Ernst Reindel

Ernst Reindel (born November 30, 1899 in Magdeburg ; executed between July 25, 1945 and January 15, 1946 in Brest , Belarusian SSR , Soviet Union ) was a German executioner at the time of National Socialism . He fully stretched several hundred death sentences and, after the war by a Soviet military tribunal for convicted death and executed .

Life

Family background: Executioner dynasty

Reindel came from an executioner dynasty. Already at the end of the 18th century, his ancestor Johann Reindel was executing death sentences in Bohemia and Salzburg . Ernst Reindel's grandfather Friedrich Reindel was a long-time executioner in the Prussian service until 1898. Ernst Reindel's father, Wilhelm Reindel, and his brothers were Friedrich Reindel's assistants. Wilhelm Reindel succeeded his father in office, but was dismissed as an executioner in 1901 due to alcoholism . The executioner Alwin Engelhardt was an uncle of Ernst Reindels by marriage.

Executioner at the time of National Socialism

A first application by Ernst Reindel as an executioner to the Prussian authorities was not considered in 1925 due to a lack of demand. He earned his living as the owner of a masking shop in Gommern . He was fined in 1927 for illicit gun possession.

After the seizure of power , Reindel, who had not appeared politically, applied to the Prussian Ministry of Justice for a post as executioner in autumn 1933. In his written application, he referred to the tradition of executioners in his family and stated that he had not been trained as an executioner because his father was blind. He also stated that his grandfather's tools for execution were still in his possession. Reindel finally received the position as the fourth executioner's assistant to Carl Gröpler with a chance of promotion because he had never executed a person and was supposed to acquire practice first. On May 19, 1934, Reindel carried out his first execution, which, according to Gröpler, he carried out "flawlessly". A year later he had already carried out several executions on his own. After Gröpler was retired in 1937, Reindel was his successor as an independent executioner. Reindel had assistants, most of whom had already worked under Gröpler. He was also supported by helpers from his hometown.

Central Execution Places and Enforcement Districts in the German Reich (1944)

The Reich Ministry of Justice established three executioner districts in 1937: Friedrich Hehr was responsible for the north and west, Johann Reichhart for the south and Ernst Reindel for the east. Reindel was responsible for executions in Berlin-Plötzensee and Breslau . Later, Gottlob Bordt joined them for Posen . Due to increasing death sentences, the Reich Ministry of Justice decided in 1942 to employ more executioners and to increase the number of executioner districts. Reindel was assigned to execution district VI and, as a traveling executioner, was therefore responsible in particular for the execution of death sentences in the central execution sites Halle / Saale ( red ox ), Weimar (court prison Weimar) and Dresden ( remand prison Dresden ). At times he also carried out executions elsewhere, such as in Berlin, Brandenburg and Hamburg. Those executed included resistance fighters against the Nazi regime and so-called racial abusers . Until 1943 he used the guillotine as well as the ax for executions , which was an exception. Reindel, who joined the NSDAP at the beginning of December 1939 ( membership number 7,298,593), executed those sentenced to death for looting with a hand ax in the Bützow-Dreibergen prison from April to July 1942 .

Reindel and other executioners were introduced to the hanging method of execution in February 1943 . However, Reindel asked not to have to use them. On September 1, 1943, he quit his job as an executioner on November 30, 1943. When asked, he gave tax reasons, since after taxing his income as an executioner, this activity no longer seemed lucrative for him. He also stated that due to the increasing number of executions, he could no longer adequately take care of his masking work, which he had continued while he was an executioner. In the judicial history of the National Socialist German Reich, this was a "unique event". In September 1943, Reindel and his assistants hanged many people sentenced to death in Berlin-Plötzensee because the guillotine was no longer functional as a result of a bomb attack. In total, Reindel carried out at least 600 to 700 executions. According to other sources, however, he is said to have carried out executions until 1945 after his resignation.

