Eilert Dieken

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Eilert Dieken (born September 23, 1898 in Esens ; † September 23, 1960 there) was a German police officer and captain of the German Wehrmacht . In occupied Poland he was instrumental in the murder of 16 people, including eight Polish Jews and an eight-member Polish family who had given these Jews shelter in their home. After the Second World War, Dieken was promoted to police commissioner in the Wittmund district .

Life

During the war, in addition to the army and SS officers, uniformed police officers were sent to the areas occupied by the Third Reich. Eilert Dieken was transferred to the Generalgouvernement . On behalf of the occupation regime, they ensure security there and enforce the rights demanded by the German Reich. In return, they received training courses which fueled hatred of Jews and Poles. Eilert Dieken took part in such courses several times: in the summer of 1941 he completed a six-week course at the police school, and another one year later. From January 1, 1941, he headed the newly established gendarmerie in Łańcut (pre-war Lemberg Voivodeship , today: Subcarpathian Voivodeship ). His area of ​​responsibility also included the supervision of Markowa and the surrounding villages.

The crime in the village of Markowa near Łańcut (south-eastern Poland)

Mrs. Ulma and her six children
Memorial for the murdered Ulma family in Markowa
Museum in Markowa, in which, among other things, the crimes of Eilert Dieken and his command are documented.

Józef and Wiktoria Ulma, residents of the village of Markowa, which at the time had four and a half thousand inhabitants, gave shelter to eight Jewish Poles from late 1942:

  • Saul Goldman (approx. 70 years) and his four sons; in their hometown of Łańcut they were called the "Szall family";
  • Gołda Grünfeld and Lajka Didner from Markowa, daughters of Chaim and Estera Goldmann;
  • a little girl whose name is not known, but who is probably the daughter of the aforementioned Lajka.

Their stay with the Ulma family was betrayed by Włodzimierz Leś, a Ukrainian and a member of the Blue Police . The Jewish Szall family, who were among the victims, had previously entrusted their property to Leś. According to the historian Jan Grabowski, the fact that he should have returned it could have been a motive for the denunciation.

Eilert Dieken then had a command put together on March 23, 1944, which included five German military police as well as some members of the Blue Police . A horse and cart was also ordered to go to the Ulma family's house away from Markowa. It was supposed to arrive there at midnight, but be some distance away. One of the carters was the citizen of Markov, Nawojski, who later testified as a witness to the crime. Dieken commissioned his subordinate, the young policeman Joseph Kokott (1921–1980), a German-born Czech, to carry out the preparations. Dieken was in charge of the actual operation himself.

In the morning of March 24, 1944, the commando arrived at the Ulma family home. While some were surrounding the house, others entered the building under the leadership of Eilert Dieken. The Ulma couple with their six children and the eight hidden Polish Jews were driven into the courtyard with gunfire, where they had to line up next to each other. First two of the Goldmann brothers and Gołda Grünfeld were shot. The wagoners were then called in to watch the following massacre - as a deterrent and warning, as it were. The next to be murdered was another Goldmann or Szall son. Lei and her little daughter followed, then the other two members of the Goldmann family.

Immediately afterwards, first Józef (44) and then his heavily pregnant wife Wiktoria (32) were shot in front of their underage children. After a brief consultation, Eilert Dieken decided to have the children also killed. Three or four of the six children were shot by Joseph Kokott. The names of the murdered children of the Ulma family are: Stanisława (Stasia), Barbara (Basia), Włodzimierz (Władek), Franciszek (Franek), Antoni (Antos) and Maria (Marysia). “See how Polish pigs are dying that housed Jews!” Kokott is said to have shouted to the wagon people after the 16 residents were shot.

The gendarmes received the order to summon Teofil Kielar, the village mayor of Markowa, to ensure that the murder victims were buried quickly. The police officers who stayed behind ransacked the house. Chests, beds, dishes and food supplies were loaded onto the waiting horse-drawn cart. Dieken and Kokott searched the murdered people in the light of the torch. The valuables found in the process - including a box of jewels that one of the Jewish women wore on her body - were shared among each other. Dieken and his deputy Joseph Kokott shared the jewelry they found. After the massacre, Eilert Dieken organized a drinking bout with the police officers involved in the operation and ordered three liters of vodka from the village mayor.

