Eberhard von Künsberg

This article deals with the National Socialist Eberhard Freiherrn von Künsberg. For the legal historian (1881–1941) see Eberhard Freiherr von Künßberg .

Eberhard Max Paul Freiherr von Künsberg (born September 2, 1909 in Speyer , † 1945 (declared dead in 1949)) was a German National Socialist , lawyer and diplomat . During the Second World War he headed the “ Sonderkommando Künsberg ” named after him , which on behalf of the Foreign Office (AA) confiscated files and archives, but also plundered art collections and libraries on a large scale .

life and career

Political engagement and studies

The son of an officer came from the von Künsberg family , he attended the humanistic grammar school in Munich and Würzburg . His parents Max-Joseph Künsberg and Olga von Feury auf Hilling had already registered him in 1921 for the young storm “Adolf Hitler” . In 1929 he joined the NSDAP ( membership number 132.008) and SS (SS number 1.552). From 1929 to 1934 Künsberg studied law at the University of Munich , where he joined the National Socialist German Student Union (NSDStB). From December 1930 to December 1932 he was district leader VII ( Bavaria ) of the NSDStB and published the NSDStB organ German Revolution .

Party career

In July 1934 Künsberg completed his studies and on September 30, 1934 became the full-time leader of the 15th SS equestrian standard in Regensburg . The Reichsführer SS , Heinrich Himmler , handed over the management of the "Regensburg site" to him. On May 1, 1936 he became a consultant in the Foreign Policy Office of the NSDAP ; on April 1, 1937, he began his legal clerkship at the district court of Berlin-Weißensee , while at the same time he remained a consultant in the foreign affairs office and did his military service. In 1937 he came to the SS-Hauptreitschule München-Riem as SS-Obersturmführer and on May 1, 1938 took over the management of the Reichs Organization for the horse race " The Brown Ribbon of Germany ", one of the most highly endowed horse races in Europe at the time , the 1934 in Munich -Riem was founded to overtake the Grand Prix of Baden ( Baden-Baden ). Künsberg wore the " sword of honor of the Reichsführer SS " and the SS ring of honor . He also belonged to the Lebensborn .

Diplomat from the Foreign Office

On March 14, 1939, Künsberg was employed as a research assistant in the Foreign Office. Half a year later he was accepted into the senior service career as legation secretary and assigned to the "Protocol Department".

Raids with the "Sonderkommando Künsberg"

After the attack on Poland

After the German invasion of Poland , his immediate superior, Alexander Freiherr von Dörnberg , sent Künsberg to Warsaw in October 1939 to secure the files of the Polish Foreign Ministry and those of hostile and neutral diplomatic missions in Warsaw for the Foreign Office. British and French consulate files in Poland had already been confiscated as early as September 1939 . The files were to be processed for intelligence purposes and also used for propaganda purposes. Künsberg then organized appropriate seizures as part of the invasion of Denmark and Norway . In addition, he took part in numerous negotiations by the Foreign Office, such as the Second Vienna Arbitration Award , the expansion of the Tripartite Pact and the formation of a new government in Oslo . At the same time, however, he also helped with the procurement of art objects. For example, historical weapons from the Warsaw Army Museum were handed over to the German Hunting Museum in Munich, whose patron, Christian Weber , headed the “Board of Trustees for the Brown Ribbon of Germany ”.

Western campaign and France

With the attack on Holland, Belgium and France , Künsberg formed a special command, which was composed of members of the Foreign Office, the Secret Field Police (GFP) and the National Socialist Motor Corps (NSKK) and until January 1941 as the "Secret Field Police Group z. b. V. “was designated. Künsberg acted as "Field Police Director". During the campaign in the west, the special command consisted of 38 clerks and 75 drivers. Immediately in the wake of the fighting troops, the Sonderkommando occupied the foreign ministries and embassies in The Hague , Brussels and Paris . In coordination with Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop's long-time France adviser and later ambassador in Paris, Otto Abetz , Künsberg also left files and libraries from other Paris ministries (e.g. the one for the interior, with 100,000 volumes, as well as those for defense and finance) , Papers and records of political parties, of Masonic lodges and press offices as well as the art collections of mainly Jewish private individuals. Karl Epting , who had some contacts within France from ancient times, when he had supposedly worked for a Franco-German understanding, even had the Sonderkommando track down and confiscate goods from the Quai d'Orsay that were hidden from the attackers in seven Loire castles had been.

In unoccupied France , the Sonderkommando Künsberg looked for outsourced art objects, but clashed with competing commands such as the special command " Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg ", which was part of the "special order Linz" for works of art for the planned Führer Museum Linz , for Judaica and also for Masonic collections sought. The High Command of the Army (OKH) rejected Künsberg's action as a violation of international law . The OKH commissioner for “art protection” in the occupied territories, Franz Wolff-Metternich , called Künsberg “a kind of modern privateer ”.

The experience in France had made Künsberg convinced that a fast and agile group was necessary, if only to be faster than the local rival organizations. For the following campaigns, the Sonderkommando was therefore reinforced in January 1941 by members of the Waffen-SS to form a militarily organized force and renamed the "SS-Sonderkommando Gruppe Künsberg". This was preceded by lengthy negotiations, because Künsberg wanted his command to be incorporated into the Waffen SS, but Ribbentrop did not want to subordinate the command to the authority of the SS. The Sonderkommando was finally formally incorporated into the Waffen-SS on August 1, 1941 and placed under the main command office of the SS without losing its independence. At the same time, the command leaders retained the powers of the secret field police, and Künsberg received the disciplinary powers of an independent battalion commander.