Postwar period: sentencing and execution

After the liberation from National Socialism , Reindel and other executioners or executioner's assistants were sentenced to death by a Soviet military tribunal on June 17, 1945 for war crimes . On July 8, 1945, the convicts were taken to Brest, Belarus, where they were probably shot between July 25, 1945 and January 15, 1946. Reindel was pronounced dead in 1950.

See also

• List of people executed in the German Reich
• List of German executioners during the National Socialist era

literature

• Klaus Hillenbrand : Desired career as an executioner: Why men wanted to be executioners under National Socialism. Campus Verlag, Frankfurt / New York 2013, ISBN 978-3-593-39723-8 .
• Klaus-Dieter Müller, Thomas Schaarschmidt, Mike Schmeitzner , Andreas Weigelt: Death sentences of Soviet military tribunals against Germans (1944–1947). A historical-biographical study. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-525-36968-5 .
• Thomas Waltenbacher: Central execution sites . The execution of the death penalty in Germany from 1937–1945. Executioner in the Third Reich. Zwilling-Berlin, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-00-024265-6 .

Web links

• The Bloody Nights of Plötzensee on Gedenkstaette-Ploetzensee.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Hillenbrand : Desired career executioner. 2013, p. 57 f.
2. ↑ Matthias Blazek: "Mr. Public Prosecutor, the sentence has been carried out." The brothers Wilhelm and Friedrich Reindel: Executioners in the service of the North German Confederation and His Majesty 1843–1898. Ibidem, Stuttgart 2011, ISBN 978-3-8382-0277-8 .
3. ^ Hillenbrand: Desired career executioner. 2013, pp. 254, 279.
4. ^ Hillenbrand: Desired career executioner. 2013, p. 59.
5. ^ Hillenbrand: Desired career executioner. 2013, pp. 66, 255.
6. ^ Hillenbrand: Desired career executioner. 2013, pp. 66, 254.
7. ^ Hillenbrand: Desired career executioner. 2013, pp. 106, 255.
8. ^ Hillenbrand: Desired career executioner. 2013, p. 67.
9. ↑ ^{a b} Joachim Scherrieble (Ed.): Der Rote Ochse, Halle (Saale): Political Justice 1933–1945, 1945–1989 (catalog for the permanent exhibitions). Links, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-86153-480-8 , p. 173.
10. ^ Hillenbrand: Desired career executioner. 2013, p. 71.
11. ^ Hillenbrand: Desired career executioner. 2013, p. 138.
12. ^ Müller, Schaarschmidt, Schmeitzner , Weigelt: Death sentences of Soviet military tribunals against Germans (1944–1947). 2015, p. 253.
13. ↑ Michael Buddrus (ed.): Mecklenburg in the Second World War. The meetings of the Gauleiter Friedrich Hildebrandt with the Nazi governing bodies of the Gau Mecklenburg 1939–1945 - An edition of the meeting minutes , Edition Temmen, Bremen 2009, p. 1057.
14. ^ Hillenbrand: Desired career executioner. 2013, p. 106.
15. ^ Hillenbrand: Desired career executioner. 2013, p. 90f.
16. ↑ Plötzensee Memorial: The Bloody Nights of Plötzensee.
17. ^ Joseph Dolezal: In the death house: Oberregierungsrat Paul Vacano, head of the Berlin-Plötzensee prison 1928–1943 / 44. A documentary report. Berlin 2013, p. 35.
18. ↑ Waltenbacher: Central execution sites . 2008, p. 199.
19. ↑ Waltenbacher: Central execution sites . 2008, p. 141 f .; Richard J. Evans : Rituals of Retribution. The death penalty in German history 1532–1987. Kindler, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-463-40400-1 , p. 918.
20. ^ Müller, Schaarschmidt, Schmeitzner, Weigelt: Death sentences of Soviet military tribunals against Germans (1944–1947). 2015, p. 253 f.
21. ^ Hillenbrand: Desired career executioner. 2013, p. 107.