The Ulma couple posthumously received the honorary title Righteous Among the Nations ( Hebrew חסיד אומות העולם Hasid Umot ha-Olam ), an award from the State of Israel for non-Jews who, at the risk of their own lives, saved Jews from murder during the Nazi era. In Poland, a memorial that was set up in 2004 and the museum opened in 2016 for the Poles who saved Jews during World War II commemorate the massacre. The latter bears the name of the Ulma family.

Further life

After the war, the British began a denazification process in their zone . A scale system from 1 to 5 was used: Main culprits (I), offenders (II), less offenders (III), followers (IV) and exonerated (V). Categories 3 to 5 ("lighter cases") were decided by so-called denazification committees, which were formed by the British in 1946 from members of democratic parties such as the SPD on site. The British transferred this procedure from 1947 to German agencies, which proceeded similarly.

In these proceedings, Dieken did not conceal his activities in occupied Poland. In denazification questionnaires in November 1945, he stated that he was the head of the gendarmerie in the Kraków district from June 5, 1940 to July 20, 1944. In other questionnaires in June 1946 and May 1949 he made similar statements. He then received the highest rating from the denazification commission. So he could remain a policeman. Dieken first became a police inspector and finally a detective inspector. He was later investigated into Markowa for his crimes. Dieken died on September 23, 1960, shortly before the investigation was completed and thus without ever being prosecuted.

His subordinate Joseph Kokott, however, was caught and extradited from Czechoslovakia to Poland in 1958 and sentenced to 25 years in prison in Rzeszów . He died in custody in 1980.

Eilert Dieken was married and had two daughters. His grave is in the Esenser cemetery.

Posthumously

In 2013 and 2019, the Polish historian Mateusz Szpytma went on a search for traces of the life story of Eilert Dieken. After researching the Internet on a page on Esens police history and found the name Eilert Dieken there, he contacted the Esens police station in 2011 with a request to send him more information on Dieken's post-war career. Szpytma also mentioned the Markowa Museum, which was still being planned at the time and which was to be dedicated to the memory of the Ulma family, among other things. After a while, the police station replied, provided information and sent pictures. One and a half years later, under the date “18. February 2013 “another letter from Esens. It said: “Dear Ulma family! [...] I am the daughter of the late Eilert Dieken. From the letters I know that he [Eilert Dieken] served in Łańcut during the war. To my delight, I also know that he did a lot of good for people. In any case, I wouldn't expect anything else [...]. ”Exact reasons for writing this letter are hidden, but the letter writer probably had heard of the Polish historian's interest in her father. For Szpytma, who had tried for years to research the post-war life of the perpetrators involved in the Markowa massacre, the letter was a kind of invitation to make his way to Esens. During his two stays in the small East Frisian town, he had a number of conversations with both of Dieken's daughters and with other relatives, but also with citizens of Esens. Although the daughters knew that their father had "served" in occupied Poland, they had no idea of ​​his personal involvement in the mass murder in Markowa. Mateusz Szpytma gave one of the daughters a sealed letter. He asked her to only open the envelope when she was ready to get to know the other, the dark side of her father. Szpytma later learned that both daughters had taken note of the contents of the letter. The grandson later reported that he had come across the events in Markowa while researching his grandfather.

Only a few Esensians - according to Mateusz Szpytma - could remember Eilert Dieken. The former bank manager, for example, gives him a good report card; he describes it as "solid and correct". He was a "respected police officer". The former Mayor of Esens, Klaus Wilbers, a former police officer who started his service in Esens in 1973, only knew him from the stories told by his former colleagues. "They would have liked to like him."

