Constantin Canaris

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Constantin Canaris , also known as Konstantin Canaris , (born November 8, 1906 in Duisburg ; † December 29, 1983 ) was a German lawyer , Gestapo officer and SS leader.

Life

Constantin Canaris was the nephew of Admiral Wilhelm Canaris . After schooling Canaris studied law and in 1932 at the University of Cologne with the dissertation The electricity supply contract for Dr. jur. PhD .

Canaris joined the NSDAP ( membership number 1.032.858) and the SS (SS number 280.262). In the SS Canaris was promoted to SS-Standartenführer in 1942.

After passing the assessor exam in 1935, Canaris worked in the Secret State Police Office in Berlin . In 1936 he was entrusted with the management of the Liegnitz state police station.

From November 1940 to November 26, 1941 Canaris was commissioner of the commander of the security police and the SD (BdS) in Brussels . In this function he was responsible for the admissions to the Breendonk reception camp .

From November 1941 to February 1944 he was inspector of the security police and SD in Königsberg and head of the state police headquarters in Königsberg. In this function he was also responsible for the Soldau labor education camp, in which thousands of prisoners died.

From February 1, 1944 to September 15, 1944 he was again commissioner of the commander of the security police and the SD in Brussels. Canaris, who was promoted to Colonel of the Police as Standartenführer, was ordered to Berlin in September 1944 and from there transferred to Croatia.

Law enforcement in Belgium

After the war, Canaris was in Allied internment and said several times in front of British interrogators. He was later tried in Belgium. Canaris had to answer for the joint responsibility for kidnappings, hostage murders and mistreatment of prisoners in the Breendonk reception camp . Canaris cited action under orders and alleged that he had been misled about the truth of Breendonk by the camp leaders. Canaris was to twenty years ' imprisonment convicted. The verdict became final on August 23, 1951, as neither the defense nor the public prosecutor's office appealed it.

Canaris was released from custody before Easter 1952. Hélène Jeanty, a Belgian resistance fighter and persecuted by the Gestapo, had spoken to him extensively in the weeks before and had reported to the country's justice minister. According to her worldview , Canaris started "a new life" while in custody. In her memories she suggests that his early release may be related to her intervention.

Law enforcement in Germany

Canaris then worked at the Henkel factory in Düsseldorf . Because of the deportation of Jews from Belgium, investigations have been carried out since the 1960s by the central office of the state justice administrations for the investigation of National Socialist crimes . After the preliminary investigation results had been handed over, the Kiel public prosecutor took over the investigation. In February 1975, charges were brought against Constantin Canaris, his former superior Ernst Ehlers and Kurt Asche . A complaint by the defendants to the Federal Constitutional Court against the opening of legal proceedings for violation of their fundamental rights was rejected. The main hearing began on November 26, 1980 before the Kiel Regional Court . Ehlers had previously briefly suicide committed and Canaris pull out due to unfitness of the procedure. Only Asche was sentenced to seven years in prison for accessory to murder .

family

Canaris was married to Ilse Krenzer (1909-2003). The sons Claus-Wilhelm and Volker Canaris emerged from the marriage. Volker Canaris was the producer of From a German Life , a film that deals with the life of the head of the Auschwitz concentration camp , Rudolf Höß .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 90
  2. ↑ Constantin Canaris at www.dws-xip.pl
  3. ↑ a b Christian Tilitzki : Everyday Life in East Prussia 1940–1945. The secret situation reports of the Königsberg judiciary . Special edition. Flechsig, Würzburg 2003, ISBN 3-88189-481-0 , p. 56
  4. ↑ a b Wolfram Weber: The internal security in occupied Belgium and northern France 1940-44 , Droste-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1978, p. 40
  5. ^ Wolfgang Benz , Barbara Distel : Terror in the West - National Socialist Camps in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg 1940-1945. (= History of the Concentration Camps series 1933–1945 , Volume 5) Metropol Verlag, Berlin 2004, p. 27
  6. ^ Michael Mueller: Canaris - Hitler's chief of defense. Propylaeen , Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-549-07202-8 , p. 520.
  7. ↑ a b NS processes - made into a machine . In: Der Spiegel . No. 12 , 1980, pp. 85-89 ( online ).
  8. ↑ chroniknet.de
  9. ^ Hélène Jeanty Raven: Without frontiers . TB Hodder & Stoughton, London 1966, pp. 179 - 184 (first 1960)
  10. ^ Kerstin Freudiger: The legal processing of Nazi crimes . Tübingen 2002, p. 203.
personal data
SURNAME Canaris, Constantin
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Canaris, Constantine
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer, Gestapo employee and SS leader
DATE OF BIRTH November 8, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Duisburg
DATE OF DEATH December 29, 1983