Erhard Kroeger

Erhard Kroeger

Erhard Kroeger (born March 24, 1905 in Riga , Russian Empire ; † September 28, 1987 in Tübingen ) was a German politician ( NSDAP ) and SS-Oberführer (1941).

Live and act

Education and early career

After attending school, Kroeger studied law at the University of Tübingen , at the University of Dorpat and at the Albertus University in Königsberg . He completed his studies with a doctorate to become a Dr. jur. from. He was a member of the Livonia Dorpat from 1923 to 1935 . In 1935 he was excluded from the student union.

Politically, Kroeger had his beginnings in the German Volkish movement in Latvia , whose leader he eventually rose to be. From 1936 onwards, under his leadership, the movement grew closer and closer to National Socialist Germany . In 1938 Kroeger moved to Berlin , where he was accepted into the SS on October 23 and began to work for the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle . In December 1938, as a variation of the National Socialist foreign policy line with regard to Eastern Europe, Kroeger developed the concept of "allowing the northern states to exist as semi-sovereign states." He was a member of the NSDAP (membership number 7.675.747).

Second World War

Erhard Kroeger (2nd from right) during a conversation between Wlassow, Schilenkow and Goebbels.

Kroeger joined the National Socialist Reichstag on July 7, 1940 as a member of the National Socialist Reichstag for the Wartheland in occupied Poland . He belonged to this until the end of the Nazi regime in spring 1945. He headed the German staff for the resettlement of the Baltic Germans from Estonia and Latvia to the Warthegau and in 1941 became head of the central immigration office in Poznan.

After the start of the Russian campaign in the summer of 1941, Kroeger headed Einsatzkommando 6 of Einsatzgruppe C until November 1941 , which carried out mass shootings of Soviet functionaries and parts of the Soviet population, especially Jews , in the rear eastern front area . After the formation of the Vlasov army , Kroeger acted as a liaison between Heinrich Himmler and the SS to the staff of Vlasov . He worked in the SS main office in the Volkstum department and became head of the Germanic control center for the recruitment of foreign SS men in Paris in 1943 and in Copenhagen in 1944 .

post war period

At the end of the war, Kroeger went into hiding: until 1962 he lived under a false name in the Federal Republic of Germany , in Switzerland and in Bologna . After the Wuppertal District Court had issued an arrest warrant against Kroeger on January 10, 1962 on suspicion of having been involved in massacres during the war, he was arrested on December 31, 1965 in Steinmaur-Sünikon in the canton of Zurich . The state of North Rhine-Westphalia then submitted an official extradition request . Kroeger argued that the killings were politically motivated and therefore would not constitute an extraditable offense under Swiss law. However, the Swiss Federal Supreme Court rejected this objection and approved his extradition. After delivery to Germany and the issuance of a second warrant of arrest on 22 February 1966 was Kroeger of 17 May 1966 to 5 October 1967 in custody held. On July 31, 1969, Kroeger was sentenced to three years and four months in prison by the Tübingen Regional Court . The subject of the proceedings was the mass killing of Jews in western Ukraine between June 1941 and February 1942.

Fonts

• The legal status of the foreigner in Latvia. 1927. Dissertation
• On the mentality of the Baltic student. In: Baltic Monthly Magazine , 1928, p. 100f.
• With Hans Krieg: Volksdeutsche Heimkehr. 1940
• The move from the old homeland. The resettlement of the Baltic Germans , publications by the Institute for German Post-War History, Verlag der Deutschen Hochschullehrer-Zeitung , Tübingen 1967

literature

• Gabriele von Mickwitz: Erhard Kroeger: a German life 1905-1987 , in the year book of the Baltic Germans, 1995, p. 163-195
• Matthias Schröder: German Baltic SS leaders and Andrej Vlassov. "Russia can only be defeated by Russians". Erhard Kroeger, Friedrich Buchardt and the "Russian Liberation Army" 1942-1945. Schöningh, Paderborn 2001, ISBN 3-506-77520-0
• Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich . Fischer, Frankfurt 2007 ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 (updated 2nd edition)
• Karl Heinz Gräfe: From the thunder cross to the swastika. The Baltic States between dictatorship and occupation . Edition Organon, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-931034-11-5 , short biography p. 435
• Manfred Handtke: Lived undisturbed in Tübingen . In: Schwäbisches Tagblatt, Tübingen, January 20, 2018

Web links

• Literature by and about Erhard Kroeger in the catalog of the German National Library
• Baltic Historical Commission (Ed.): Entry on Erhard Kroeger. In: BBLD - Baltic Biographical Lexicon digital

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Album Livonorum , ed. from the Philistine Union of Livonia. Lübeck 1972, No. 1386.
2. ^ Gabriele von Mickwitz: The Riga daily newspaper and the "Livonia Affair" . In: Yearbook of the Baltic Germans , vol. 55 (2008), pp. 101–121.
3. ^ John Hiden: Contact or Isolation , 1991, p. 399.
4. ^ Collection of the decisions of the Swiss Federal Supreme Court ( Memento of October 16, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) . In: BGE , Volume 92 I 108. (Judgment of May 11, 1966 by Kroeger against the Swiss Federal Prosecutor's Office)
5. ^ Roberta Arnold: The ICC as a new instrument for repressing Terrorism , 2004, p. 42.
6. ↑ Entry ( Memento of the original from October 12, 2013 on WebCite ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in justice and Nazi crimes . 
7. ↑ relevant publisher of the right-wing extremist milieu