After attending school, he first embarked on a career as a cavalry officer in the Prussian army , in which he was promoted to Rittmeister .

On June 24, 1909, Hohberg married Gertrud Gerda von Rheinbaben (* December 28, 1888 in Berlin, † April 23, 1949 in Hirschhorn am Neckar), a daughter of the former Prussian Interior and Finance Minister Georg von Rheinbaben . His brother-in-law from this marriage was the writer and activist Rochus von Rheinbaben . Because of his wife's relationship with Horst von Blumenthal, Hohberg dueled with him. The marriage was subsequently divorced in 1912, and Gertrud married Blumenthal. Hohberg then married Lonny von Bernuth (born February 12, 1892 in Berlin) on June 26, 1913 . This marriage was divorced on July 7, 1923 in Bartenstein. On May 22, 1925, Hohberg married Carola Freiin von Schimmelmann (born November 14, 1881 in Wesel; † May 4, 1961 in Malente-Gremsmühlen, Ostholstein). This marriage ended in divorce in 1929.

From Hohberg's first marriage came the daughter Antoinette-Irene (born August 28, 1911 in Potsdam), from the second marriage the sons Hans-Sigismund Anton Erdmann Traugott Wilhelm (born September 12, 1914 in Königsberg) and Roland Hans Erdmann Otto Lothar Heinrich ( * December 1, 1916 in Babelsberg) and the daughter Mariota (* November 24, 1921 in Potsdam).

After participating in the First World War , Hohberg retired as a farmer on his family's estate in East Prussia.

Weimar Republic and the time of National Socialism

In the early 1930s, Hohberg was one of the beneficiaries of the so-called Osthilfe , a controversial state program to rehabilitate agriculture in the East Elbe. According to a publication published in the GDR in 1978, he is said to have been granted a loan of almost 450,000 RM, although the value of his property was actually only 250,000 RM and it was already encumbered with a mortgage of 150,000 RM . In a dissertation published in the GDR in 1959, Bruno Buchta puts the losses incurred by the state through the rescheduling of Hohberg's manor at 384,000 RM.

In the early 1930s, Hohberg joined the NSDAP and the SS at the request of Werner Lorenz . There he was part of the staff of the SS leader of East Prussia Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski , with whom he eventually fell out due to personal rivalries.

On May 14, 1934, Hohberg was dismissed as SS-Oberabschnittsreiterführer and a few weeks later on July 1 or (more likely) July 2, 1934 in the course of the Röhm murders in the smoking salon of his manor in Dulzen near Preussisch-Eylau on the instructions of the Bach-Zelewskis shot by SS-Obersturmführer Carl Deinhard and Bach-Zelewskis chauffeur, SS-Scharführer Zummach. From the list of those killed in this wave of murders, Hohberg stands out as an SS member in the true sense of the word (in contrast to the SA leaders who were killed, some of whom only nominally had SS titles). Although, as Paul Ronge emphasizes, the killing of Hohberg "in all of East Prussia" provoked outrage, the act initially went unpunished.

In 1958/59, to the astonishment of the interrogator, Bach-Zelewski did not appeal to an order emergency (which could hardly have been refuted). He was sentenced on January 16, 1961 by the Nuremberg jury court for manslaughter in the Hoberg case to a prison term of 4 years and 6 months and in 1962 to life imprisonment for the shooting of 5 communists at the time of the seizure of power . Bach-Zelewski was given exemption from prison at the beginning of March 1972, seriously ill, and died a few days later. In Poland it was criticized that Bach-Zelewski was only prosecuted by the Federal Republican judiciary for the murder of another SS man and not for crimes against "many thousands" Poles and Russians in which he was involved.

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Date of birth and death, as well as place of birth and death, according to Matthias Schmettow: Gedenkbuch des Deutschen Adels , 1967, p. 144. Alfred Gerigk : Deutschland und das Weltgeschehen , 1961, p. 285, confirms July 2nd as the "shooting day"
  2. ↑ Reinhold Zilch:  Rheinbaben, Georg Kreuzwendedich Freiherr von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 21, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-428-11202-4 , p. 487 f. ( Digitized version ).
  3. ^ Politics and Agriculture in East Prussia 1919–1930. 1969, p. 298.
  4. ↑ Volker Kelmm, Hans Scholz: From the bourgeois agrarian reforms to socialist agriculture in the GDR. 1978, p. 110.
  5. ↑ Bruno Buchta: The Junkers and the Weimar Republic. Character and significance of the Osthilfe. 1959, p. 54.
  6. ↑ Bernt Engelmann: Einig gegen Rechts und Freiheit , 1975, p. 328 speaks of the "study", Heinz Höhne: The order under the skull. The story of the SS , 1967, p. 115, however, from the "Herrenzimmer".
  7. ↑ Paul Ronge: In the name of justice. Criminal attorney's memories. 1963, p. 195.
  8. ↑ DIE ZEIT of February 17, 19961
  9. ^ Wojskowy Instytut Historyczny: Historia Militaris Polonica. 1974, p. 273.
personal data
SURNAME Hohberg and Buchwald, Anton von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hohberg and Buchwald, Anton Freiherr von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German army and SS officer
DATE OF BIRTH September 21, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Wismar
DATE OF DEATH around July 2, 1934
Place of death Dulzen near Prussian Eylau