Ernst Neumann (politician)

Ernst Neumann

Ernst Neumann (born July 13, 1888 in Wensowken , district of Angerburg , † May 19, 1955 in Bad Segeberg ) was a German veterinarian, SS leader and politician ( NSDAP ) in Memel .

Live and act

Neumann was the son of a country school teacher. After attending school, which he completed with the Abitur in Elbing in 1907 , he completed an agricultural apprenticeship. From the beginning of April 1909 to the beginning of June 1914 he did his military service in Gumbinnen . At the same time, he completed a degree in veterinary medicine at the University of Berlin , which he completed in January 1914 with a state examination. During his studies he became a member of the Obotritia Berlin fraternity in 1909 . In April 1914 he was promoted to Dr. med. vet. PhD . After the outbreak of World War I , he was employed as a senior veterinarian in the imperial army from August 1914 to 1918 , initially in a horse hospital in Mitau and towards the end of the war in an epidemic hospital in Memel. After the end of the war, he took part in the fighting in the Baltic States as a member of a volunteer corps . In March 1920 he served for a month in the Reichswehr and then practiced as a veterinarian in Memel. From 1927 he was a district veterinarian and later a state veterinary council in the Memel area .

Since 1919 he was married to Elisabeth, nee Schundau. The couple had a son and a daughter.

Political career

As a reaction to the founding of the Christian Social Working Group (CSA) party in 1933 by the Memel harbor pastor Theodor Freiherr von Saß , which was close to the Nazi movement and which was first advertised for the Memel city council after the annexation of the Memelland by Lithuania was so successful that it got all 18 candidates through and even had to give away two places, the Memelland middle class, which was part of the "Agricultural and People's Party", founded a party that was also close to NS, the "Socialist People's Community of the Memel Region" (SVOG).

The completely apolitical veterinarian Neumann was brought forward as leader. He was described as a man of a simple, honest character, serious and well-behaved receiver of orders, who was in no way equal to the spirited, daredevil von Saß, so that an amicable agreement to merge the two parties was doomed to failure. As a result, von Saß was discredited by all means, with the result that the CSA faction split and nine MPs defected to Neumann.

The Lithuanian government imposed heavy fines on the newspapers “ Memeler Dampfboot ” and “Memelländische Rundschau” (organ of the Agricultural Party in Heydekrug ) if they published letters from the “Neumann Party”. When the “steamboat” finally used the phrase “Lithuanian occupation of Memelland”, the Lithuanian government enacted a law that was exclusively tailored to Memeland. On February 8, 1934, the "Law for the Protection of People and State" (so-called Prison Law) came into force. Neumann, von Saß and their respective supporters were arrested within 24 hours (126 people in total).

Kovno trial

The Lithuanian Memelland Governor Gylys, who was considered too lenient, was defeated by the agitator Dr. Navakas, who promised to force the last German from the Memelland to emigrate. On December 14, 1935, the internationally acclaimed Kowno trial or Neumann-Saß trial began before the Lithuanian Supreme Court Martial in Kaunas . Foreign observers got the impression that there would be no fair defense for the defendants, since the purpose of the proceedings was to deter them. Critical international observers were even denied permission to listen.

The results of the negotiations did not reveal any evidence of an attempted insurrection against Lithuania. In spite of this, the death penalty was imposed on four accused for alleged murder, but not executed. Neumann was sentenced to twelve years and Freiherr von Saß to eight years in prison. There were sharp protests against these “terrorist judgments” in Germany and abroad, and finally the convicts were gradually released under German pressure. Neumann was among the last on February 15, 1938 after an amnesty .

After his release from prison, he headed the Memel German cultural association and sports association as the “Leader of the Memel Germans” and worked as a district veterinarian in Heydekrug . In 1938/39 he was a member of the Seimelis for the Memelland unified list .