Balkan campaign

During the Balkan campaign confiscated the detail for the first time statistical and cartographic material prepared by participating as a special leader "Z" members of the SD , untersturmführer Wilfried Krallert and accused him of publishing office in Vienna to ethnographic processed cards and as the basis of ethnic cleansing served . From May 20 to June 21, 1941, the Sonderkommando was active in Crete .

"Operation Barbarossa"

After the German invasion of the Soviet Union , the Künsberg special command, which was now divided into a staff and three "Einsatzkommandos" 95 men each, always immediately followed the fighting troops and seized files, cartographic material, libraries and art objects and occasionally also took on armed military objects Stakes part. With the end of the German offensive, the Sonderkommando started supplying the various SS research institutes with material. By the end of 1942, the Sonderkommando had distributed around 250,000 objects, but not only for official use. Foreign office employees, for example, were also allowed to choose books from the holdings for personal use. A large part of the remaining collections was given to the Reichsleiter Alfred Rosenberg .

In February 1942, the Sonderkommando officially ended its political mission. The scientific personnel were kept on call, the military with a strength of 304 people were assigned as a closed unit to the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler . Until further notice, the command was on the Crimea for partisan warfare and coastal surveillance as well as in the formation of three companies of Tatars to fight the Red Army used. On August 1, 1942, the Sonderkommando became a "Battalion of the Waffen-SS zb V."

Front deployment as a company commander

Künsberg himself was relieved of his position as leader of the Sonderkommando on June 19, 1942 with retroactive effect to April 1, 1942 and taken over as "Sturmbannführer of the Reserve" in the Waffen SS. Although he was the Foreign Office on June 1, 1943 Legation and on August 12 of 1943 to Legationsrat transported. Nevertheless, there was apparently an agreement between the SS and the Foreign Office that Künsberg should be transferred to the front because both sides were not satisfied with the way in which he had used some of his powers. Himmler explained to the SS headquarters: “Künsberg has understood too much how to play many pianos in his life. What applies to him is what is called ' G'schaftlhuber ' in Bavaria and it is high time we raised him properly. "

In the Waffen-SS, Künsberg was initially used as a company commander and department leader of a tank regiment. In early 1944, he came with diphtheria and paratyphoid fever in the hospital of Tarnopol . The Foreign Office assigned him to the Consulate General in Tirana on May 24, 1944 , but the Waffen SS drafted him into the 8th SS Cavalry Division "Florian Geyer" . This unit was almost completely wiped out in the Battle of Budapest in January 1945 . It is therefore generally assumed that Künsberg was killed in or near Budapest between February 11 and 14, 1945. According to oral information from the house archive of the Barons von Künsberg, Eberhard von Künsberg was seen again in April 1945 in Pomerania . He is missing and was pronounced dead in 1949.

literature

• Eckart Conze , Norbert Frei , Peter Hayes , Moshe Zimmermann : The Office and the Past. German diplomats in the Third Reich and in the Federal Republic. Verlag Karl Blessing, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-89667-430-2 , p. 214 ff.
• Ulrike Hartung: Raids in the Soviet Union. The Künsberg special command 1941–1943. Published by the Research Center for Eastern Europe. Edition Temmen, Bremen 1997, ISBN 3-86108-319-1 .
• Anja Heuss : The Foreign Office's “loot organization”. The Sonderkommando Künsberg and the robbery of cultural property in the Soviet Union. In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte. 45, H. 4, 1997, pp. 535-556 ( PDF ).
• Maria Keipert (Red.): Biographical Handbook of the German Foreign Service 1871–1945. Published by the Foreign Office, Historical Service. Volume 2: Gerhard Keiper, Martin Kröger: G – K. Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2005, ISBN 3-506-71841-X .
• LJ Ruys: The "Sonderkommando von Künsberg" en de lotgevallen van het archief van het Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken in Nederland from 1940–1945. In: Nederlands Archievenblad. 65, 1961, ISSN  0028-2049 , pp. 135-153.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Michael Grüttner : Biographical Lexicon for National Socialist Science Policy (= Studies on Science and University History. Volume 6). Synchron, Heidelberg 2004, ISBN 3-935025-68-8 , p. 102. On the activities in Munich see also: Mathias Rösch, Die Münchner NSDAP 1925-1933: an investigation into the internal structure of the NSDAP in the Weimar Republic. Oldenbourg, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-486-56670-9 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
2. ^ Anselm Faust: The National Socialist German Student Union: Students and National Socialism in the Weimar Republic. Vol. 1. Düsseldorf 1973, p. 160.
3. ^ The institutionalization of the Sonderkommando seems to have taken place only during the Western campaign. Anja Heuss: The Künsberg special command and the robbery of cultural property in the Soviet Union. In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 45, 1997, no. 4, p. 537.
4. ↑ Martine Poulain, Livres Pilles, lectures surveillées. Les bibliothèques françaises sous l'occupation, Gallimard, Folio histoire 224, Paris 2008 ISBN 2-07-045397-9 p. 44
5. ^ Roland Ray: Approaching France in the service of Hitler? Otto Abetz and the German policy on France 1930–1942. Munich 2000, p. 344
6. ↑ Quoting from LJ Ruys: The "Sonderkommando von Künsberg" en de lotgevallen van het archief van het Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken in Nederland van 1940–1945. In: Nederlands Archievenblad . Vol. 65 (1961), p. 145. See also Ulrike Hartung: Raubzüge in der Sovietunion. The Künsberg special command 1941 - 1943 . Edition Temmen, Bremen 1997, pp. 116–117.
7. ↑ Anja Heuss: The Künsberg special command and the robbery of cultural property in the Soviet Union. In: Viertelsjahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte 45, 1997, no. 4, p. 536.