Web links

literature

  • Rod Gragg: My Brother's Keeper: Christians Who Risked All to Protect Jewish Targets of the Nazi Holocaust . 2016. online
  • Klaus Peter Friedrich (edit.): Poland: Generalgouvernement August 1941-1945 . Volume 9 in the series The Persecution and Murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933–1945 . Oldenbourg Verlag: München 2014. S. 805; Notes 2-6
  • Joe Greek: Righteous Gentiles. Non-Judes Who Fought Against Genocide. A Documentary History of th Holocaust . Rosen Publishing: New York 2015. ISBN 978-1-4777-7611-7 . P. 5f

References and comments

  1. ↑ The date of birth and death can be found on the gravestone of the Dieken couple: Esens Cemetery
  2. ↑ a b Deutsche Welle (www.dw.com): Zginęli, bo ratowali Żydów. Brutalne morderstwo Ulmów | DW | December 13, 2019. Retrieved June 11, 2020 (pl-PL).
  3. ↑ also called Geni
  4. ↑ also called lei or layce
  5. ^ Klaus Peter Friedrich (edit.): Poland: Generalgouvernement August 1941-1945 . Volume 9 in the series The Persecution and Murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933–1945 . Oldenbourg Verlag: München 2014. S. 805; Note 5
  6. ↑ Federal Agency for Civic Education: Documentation: Texts from the website of the "Museum for the Poles who saved Jews during the Second World War - Museum for the Ulma Family", Markowa / Poland | bpb. Retrieved June 11, 2020 .
  7. ↑ also written Volodymyr
  8. ^ Joseph Croitoru: Rescue of Jews in Poland: Was the heroic Ulma family typical? In: FAZ.NET . ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed June 12, 2020]).
  9. ^ Klaus Peter Friedrich (edit.): Poland: Generalgouvernement August 1941-1945 . Volume 9 in the series The Persecution and Murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933–1945 . Oldenbourg Verlag: München 2014. S. 805; Note 2
  10. ↑ Joe Greek: Righteous Gentiles. Non-Judes Who Fought Against Genocide. A Documentary History of th Holocaust . Rosen Publishing: New York 2015. p. 5
  11. ↑ Radiodienst.pl: The Fate of the Ulma Family (April 17, 2015) ; viewed on June 12, 2020
  12. ↑ Joe Greek: Righteous Gentiles. Non-Judes Who Fought Against Genocide. A Documentary History of th Holocaust . Rosen Publishing: New York 2015. p. 5
  13. ↑ Radiodienst.pl: The Fate of the Ulma Family (April 17, 2015) ; viewed on June 12, 2020
  14. ↑ Sprawiedliwi.org.pl / Maria Zawadzka: 67th anniversary of murdering the Ulmas and the Jews they were hiding (March 24, 2011) ; viewed on June 12, 2020
  15. ↑ Radiodienst.pl: The Fate of the Ulma Family (April 17, 2015) ; viewed on June 12, 2020
  16. ^ Rod Gragg: My Brother's Keeper: Christians Who Risked All to Protect Jewish Targets of the Nazi Holocaust . 2016 (online) ; viewed on June 12, 2020
  17. ↑ a b c YadVashem.org: Jozef and Wiktoria Ulma ; viewed on June 12, 2020
  18. ↑ Radiodienst.pl: The Fate of the Ulma Family (April 17, 2015) ; viewed on June 12, 2020
  19. ↑ Polizei-Historie.de: Police in Esens ; viewed on June 12, 2020
  20. ^ Editing of RdP: The fate of the Ulma family. In: RADIOdienst.pl. Accessed June 11, 2020 (German).
  21. ^ Klaus Peter Friedrich (edit.): Poland: Generalgouvernement August 1941-1945 . Volume 9 in the series The Persecution and Murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933–1945 . Oldenbourg Verlag: München 2014. S. 805; Note 2
  22. ↑ Esens Cemetery ; viewed on June 12, 2020
  23. ↑ Unless otherwise stated, the data and facts in this section are based on Fakty.Interia.pl / Zbrodnia Bez Kary: Zginęli, bo ratowali Żydów. Brutalne morderstwo rodziny Ulmów ; in particular the section "Bardzo miły, zawsze służył pomocą" (December 13, 2019) ; Accessed June 13, 2020. - The translation of the two headings is: They Died Because They Saved Jews. The brutal murder of the Ulma family. / Very nice. Always helped [Eilert Dieken is meant].
  24. ↑ Polizei-Historie.de: Police in Esens ; viewed on June 13, 2020
personal data
SURNAME Dieken, Eilert
SHORT DESCRIPTION German police commissioner involved in war crimes in 1944
DATE OF BIRTH September 23, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Esens
DATE OF DEATH September 23, 1960
Place of death Esens