Artur Axmann

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Artur Axmann

Artur Axmann alias Erich Siewert (* 18th February 1913 in Hagen , † 24. October 1996 in Berlin ) was a Nazi official and Reich Youth Leader of the Nazi era .

Life

1913–1931: childhood and youth

Axmann, the youngest of five siblings, moved with the family to Berlin-Wedding in 1916 , where his father worked as an insurance employee until his death in 1916. After the father's death, the mother looked after the family as a factory worker until 1932. Schooled in 1919, Axmann was transferred to a special class in 1921 because of his outstanding academic performance and in 1922 he switched to the 6th Oberrealschule, later the Mackensen School, today the Lessing Gymnasium in Berlin-Wedding, for which he had received a scholarship .

In November 1928, Axmann joined the Hitler Youth (HJ) after he became aware of the National Socialists on September 14th of that year through a speech by Joseph Goebbels . Shortly afterwards he became Hitler Youth leader in the Wedding district and an active member of the NS student union , to which he belonged until he graduated from high school in 1931.

1931–1942: Official of the Reich Youth Leadership and Hitler Youth

Axmann, far right in the picture, at a Hitler Youth rally next to Reichsfrauenführer Gertrud Scholtz-Klink, Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler, Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess and Reichsjugendführer Baldur von Schirach (1939).

Axmann studied economics , political science and law at the Berlin University . After his mother became unemployed in the summer of 1931, he dropped out of college to help support the family. In September 1931 he joined the NSDAP ( membership number 629.507), in 1932 he was appointed to the Reich leadership of the HJ and took over the organization of the company and vocational school cells.

From May 1933 Axmann was area leader and head of the social office of the Reich Youth Leadership, in November 1934 he took over the leadership of the HJ in Berlin, in July 1936 he became the head of the Reich professional competition . On January 30, 1939, Axmann received the NSDAP's golden party badge .

On May 1, 1940 he was deputy to the Reich Youth Leader Baldur von Schirach and on August 8, 1940 his successor. He promoted the military organization of the HJ and dedicated the HJ patrol service to a youth and recruiting organization for the Waffen SS .

1941–1945: military service

During the Second World War , Axmann lost his right arm as a soldier in the 23rd Infantry Division during the Russian campaign in 1941. From October 1941 he was a member of the Reichstag, constituency of East Prussia. At a "European Youth Congress" initiated by Baldur von Schirach, now Gauleiter of Vienna, from September 14 to 18, 1942 in Vienna, in which representatives of fascist youth organizations from 14 countries occupied by Nazi Germany or allied with him took part and which was called the "founding conference" a "European youth association" was announced, Axmann was appointed by acclamation as co-chair of this association.

The establishment of the 12th SS Panzer Division "Hitler Youth" , which was formed in 1943 from volunteers from the Hitler Youth, mostly 17-year-olds, was based on an idea by Axmann . Hitler welcomed Axmann's initiative and expected such divisions "to do a fantastic job because they have a wonderfully idealistic spirit". The division was later used against the Allied invasion of Normandy.

In the last weeks of the war, Axmann commanded improvised units of the Hitler Youth as part of the Volkssturm to deploy against the Soviet army on the Seelow Heights . During the final battle for Berlin , he sent children's units of the German Young People to their death in an absolutely hopeless situation from his command post in the building of the Reich Youth Leadership . The well-known last theatrical edition of the Deutsche Wochenschau (No. 755) shows Axmann with a delegation of 20 Hitler Youths in the garden of the New Reich Chancellery when Hitler awarded the Hitler Youths the Iron Cross at his last public appearance .

On April 28, 1945 Axmann was awarded the "Teutonic Order with Laurel Wreath and Swords" by Hitler. According to Hitler, the order should "honor the highest merits [...] that a German can acquire for his people." This order was awarded to only three people during their lifetime: Karl Hanke , Karl Holz and Artur Axmann.

Shortly after Hitler's suicide on April 30, 1945, Axmann left the Führerbunker with Martin Bormann and fled Berlin. According to a statement by SS officer Johann Rattenhuber , he is said to have previously taken the pistol with which Hitler shot himself.

