Carl-Theodor Schütz

Carl-Theodor Schütz (born April 11, 1907 in Mayen ; † March 26, 1985 in Cologne ), also: Karl-Theodor Schütz, Carl Theodor Schütz and Carl Schütz, was a German lawyer, criminal adviser, head of division at the Trier state police station (Stapo ), Head of Department at the Security Police (SiPo) and the SD in Rome , Head of the Sub-Representation (UV) Rhine-Ruhr at the Organization Gehlen (OG) and Department Head in the Federal Intelligence Service (BND).

School, studies, NSDAP, SA and SS

As the son of a mine owner , he attended elementary school from 1913 and then upper secondary school in Mayen. In 1923 he was at the grammar school in Koblenz , then until 1926 in Oberkassel. This was followed by studying law and political science at the universities of Bonn, Cologne, Marburg and Munich.

In the Weimar Republic he oriented himself nationally and from 1923 to 1924 a member of the Free Corps Rhine-Ruhr . He was a member of the Stahlhelm as the Association of Frontline Soldiers from 1928 to 1930. In 1930 he joined the SA . In early 1931 (or 1932) he became a member of the NSDAP . In October 1931 he joined the SS and rose there up to Hauptsturmführer . He passed the examination for the first state examination in law at the Cologne Higher Regional Court in February 1932.

First years under National Socialism

He then began his legal career in civil service as a trainee lawyer at the Andernach District Court , then at the Koblenz District Court . After Oberscharführer Schütz and his fellow SS comrades stormed several apartments of political opponents one night, heavily drunk, and brutally mistreated the defenseless residents, including women, he was sentenced to two years' imprisonment and had to leave the civil service. After his release from prison as part of an amnesty , he worked full-time in August 1934 with the 5th SS Standard in SS Sturmbann 8 / I in Koblenz. He last worked as a lawyer in Mayen. From October he held the same position at SS-Sturmbann 8 / II in Trier .

In Trier he also became a member of the Gestapo in the state police station, where from September 1, 1934 until the end of March 1935 he took on tasks in the field of press and economic affairs. This was followed by a course at the SiPo and SD leadership school in Berlin-Charlottenburg , after which he was appointed detective inspector in December 1935. He then headed the counter-espionage department at the Stapo Trier until June 1939. Then he came to Ottweiler to the border security police station as a department head of counter-espionage.

Second World War

He took part in the German attack on Poland in September 1939 as a member of the Einsatzkommando 2 / VI under the orders of Erich Naumann and Gerhard Flesch . The Einsatzgruppen shot and killed 60,000 to 80,000 people in Poland as part of a secret order by Adolf Hitler . In 1939 he worked for counter-espionage in Lodsch in occupied Poland . In May 1940 Schütz attended the first colonial course in Berlin.

After a stay in Tivoli from November 11, 1940 to December 20, 1940 at the Italian colonial school there, he was head of Dept. III, Stapo-Trier in the context of counter-espionage until March 1942 and was then appointed to the office of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) VI (Culture) posted to Berlin. From August 24, 1942 to October 14, 1942 he was commanded to the OKW IG (Wehrmacht High Command) on the Eastern Front in Voroshilovsk in the Ukraine . From September 1943 he was supposed to take over a task for Naples with SS-Brigadführer Wilhelm Harster in Bozen . Since the situation at the front was worsening there , he came to Rome on September 21, 1943 as department head for areas IV and V of the SiPo and SD to the Higher SS and Police Leader in Italy, Herbert Kappler .

During the massacre in the Ardeatine Caves on March 24, 1944, Schütz commanded the firing squads. Together with other senior officers of the SS, including Kappler, Karl Hass , Hans Clemens and Erich Priebke , Schütz formed the first commandos and executed the first victims himself. In his criminal trial in 1996, Priebke referred to Schütz as the main perpetrator of the massacre who could exonerate him. Schütz threatened the shooters with death if they refused to execute the hostages. Whoever does not want to shoot should stand next to those to be executed. However, Priebke's statement was not confirmed by Schütz or by the only SD member who initially refused to take part in the shooting. In addition, Kappler later admitted that the “command emergency” had been “created” for tactical reasons.

In July 1944 Schütz took over tasks of the SiPo and the SD in Forlì . In November 1944 he was supposed to take over tasks of the SiPo and the SD in Merano and Bozen as a commander and criminal adviser , but this was restricted by a hospital stay (heart disease).

