Bernhard Frank (SS member)

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Bernhard Frank (born July 15, 1913 in Frankfurt am Main ; † 2011 ) was a German folklorist , SS-Obersturmbannführer and the last commandant of Adolf Hitler's seat of government in Obersalzberg .

Life

Coming from a Frankfurt merchant family, Frank graduated from the Helmholtz secondary school in his hometown in 1932 . He then began studying German and philosophy at Frankfurt University , but switched to economics after one semester .

After the transfer of power to the National Socialists, Frank joined the SS -Studentensturmbann (membership no. 105.013) on May 30, 1933 . He was also a member of the NSDAP ( membership number 4,442,198). On the occasion of an inspection of the 2nd Frankfurt SS standard in June 1934, Himmler chose Frank as a participant in an SS leader candidate course. From October onwards , Frank was stationed with the SS disposal force in Ellwangen , and in the spring of 1935 he switched to the SS Junker School in Braunschweig. Allegedly because of a security offense, he was transferred to the SS troops in the Dachau concentration camp in the autumn of that year .

From December 1935, Frank worked as a so-called research assistant for folklore at the "SS-Schule Haus Wewelsburg" . In this function he built up the "local history office" of the SS school. From autumn 1936 he was enrolled at the University of Münster in the subjects of German and Folklore. In November 1938 he passed the oral doctoral examination in Münster . The subject of the dissertation was the Wewelsburg field names . At the beginning of 1939 Frank worked for several months as assistant to the Munich Indo-Germanist and scientific director of the Research Association for German Ahnenerbe , Walther Wüst . The stay in Munich was intended to serve both the reorganization of the Wewelsburg SS school under the umbrella of the SS research organization “Ahnenerbe” and the selection of new scientists for the Wewelsburg. In addition, Frank worked on his incomplete habilitation on the subject of “The forest in the religious experience and customs of Germanic people”.

Shortly before the start of the Second World War , Frank wrote to the director of the Wewelsburg, Siegfried Taubert , asking that he be deployed in SS units in the event of war. In September 1939 Frank was commanded as platoon leader to the SS-Totenkopfstandarten ; from December 1939 he was adjutant of the III. SS Totenkopf Infantry Spare Battalion in Breslau . From December 1940, Frank stayed again for several months in the Wewelsburg and dealt with the development of the scientific work of the SS school.

In April 1941 Frank was transferred as an orderly officer to the later command staff of the Reichsführer SS . In this function he kept the command staff's diary from August. After the German attack on the USSR , in July 1941 he confirmed the correct transmission of an order from Himmler, which gave SS cavalry units "practically a free hand for mass shootings in the villages in their area of ​​operation". From November 1941 Frank was a company commander in the SS Volunteer Legion Netherlands , which was used, among other things, in the Battle of the Volkhov in the north of the Soviet Union. In September 1942 he returned as a staff officer to the command staff of the Reichsführer SS and headed Department IIa (Adjutantur) there.

In 1943 Frank initially led an SS flaka division in East Prussia; in the summer of that year he switched to the SS flaka division on Obersalzberg . Frank, who last held the rank of SS Obersturmbannführer, was in command of all SS units in the Berchtesgaden area . At the end of the war he is said to have arrested Hitler's Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring for high treason .

At the beginning of May 1945, Frank was captured by American troops near the Chiemsee and interned according to the automatic arrest . After his release in early 1948 he worked as a businessman. From the 1980s he published biographical-historical books and volumes of poetry. An autobiography was published in 2006 by the far-right Arndt-Verlag . In December 2010, the accusation that Frank was responsible for Nazi violent crimes was discussed in the media.

According to the political scientist Markus Moors, it was not possible to prove that Frank was directly involved in the crimes of the troop units of the Reichsführer SS command staff until 2011, although by mid-November 1941 he was "at least informed about all the murders of his units". Moors describes the "constant willingness to change roles between ideological SS research and political SS soldiery" as characteristic of Frank's life during the National Socialist era . From his function on the Obersalzberg Frank had "an unshakable awareness of his own historical significance"; At the same time, he was "untouched by any insight into the criminal character of the SS into old age," said Moors.

Fonts

  • The field names of the Wewelsburg district. Aschendorff, Münster i. Westf. 1943 (Writings of the Folklore Commission in the Provincial Institute for Westphalian Regional Studies and Folklore, Volume 6) (Dissertation at the University of Münster, 1941.)
  • The Obersalzberg at the center of world events. Eva Braun, Adolf Hitler and the burning Berlin. Plenk, Berchtesgaden 1991 (2nd revised edition ibid, 1995). ISBN 3-922590-65-9 .
  • As Hitler's commander. From the Wewelsburg to the Berghof. Arndt-Verlag, Kiel 2006. ISBN 3-887410-87-4 . (Autobiography)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ For Frank's biography see: Wulff E. Brebeck (Hrsg.): Endzeitkampf. Ideology and Terror of the SS. (= Series of publications of the District Museum Wewelsburg. Volume 8) Accompanying volume to the permanent exhibition “Ideology and Terror of the SS” in the “Wewelsburg Memorial and Memorial 1933–1945” of the District Museum Wewelsburg, Deutscher Kunstverlag, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-422-02327-7 , pp. 74-76.
  2. ↑ Bernhard Frank on www.dws-xip.pl
  3. ↑ Brebeck, Endzeitkampf , p. 74
  4. ↑ a b Brebeck, Endzeitkäufer , p. 75.
  5. ↑ a b c Brebeck, end-time fighters , p. 76.
  6. ↑ Ulrich Chaussy , Christoph Püschner: Neighbor Hitler: Führer Cult and Destruction of Home on Obersalzberg. 6th expanded edition . Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-86153-462-4 , p. 241
  7. ↑ Mainly Nazi! , bildblog.de, February 23, 2011.
personal data
SURNAME Frank, Bernhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German folklorist and SS leader
DATE OF BIRTH July 15, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Frankfurt am Main
DATE OF DEATH 2011