Ernst Gerke

Ernst Gerke (born May 6, 1909 in Stettin ; † January 7, 1982 in Eckernförde ) was a German lawyer, Gestapo officer and SS leader.

Life

Gerke, son of an administrative officer, grew up due to several transfers of his father a. a. in Schwerin , Berlin and Kiel . Gerke completed his school career in Kiel with the Abitur and then studied law at the University of Göttingen and the University of Kiel . Kiel received his doctorate in 1932 Gerke to Dr. jur. with the dissertation of debt amendment contracts and their limits according to the BGB . Gerke joined the NSDAP (membership number 1.048.844) and the Sturmabteilung (SA) in 1932. He later moved from the SA to the SS (membership number 280.247). After passing the second state examination in law, he became head of the police department in Hildesheim.

From 1936 he headed the state police station in Hildesheim , from 1937 in Elbing and from November 1938 in Chemnitz . Gerke completed his three-month military service in the Wehrmacht in 1939 and was liaison leader of Einsatzgruppe IV with the Wehrmacht from September to December 1939 after the start of the Second World War . From the end of 1939 to the summer of 1942, Gerke was head of the state police station in Breslau . In this role he played a key role in the deportation of Jews from Wroclaw.

From the beginning of September 1942, Gerke was head of the Gestapo in Prague and succeeded Hans-Ulrich Geschke in this office . In the course of this transfer, Gerke was promoted to Oberregierungsrat and SS-Obersturmbannführer . Executions in Prague rose sharply under Gerke. In the spring he had Jews shot in the Small Fortress Theresienstadt and executed over 50 prisoners classified as "particularly dangerous" on May 2, 1945. Gerke was called the executioner of Prague .

After the end of the war

Gerke was able to escape from Prague before the Red Army marched in and was later arrested by the Americans. After his release from captivity, Gerke, who lived under a false name, gave private Latin lessons in Hamburg.

Under the pseudonym Emil Grabowski, Gerke worked in the reconstruction department at Hamburgische Landesbank from 1948 . From 1957 he then acted under his real name as legal advisor at the Bodelschwinghschen Anstalten Bethel . From 1965 Gerke was employed by the supplementary pension fund of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Hanover in Detmold .

From the 1960s, several proceedings were initiated against Gerke because of his Gestapo activities in Breslau. The last case in 1979 was a case of murder and accessory to murder because of the deportation of Jews. Gerke had testified that he had assumed that the deportations of Jews from Wroclaw were “an orderly internment of all Jews for work in the so-called Ostland due to the war”. Investigations into Gerke's Gestapo management in Prague did not lead to a conviction despite the incriminating material, although Czechoslovakia applied for his extradition several times.

literature

Jan Björn Potthast: The Jewish Central Museum of the SS in Prague - Opponent Research and Genocide under National Socialism. Campus-Verlag, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-593-37060-3 .
Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich . Who was what before and after 1945 . 2nd Edition. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 .

Individual evidence

↑ Jan Björn Potthast: The Jewish Central Museum of the SS in Prague - Opponent Research and Genocide under National Socialism. Munich 2002, p. 304
↑ ^a ^b ^c Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 180
↑ Mark H. Gelber , Jakob Hessing, Robert Jütte : Integration and Exclusion: Studies on German-Jewish literary and cultural history from the early modern period to the present; Festschrift for Hans Otto Horch on his 65th birthday. Walter de Gruyter, 2009, ISBN 978-3-484-62006-3 , p. 282
↑ Jan Björn Potthast: The Jewish Central Museum of the SS in Prague - Opponent Research and Genocide under National Socialism. Munich 2002, pp. 380, 392
↑ Georg Bönisch: SS crimes - killed out of boredom. In: Der Spiegel . Issue 26/2000, June 26, 2000, p. 58
↑ Jan Björn Potthast: The Jewish Central Museum of the SS in Prague - Opponent Research and Genocide under National Socialism. Munich 2002, p. 391 f.

personal data
SURNAME	Gerke, Ernst
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German lawyer, Gestapo employee and SS leader
DATE OF BIRTH	May 6, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH	Szczecin
DATE OF DEATH	January 7, 1982
Place of death	Eckernförde

[Potthast304-1] Jan Björn Potthast: The Jewish Central Museum of the SS in Prague - Opponent Research and Genocide under National Socialism. Munich 2002, p. 304

[Klee180-2] Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 180

[3] Mark H. Gelber , Jakob Hessing, Robert Jütte : Integration and Exclusion: Studies on German-Jewish literary and cultural history from the early modern period to the present; Festschrift for Hans Otto Horch on his 65th birthday. Walter de Gruyter, 2009, ISBN 978-3-484-62006-3 , p. 282

[4] Jan Björn Potthast: The Jewish Central Museum of the SS in Prague - Opponent Research and Genocide under National Socialism. Munich 2002, pp. 380, 392

[5] Georg Bönisch: SS crimes - killed out of boredom. In: Der Spiegel . Issue 26/2000, June 26, 2000, p. 58

[6] Jan Björn Potthast: The Jewish Central Museum of the SS in Prague - Opponent Research and Genocide under National Socialism. Munich 2002, p. 391 f.