1945–1958: Trials

Artur Axmann during an interrogation in Nuremberg, October 16, 1947

After the war, Axmann was officially declared dead, but lived in Mecklenburg under the code name Erich Siewert until he was arrested in Lübeck in December 1945 after contacting former HJ and NSDAP officials. At the Nuremberg trials , Axmann testified extensively about the deaths of the Reich Minister and Hitler's most important confidante Martin Bormann in early May 1945. However, he was not believed and Bormann was sentenced to death in absentia on October 1, 1946 . After Bormann's body was found in 1972, however, Axmann's statements were confirmed.

All of Axmann's writings were placed on the list of literature to be sorted out in the Soviet occupation zone .

Axmann was released from prison in October 1946, but arrested again and interrogated in July 1947. In April 1949, he was sentenced as the main culprit in the denazification process to over three years in a labor camp, but his pre- trial detention was counted towards this . Afterwards, according to British secret service documents, he had contacts with the so-called "Brotherhood" ( Naumann Circle ), an underground organization made up of former Nazi functionaries and officers. On August 19, 1958, a Berlin court sentenced Axmann for “inciting youth” to a fine of 35,000  DM , which he was able to raise by selling several properties in Berlin.

1950-1996

A trading company founded by Axmann had to close in 1960 due to a poor order situation. From 1971 to 1976 he planned a leisure center in Gran Canaria for a Spanish company. His villa was in Playa de Taurito . After 1976 he lived in Berlin, retired from professional life in 1985 and worked on his memoir , which was published in 1995 under the title That can't be the end .

Towards the end of his life, Axmann had his say a few times as a contemporary witness in several TV documentary programs on the subject of World War II and the “ Third Reich ”. In it he admitted, among other things, that he could not deny the accusation of having served a system "in which crimes also occurred".

Fonts

  • Olympia of work. Young workers in the Reich professional competition . Junker and Dünnhaupt Verlag, Berlin 1937.
  • The Reich professional competition . Junker & Dünnhaupt, Berlin 1938.
  • Fateful years of the Hitler Youth . Heitz and Höffkes , Essen 1992, ISBN 3-926650-67-2 .
  • That can't be the end . Verlag Siegfried Bublies , Koblenz 1995, ISBN 3-926584-33-5 (later edition under the title Hitlerjugend ).

literature

  • Ernst Klee : Artur Axmann. In: Ernst Klee: The personal dictionary for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. Updated edition. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-596-16048-0 , p. 21 f.
  • Scott Andrew Selby: The Axmann Conspiracy. The Nazi Plan for a Fourth Reich and How the US Army Defeated It. Penguin, Berkeley 2012, ISBN 0-425-25270-1 , theaxmannconspiracy.com

Web links

Commons : Artur Axmann  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Artur Axmann - only interview with the Reich Youth Leader, 1995 (part 1). Accessed November 23, 2019 (German).
  2. Hans Joachim Wefeld : “Graduation ...” In: Lessing-Gymnasium (Hrsg.): 100 years. Festschrift for the 100th anniversary of Lessing-Gymnasium . Self-published, Berlin 1982, p. 23 .
  3. ^ Klaus D. Patzwall : The Golden Party Badge and its honorary awards 1934-1944. Studies of the history of awards. Volume 4. Verlag Klaus D. Patzwall, Norderstedt 2004, ISBN 3-931533-50-6 , p. 63.
  4. Monika Mokre, Gilbert Weiss, Rainer Bauböck (Ed.): Europe's Identities: Myths, Conflicts, Constructions , p. 45
  5. ^ Toni Morant i Ariño: The founding of the "European Youth Association" and the Falange women and youth organization (Vienna, September 1942). In: Clio-online, European history portal, 2012, accessed April 23, 2020
  6. In a meeting on July 26, 1943 with Field Marshal Günther von Kluge , quoted by Peter Lieb : Conventional war or Nazi ideological war? Warfare and the fight against partisans in France 1943/44 . Oldenbourg, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-486-57992-5 , p. 114.
  7. ^ Hermann Weiß: Biographical Lexicon for the Third Reich . Ed .: Hermann Weiß. 2nd Edition. Fischer, Frankfurt a. M. 2011, ISBN 978-3-596-13086-3 , pp. 25 .
  8. polunbi.de
  9. ^ Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, second updated edition, Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 22, source: BA N 1080/272.
  10. ^ Bernhard Struck: Arthur Axmann. Tabular curriculum vitae in the LeMO ( DHM and HdG )