Erich Graes

Erich August Graes (born May 5, 1901 in Cologne , † August 24, 1980 in Bottrop ) was a German police officer. Graes was, among other things, head of the Criminal Police Headquarters in Gdansk .

Life

Early life

Graes was the third child of the later criminal director Peter Wilhelm Graes (born June 17, 1867 in Kalendenkirchen) and his wife Karola, b. Gendron (born May 23, 1868 in Essen).

After attending elementary school (1907-1911), the Friedrich Wilhelm Gymnasium in Cologne (1911-1915) and the municipal high school in Cologne-Kalk (1915-1917), which he left with the upper secondary qualification, Graes joined as an apprentice at Easter 1917 at the Barmer Bankverein in Cologne. There he completed an apprenticeship as a banker for almost three years.

On January 1, 1920, after completing his apprenticeship as a bank clerk at the Barmer Bankverein in Cologne, Graes was taken on. He stayed there until March 31, 1923, and then moved to the Richard Edel bank in Cologne on April 1, 1923 , where he remained active until March 31, 1924. In the following years he kept books and prepared balance sheets for various companies. He also worked in the surveillance service during the Millennium Exhibition in Cologne.

Worked in the police service from 1926 to 1934

On April 15, 1926, Graes joined the Cologne police administration as a trainee detective. From April 20 to August 22, 1927, Graes completed a criminal detective course at the Higher Police School in Berlin-Charlottenburg, which he completed by passing the entrance exam for the police service.

From August 23, 1927 to the end of June 1927, Graes worked as an assistant crime commissioner at the criminal investigation department in Cologne, as a director’s commissioner and later as head of burglary and theft commissioners.

On June 1, 1928, Graes was transferred to the police headquarters in Gleiwitz as a detective commissioner on probation and was appointed head of the burglary commissioner at the police headquarters in Hindenburg. On October 1, 1928, he was appointed detective inspector.

In 1929 Graes was appointed head of the police department in Hindenburg. Politically he belonged to the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) at that time .

On April 15, 1930, Graes was transferred to the then newly formed state police station in Opole , where he was appointed head of the counterintelligence office for the province of Upper Silesia .

Activity in the secret state police office

On May 1, 1934, Graes was transferred to the Secret State Police Office (Gestapa) in Berlin as an expert on defense tasks , whose control had been taken over by the SS shortly before, in April 1934 . There he was in the then main department 3 (counterintelligence) service.

A former Gestapo employee who published an insider report in Great Britain under the name " Hansjuergen Koehler " in 1940 on the organization of the Gestapo claimed in this report that Graes was transferred to Berlin at the instigation of Günther Patschowsky, the head of the Gestapa's Abwehr department takes place, who, like Graes, was active in Silesia until 1933. Koehler cites his background that Graes played an important role in the passive defensive struggle against the French in the occupied Rhineland in the 1920s .

Koehler gives the following characteristics of Graes:

“He is of medium stature, a little plump and has very poor hearing. His hair is blond and thin, his eyes are lively and light in color, and his face is clean-shaven. He looks extremely bright and mentally active. "

According to Koehler, Graes was head of the "West Subdivision" in the Gestapa's defense department around 1934. In the business distribution plan of the Secret State Police Office dated October 25, 1934, which became known after the Second World War , a subdivision III 2 actually appears within the Defense Department, which is called "Treason and Counterintelligence West". The name of the head of this department is not given, probably for reasons of confidentiality, so that proof of the correctness of the claim that this was Graes is still pending.

In the business distribution plan of the Secret State Police Office of October 1, 1935, Graes finally appears by name: At this time he was head of Department III 3 A ("General Defense and Preparatory Measures, Special Orders") within the Defense Department.

On April 1, 1936, Graes was transferred to the Wilhelmshaven state police station, which was then being set up, as the deputy head and as a clerk for counter-espionage .

On June 1, 1937, Graes was transferred to the police administration in Bochum , where he led the inspection for Gross-Bochum and Witten .

