Ernst Ludwig Leyser

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Ernst Ludwig Leyser

Ernst Ludwig Leyser (born September 10, 1896 in Homburg , † December 6, 1973 in Bad Bergzabern ) was a German politician ( NSDAP ) and SS brigade leader . He was chairman of the Second Chamber of the Supreme Party Court of the NSDAP and was also deputy Gauleiter in the Gau Rheinpfalz .

Life

Leyser was the son of a Reichsbahn inspector, had seven siblings and grew up in a pietistic family. He attended elementary school from 1903 to 1907 and then the Progymnasium in Grünstadt until 1913 , but had to break off his school career for financial reasons. From October 1, 1913, he performed his one-year service in the infantry regiment “Prinz Carl” (4th Grand Ducal Hessian) No. 118 in Worms . As a sergeant and aspiring officer, he took part in World War I and was relocated home on November 6, 1918 because of a poison gas injury. Leyser was discharged from military service on November 22nd and was unemployed until he joined an insurance company in 1919. From 1920 to December 1, 1929 he worked as an office assistant and wage worker at the Reichsbahn . From December 1, 1928 he worked for the Reichsbahn in the West Palatinate and from 1931 back in Neustadt an der Haardt . On leave from work since 1932, wages were stopped in 1934. Nevertheless, he was promoted to the Reichsbahn-Oberrat until the early 1940s.

Career in National Socialism

In October 1920 Leyser joined the NSDAP ( membership number 5,418). After the French occupation in 1923 he was expelled from the Palatinate and joined the Greater German People's Community (GVG). He did not take part in the Hitler putsch due to a train delay, but was later awarded the so-called Blood Order. Furthermore, he belonged to the Schützen- und Wanderbund, a Nazi organization, and the German National Officers Association. In January 1925, Leyser returned to the Palatinate, was accepted back into the NSDAP (number 20.603) on October 9, 1925, and in April became the founder of the NSDAP and SA Storm local groups in Neustadt an der Haardt . He also joined the SS on September 28, 1925 (membership number 153) and was promoted to SS-Sturmführer in April 1926. From September 1, 1927, with an interruption in 1930, he was deputy Gauleiter of the Gaus Rheinpfalz until the end of the war. From 1928 to 1930 he was a personnel officer for the Rheinpfalz district administration and, until 1934, chairman of the district court and the investigation and arbitration committee. Before he took over the chairmanship of the committee of inquiry and arbitration in 1928, he left the SS. In 1932 he was for a short time chairman of the Second Chamber of the Party Supreme Court. Leyser was also a member of the Bavarian state parliament from 1932 to 1933 and then represented constituency 27 in the National Socialist Reichstag from 1933 until the end of the war in 1945 . Leyser was also chairman of the supervisory board of Elektrowerbung AG (Ludwigshafen), Pfalzwerke AG (Ludwigshafen), Saar-Ferngas AG and the United Saar-Elektrizitäts AG. In mid-January 1934 he took over the management of the Josef Bürckel Foundation . In May 1935 he was made an honorary citizen in Neustadt an der Haardt.

Leyser became an SS candidate in 1934 and was re-admitted to the SS on January 1, 1935 with the number 219.077, but on February 3, 1942 he was reassigned to his original number 153. On January 22, 1935, he was promoted to SS-Standartenführer and on November 9, 1936 to SS-Oberführer . From March 1938 to April 1940, during the absence of Gauleiter Josef Bürckel, he was acting Gauleiter of the Gau Saarpfalz, which had only previously been formed from the merger of the Gaue Rheinpfalz and Saarland and whose deputy he remained afterwards. Since it became increasingly difficult to work together after Bürckel's return, in February 1941 he turned to the staff of the Deputy Leader in order to resign from this party office and to be able to enter the state or municipal service. From July 1941, he therefore only held the position of deputy Gauleiter in nominal terms.

At the end of September 1941 he was appointed General Commissioner in Chernigov , Ukraine. he could not take up the office because the area was administered by the armed forces . On February 4, 1942, he was promoted to SS Brigadefuhrer. From October 1942 to September 1943 Leyser was General Commissioner in Zhitomir , Ukraine , where he was involved in resettlement campaigns and the Nazi extermination policy. After that, initially without employment, he turned down a post he had been offered as a district administrator and, after leaving the SS, signed up for the Wehrmacht. From September 1944 he was a district inspector for the fortification works in Lorraine. In December 1944 he became General Commissioner with the German Army Group C in Italy. From mid-January to late March 1945 he was governor of the Nassau province .

post war period

After the end of the Second World War, Leyser lived in Bavaria until 1948 and was then interned in Darmstadt , Landau and Trier until 1949 . In August 1949 he was denazified as a "minor offender" after a ruling chamber procedure ; despite an objection, the procedure was discontinued at the end of March 1950. In September 1951, the Frankenthal Regional Court stopped proceedings initiated against him for crimes against humanity, serious trespassing and breach of the peace due to lack of evidence. After his release he first worked at the church and later, until he retired in 1956, as a railroad worker in Neustadt an der Weinstrasse and Ludwigshafen am Rhein . He founded the Leyser group of voters in Bergzabern and was a city councilor in Bergzabern from 1956 to 1964, initially for this group of voters and later for the FDP . From 1956 to 1960 he was also an honorary second alderman in Bergzabern. From 1956 to 1971 he was also the head of the Bergzabern adult education center and was also a member of the synod of the Palatinate regional church .

literature

  • Joachim Lilla , Martin Döring, Andreas Schulz: extras in uniform. The members of the Reichstag 1933–1945. A biographical manual. Including the ethnic and National Socialist members of the Reichstag from May 1924. Droste, Düsseldorf 2004, ISBN 3-7700-5254-4 .
  • Ernst Klee : Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 (updated 2nd edition)
  • Franz Maier: Biographical organization manual of the NSDAP and its divisions in the area of ​​today's state of Rhineland-Palatinate. Publications of the parliamentary commission for the history of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, 28. Hase & Koehler, Mainz 2007. ISBN 3-7758-1407-8 , pp. 331–334.
  • Andreas Zellhuber: "Our administration is heading for a catastrophe ...": the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories and the German occupation in the Soviet Union 1941 - 1945 . Vögel, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-89650-213-1
  • Dieter Wolfanger : Ernst Ludwig Leyser. Deputy Gauleiter of the NSDAP in the Saar-Palatinate. A biographical sketch. In: Yearbook for West German State History , 14, 1988, pp. 209–217
  • Nicholas John Williams: Leyser's model career: bureaucrat, desk clerk, wheel in the gears of the Nazi system . ZGS. Journal for the History of the Saar Region 63, 2015, pp. 59–83

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Maier, page 335.