Handover of the Memelland and World War II

In December 1938, Adolf Hitler received Neumann and assured him that the Memelland would be incorporated into the National Socialist German Reich in the spring of 1939. On March 23, 1939, Neumann handed over the Memel area to Hitler after Lithuania had evacuated the Memel area under pressure from the Nazi regime and this was incorporated into the German Reich. On this day he received the Golden Party Badge of the NSDAP from Hitler . Neumann was also accepted into the Schutzstaffel as SS-Oberführer on March 23, 1939 (SS-No. 323.035) and was an honorary SS leader in the Reichsführer SS staff until mid-January 1940 . At the beginning of April 1939 he became a member of the NSDAP ( membership number 7.140.600). From April 25, 1939 until the end of the war in 1945, he was a member of the National Socialist Reichstag for the Memelland . From May 1939 he was authorized to wear the home badge Elchschaufel in recognition of his imprisonment and his political commitment. Since Neumann rejected the Nazi racial laws, he was no longer wanted in Memel and, at the suggestion of Gauleiter Koch, was appointed general director of the Bank of the East Prussian Landscape in Königsberg . In addition, he was a member of the Reichsbauernrat from 1939 to 1941 and was a member of the Board of Directors of the East Prussia Life Insurance Company from November 1939 to 1945. In the Heydekrug district he acquired the Kuwertshof estate and in 1941 the Baugstkorallen estate.

After the beginning of the Second World War , he took part in the attack on Poland as a battery chief with the rank of first lieutenant in the reserve . From April to October 1941 he commanded an SS artillery department and was a member of the staff of the SS division "North" . In November 1941 he was promoted to SS-Obersturmbannführer dR of the Waffen-SS and released from the Waffen-SS a month later . With his wife and wounded son, he fled the approaching Red Army in the spring of 1945 by ship from Königsberg via Pillau to Kiel . According to other sources, the escape ended in Lübeck .

post war period

After the end of the war, Neumann was interned as a Nazi official in June 1945 and was an inmate of the internment camps in Plön and Eselheide until 1948. He was denazified as a “fellow traveler” . First he made his living as a farm worker in a village near Bad Segeberg and in July 1948 he settled as a veterinarian in Bad Segeberg. He died of a heart attack in May 1955 .

literature

• Mads Ole Balling: From Reval to Bucharest - Statistical-Biographical Handbook of the Parliamentarians of the German Minorities in East Central and Southeastern Europe 1919-1945, Volumes 1 and 2, 2nd edition . Copenhagen 1991, ISBN 87-983829-3-4 , pp. 738 .
• Johannes Bobrowski: Lithuanian pianos , Reclam Leipzig 1987.
• Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume I: Politicians. Volume 8: Supplement L – Z. Winter, Heidelberg 2014, ISBN 978-3-8253-6051-1 , pp. 112-113.
• Helmut Jenkis: The ' Leader's Letter ' from Pastor Dr. Wilhelm Gaigalat, A supplement to the psychogram ( PDF ), in: Annaberger Annalen Volume 15, 2007, pp. 142–176.
• Heinrich A. Kurschat: Das Buch vom Memelland , Siebert Oldenburg 1968, p. 158 ff.
• 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 , p. 438.
• Obituary for Dr. Ernst Neumann † . In: Memeler Dampfboot , issue 11 of June 5, 1955, p. 3.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Mads Ole Balling: From Reval to Bucharest - Statistical-Biographical Handbook of the Parliamentarians of the German Minorities in East Central and Southeastern Europe 1919-1945 , Copenhagen 1991, p. 738.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d} Memeler Dampfboot, issue 11 of June 5, 1955
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Ulla Lachauer: The lost Ännchen . In: Die Zeit , March 31, 1989 No. 14
4. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Lilla: extras in uniform. 2004, p. 438.
5. ↑ ^{a b} Helmut Jenkis: The ' Leader's Letter ' from Pastor Dr. Wilhelm Gaigalat, A supplement to the psychogram. In: Annaberger Annalen Volume 15, 2007, p. 146.
6. ^ Paul Bruppacher: Adolf Hitler and the history of the NSDAP - a chronicle. Part 2: 1938 to 1945. 2. revised. and extended edition. Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2013, ISBN 978-3-8423-8627-3 , p. 105.