Captivity and activity in the Gehlen organization

After the fighting at the front at the end of April 1945, Schütz fled across the Alps and ended up in the US Army prison camp near Fürstenfeldbruck for one day in July 1945 . Then he went into hiding with the name Hans-Karl Schäringer and worked as a laborer and insurance agent. From March 1950 he took on his true identity again and came to Cologne, where he worked as an employee. In November 1950, Schütz was denazified as a fellow traveler . In Trier he was visited by the informant Johannes Clemens with the identification number 2665 of the organization Gehlen (OG), whom Schütz knew from his wartime in Italy. On May 18, 1952, there was another meeting with Johannes Clemens. Clemens informed him that the OG was looking for specialists for the defense service. Schütz immediately declared himself ready to return to his old area of ​​counter-espionage. As early as July 1, 1952, he was employed by the OG and took over the management of the UV Rhein-Ruhr based in Düsseldorf. According to other sources, the branch was in Essen. In connection with the founding negotiations of the Federal Intelligence Service , Konrad Adenauer requested the personnel files and other documents about Schütz through the then ministerial director Hans Globke , but this was rejected by Reinhard Gehlen on the grounds that these documents were with the British in London.

The Rhein / Ruhr sub- agency in Düsseldorf, Königsallee was later relocated to Stuttgart , Werastrasse 63 under Schütz's management as UV Württemberg. In the upper floor he had the code name Carl Schuster . In October 1954 the CIA received information that Heinz Felfe and Schütz were a security risk in the upper floor. However, this information had no recognizable consequences for Felfe or Schütz. Because in 1956 he was taken over by the BND and came to Cologne as a department head under the code name Scherhack . He received good reviews in this position, for example from General Erich Brandenburger and Lieutenant Colonel Oscar Reile .

Termination in the BND

He was surprised when he was summoned to Pullach on November 27, 1963 , where he was interviewed for several hours about his activities in the Nazi regime. He was accused of hiding his services with the Gestapo and the Einsatzkommando in Poland. He contradicted this and stated that he had named all of these activities at Felfe and the head of the general agency L (GV-L) of the OG Alfred Benzinger in Karlsruhe . The head of the General Assembly in Darmstadt Ludwig Albert , who was exposed as an agent of the KGB in 1955, had created his data on the career in the Nazi regime in 1952 . Obviously he assumed that because of his acquaintance with Felfe and Clemens, he was no longer considered acceptable for the BND. He had no knowledge of the task of organizational unit 85 . The interview ended with his notice of termination on June 30, 1964 being presented to him.

He took legal action against this termination before the Munich Labor Court . In a settlement of January 30, 1967, his employment relationship was to end on November 30, 1966, with a severance payment of DM 70,000 . Since he had not received a salary in the intervening two years and had no more cash, he had to sell his house first.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Erich Schmidt-Eenboom: Secret Service - Politics and Media . Berlin 2004, p. 248.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Malte Herwig: The Indispensable . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung from 27./28. October 2012, p. 13.
3. ↑ ^{a b c} The Federal Chancellory. Central Intelligence Agency , August 22, 1952, archived from the original July 30, 2012 ; Retrieved April 18, 2010 . 
4. ^ ^{A b c} Erich Schmidt-Eenboom: Secret Service - Politics and Media . Berlin 2004, p. 249.
5. ^ As "Karl Schütz" in Gerd R. Ueberschär: Places of horror. Crimes in World War II . Primus Verlag, Darmstadt 2003, p. 210. On the identity of "Karl Schütz" and "Carl Schütz", see Joachim Staron: Fosse Ardeatine and Marzabotto. German war crimes and resistancea. History and national myth-making in Germany and Italy (1944–1999) . Schöningh, Paderborn 2002.
6. ↑ Staron, Fosse Ardeatine , p. 67
7. ↑ In this context, the news magazine Der Spiegel already pointed out that Schütz was involved in the BND. Tape of a dead person . In: Der Spiegel 25/1996, June 17, 1996.
8. ↑ Staron, Fosse Ardeatine , p. 65.
9. ↑ Gotthold Schramm (Ed.): Attack and Defense - The German Secret Services after 1945 . Berlin, 2007, p. 125.
10. ↑ Heinz Felfe: In the service of the opponent - autobiography . Berlin 1988, pp. 446-448.
11. ^ Richard Breitman: US Intelligence and the Nazis . New York 2005, p. 402.
12. ↑ Erich Schmidt-Eenboom: Secret Service - Politics and Media . Berlin 2004, p. 250.