Ernst Damzog

Ernst Damzog (around 1935)

Ernst Paul Heinrich Damzog (born October 30, 1882 in Strasbourg ; † July 1945 in Halle (Saale) ) was a German police officer and SS brigade leader and major general of the police. He was a leading figure in the Secret State Police Office and leader of Einsatzgruppe  V in German-occupied Poland and inspector of the Security Police and SD in Poznan .

Life

origin

Damzog was the son of the Chief Customs Secretary Ernst Paul Heinrich Damzog (born November 27, 1854 in Grottkau; † January 11, 1928 in Klettendorf) and his wife Matilde Karoline, née Rauch (born July 26, 1859 in Vendenheim; † August 4, 1927 in Klettendorf).

Police career

In his youth he was trained at the Military Boy Education Institute in Annaberg. After he was taken over into the army, Damzog turned to the fireworks career and, after passing the exam, was employed as a fireworker or head fireworker in various artillery formations. In 1912 he joined the police headquarters in Königsberg as a detective commissioner candidate. He was then trained at the Hanover Police School and, after passing the exam, was appointed detective commissioner on April 1, 1914.

In the First World War , in which he was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd class, Damzog participated as a field policeman. After the end of the war, Damzog returned to the police force. He was employed successively as an officer in the criminal police in Königsberg , Magdeburg and Breslau , where he met Günther Patschowsky . In 1933 Damzog, then with the rank of criminal director, took over the management of the criminal police in Wroclaw. On June 15, 1933, he joined the SS (SS no.36.157) , probably through Pachovsky's mediation, in which he was promoted to SS-Scharführer on December 22, 1933.

When Patschowsky took over the management of the then newly created Department IV (“Treason and Espionage”) of the Secret State Police Office (Gestapa) in Berlin at the turn of 1933/34 , he took Damzog with him as a clerk. The task of this department - which was named Hauptabteilung III after renumbering the main departments - consisted of the police investigation of treason by Reich citizens and the defense against foreign espionage in the Reich territory. In addition to their police work Damzog and Patschowsky the spring of 1933 in cooperation with the accommodated in SD Oberabschnitt East agents of the Security Service (SD) of the SS on behalf of goods Reinhard Heydrich and Heinrich Himmler also heavily involved in the clandestine penetration of the Gestapo in the sense of the SS : In connection with the power struggle between Himmler and Heydrich with Hermann Göring and the Gestapo chief Rudolf Diels , they systematically leaked internal Gestapo information to the former two and thus undermined Diel's position as Gestapo chief, which in April 1934 finally resulted in the replacement Diels flowed through Heydrich as head of the Secret State Police Office.

On August 1, 1934, Damzog was promoted to SS-Sturmführer and officially accepted into the SD. The alleged former Gestapo employee Hansjürgen Koehler described Damzog in his book Inside the Gestapo in 1940 as a “stocky, almost fat man of medium stature, with thinning blond hair, a broad peasant face and light eyes.” Who was “honest and reliable man "is known.

In September 1935 Damzog was transferred back to Breslau, where he was used in the border inspection. On May 1, 1937 Damzog, who was also a member of the NS-Officials Working Group, joined the NSDAP ( membership number 5.081.001).

With the "Einsatzgruppen of the Security Police" in Poland

When the attack on Poland began , Damzog was appointed head of Einsatzgruppe V of the " Einsatzgruppen of the Security Police " for " Operation Tannenberg ". The task of these task forces was to "fight all elements hostile to the Reich and German against the fighting troops backwards" and at the same time to destroy the Polish intelligentsia as comprehensively as possible .

On September 21, 1939 Damzog also demonstrably took part in a meeting between the heads of the Reich Main Security Office and the leaders of the Einsatzgruppen in Berlin , chaired by Heydrich, at which the latter discussed the plans of the SS leadership with regard to Poles, Jews and Gypsies in the occupied Polish Areas that he brought to the formula:

"1.) Jews as quickly as possible into the cities,
2.) Jews from the Reich to Poland,
3.) the remaining 30,000 gypsies also to Poland,
4.) systematic deportation of the Jews from the German areas with freight trains."

Damzog, like all other Einsatzgruppe leaders, was therefore informed from the outset about his superiors' plans for mass deportation and murder of unpopular population groups.

Inspector of the Security Police and SD in Poznan

After the attack on Poland was over, Damzog was appointed inspector of the Security Police and SD (IdS) for the military district of Poznan on October 23, 1939 . In this function he was also head of the central office for immigrants , whose task was to evacuate Poles and Jews from the annexed areas. However, this task was actually carried out by Damzog's deputy Rolf-Heinz Höppner . On June 21, 1944, Damzog was promoted to SS-Brigadführer and Major General of the Police. Ernst Damzog died in Halle in July 1945.

literature

• Michael Wildt : Generation of the Unconditional. The leadership corps of the Reich Security Main Office. Hamburger Edition, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-930908-75-1 .
• Dermot Bradley (ed.), Andreas Schulz , Günter Wegmann: The generals of the Waffen-SS and the police. The military careers of the generals, as well as the doctors, veterinarians, intendants, judges and ministerial officials with the rank of general. Volume 1: Abraham – Gutenberger. Biblio, Bissendorf 2003, ISBN 3-7648-2373-9 , pp. 201-203.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Shlomo Aronson: Heydrich and the beginnings of the SD and the Gestapo. 1931-1935 . P. 217.
2. ^ Koehler: Inside the Gestapo . 1940. p. 36. In the original the passage says: “ Damzog a sturdy, almost fat man of middle stature, has thinning fair hair, a broad peasant face, eyes of light color. ”