Second World War

At the beginning of the Second World War , Graes was seconded to Einsatzgruppe VI . At this he was a representative of the Einsatzkommando 15 in Poznan. He then headed the construction of the criminal investigation department in Poznan , which he was busy with until his detachment on May 23, 1940. During his activity in Poznan Graes was awarded the War Merit Cross, Second Class with Swords .

After the end of his assignment to the East, Graes worked again at the Bochum criminal police station from the end of May 1940 to July 10, 1940. At this time Graes was admitted to the NSDAP on July 1, 1940 (NSDAP membership number 8.321.157).

On July 11, 1940, Graes was transferred to the police administration in Magdeburg , where he was in charge of Group I.

From April 1943 until the end of the Second World War, Graes served as head of the Criminal Police Headquarters in Danzig with the rank of criminal director. His direct superior was the inspector of the security police and SD Hellmut Willich . In 1944, Graes was entrusted with the regional search for numerous British airmen who had escaped from Stalag Luft III in Sagan , Lower Silesia, as part of the largest escape from a German prisoner-of-war camp during the war . In fact, Graes and his people managed to arrest some of the escapees who were later murdered by the Gestapo. The material was used in the 1963 Hollywood film Broken Chains .

On March 18, 1944, Graes was admitted to the SS (SS no. 476.077). In the SS he was assigned to the Reich Security Service in terms of formation. In analogy to his police rank he received in the SS, according to the provision that police members in the SS should receive an SS rank corresponding to their police rank, the equal rank of SS-Sturmbannführer.

post war period

At the end of World War II , Graes was captured by the Americans. He was interned in a camp near Neumünster until at least 1947 . The British military judiciary heard him at the time as a witness in connection with the murder of the British pilots.

marriage and family

Graes married Elisabeth Katharina Hubertine Unbehau on April 19, 1928 in Cologne (born September 9, 1904 in Cologne-Mülheim, † 1986), to whom he was engaged on May 29, 1924. The daughters Anneliese (born November 5, 1930) and Helga (born November 25, 1936) emerged from the marriage.

He resigned from the Church on October 13, 1937.

promotion

• October 1, 1928: detective inspector
• May 1, 1935: Kriminalrat

Archival tradition

Personal files on Graes have been preserved in the Federal Archives. In particular, the holdings of the former BDC include an SS personnel file (SSO micrifilm 26-A, photos 1056 to 1079) and a file from the Race and Settlement Main Office of the SS (RS film B 5269, photos 2887 to 2996) on Graes.

literature

• Christoph Graf : Political Police Between Democracy And Dictatorship. The Development of the Prussian Political Police from the State Security Organ of the Weimar Republic to the Secret State Police Office of the Third Reich , Berlin 1983.
• Dieter Schenk: Hitler's husband in Danzig , Bonn 2000.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Gravestone of Erich Graes in the park cemetery of Bottrop-Fuhlenbrock. Gravestone database of the computer genealogy association. Retrieved January 12, 2018.
2. ↑ Hans Juergen Koehler : Inside the Gestapo , 1940, p. 40
3. ↑ Koehler: Gestapo , p. 40. In the original: “He is of middle stature, rather plump and very heavy hearing; his hair is fair an thinning, his eyes lively and light of color, his face smooth-shaven. He looks very alert and quick-witted. "
4. ↑ Hansjürgen Koehler: Inside the Gestapo , 1940, p. 40. Koehler identifies Graes' name, which can only have become known to him by ear, "Gross (or Groos, Grohs?)".
5. ↑ A copy of the business distribution plan can be found at Johannes Tuchel / Reinold Schattenfroh: Zentrale des Terrors. Prinz-Albrecht-Str. 8. The Gestapo headquarters , Berlin 1987, p. 84.
6. ↑ Schenk: Danzig , p. 232.
7. ↑ Schenk: Danzig , p. 230.
8. ↑ Simon Read: Hunting the Great Escape Murderers , London 2013.