Franz Breithaupt

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F. Breithaupt, here SS-Ostubaf

Franz Breithaupt (born December 8, 1880 in Berlin ; † April 29, 1945 in Prien am Chiemsee ) was one of the first senior SS leaders , most recently as SS-Obergruppenführer and General of the Waffen-SS and head of the main office of the SS Court . In addition, Breithaupt was considered an early and staunch supporter of Adolf Hitler and was also one of Heinrich Himmler's closest collaborators .

At the time of the German Empire , Breithaupt was an officer in the Prussian army . After the First World War he was a member of the right-wing national-ethnic Ehrhardt naval brigade in the young Weimar Republic .

Life

Origin and military career

Breithaupt's father was a captain in the General Staff and later became the commander of the Anklam War School .

From 1887 to 1891, Breithaupt attended pre-school in Rendsburg and the school in Kiel . From 1891 he was a cadet in Plön and Groß-Lichterfelde , where he passed the ensign examination with primary school in March 1899 . In March 1899 he joined the Stralsund infantry regiment "Prince Moritz von Anhalt-Dessau" (5th Pomeranian) No. 42. Breithaupt, who was described as “militarily gifted”, switched to the Metz War School that same year .

In August 1900 he returned to his regular regiment , meanwhile promoted to lieutenant , and was transferred to the 2nd battalion in Greifswald . Breithaupt was promoted to first lieutenant in 1900 and in October of the same year he was employed as an inspection officer at the non-commissioned officers' school in Weißenfels . In October 1903, Breithaupt was assigned to the military gymnastics institute in Berlin as an assistant teacher. A little later, Breithaupt received a permanent teaching post there, which he officially held until the outbreak of the First World War . In October 1905, Breithaupt became adjutant of the 2nd battalion of his main regiment. In May 1914 he was promoted to captain .

With the outbreak of the First World War, Breithaupt advanced in August 1914 and was appointed chief of the 5th Company . In the same month he was shot in the head and was in various hospitals until October . After his full recovery, he was assigned to the Liege Governorate as an adjutant to the Commanding General of the VIII Reserve Corps . Breithaupt later held the functions of a section leader in the Reserve Infantry Regiment No. 25, a leader in the Infantry Aviation School of the 3rd Army and the leader of the 8th Company and the 1st Battalion of Infantry Regiment No. 395. During the Battle of Verdun he was assigned to Storm Battalion No. 5 (Rohr) in Verdun and took over the command of battalions of infantry regiments No. 456 and No. 364. From March 24, 1917, he was in command of the outposts of the 9th Cavalry Division .

Promotions

Weimar Republic

After the end of the war, Breithaupt was appointed adjutant to the commanding general of the II Army Corps in Stettin from December 1918 . In 1919 he took over the implementation of the 1st course at the new military gymnasium in Wünsdorf . Still 1919 Breithaupt joined various volunteer corps to. He was a member of the Ehrhardt Marine Brigade and its regional branch "Schutzregiment Groß-Berlin". In November 1919, Breithaupt was retired from active military service with the rank of major ; he began a commercial apprenticeship in a factory in Lübbecke, Westphalia .

In 1923, Breithaupt became head of a company in Godramstein in the Bavarian Palatinate , which was then occupied by French troops. There he was briefly arrested and interrogated by the Allied Control Commission in the same year. In the same year, Breithaupt married, the marriage was divorced on November 11, 1944.

From 1923 to 1931, Breithaupt was managing director of the German Gymnastics Association , a member of the Senate of the German University for Physical Education in Berlin and at times also in the German Officers' Association . On April 1, 1929, Breithaupt joined the Berlin “ Stahlhelm ”, which he left on November 15, 1931.

In 1931 Breithaupt became chairman of the board of the IREKS AG malt house in Kulmbach and its Berlin managing director. At that time, Curt Wittje , who later became head of the SS main office for a time, was head of personnel at the malt house. In August 1931 he joined the NSDAP ( membership number 602,663) and on November 27, 1931 also the SA . As an SA-Sturmbannführer Franz Breithaupt was appointed staff leader at the Reichsführer-School in Munich . On April 1, 1932, Breithaupt was released from the SA leadership school and designated for "other purposes". On December 1, 1932, he joined the SS (SS No. 39.719) as SS-Sturmbannführer and was employed there until July 31, 1933 as an adjutant to the Reichsführer SS (RFSS) Heinrich Himmler in Berlin.

time of the nationalsocialism

From July 31, 1933, Breithaupt was named “SS-Führer z. b. V. ”(for special use) in Heinrich Himmler's staff. On November 9, 1934, he was the latter's adjutant in Berlin for “special assignments”, which he remained until January 1, 1942. On November 1, 1935, he became an honorary SS site leader in Berlin retroactively to May 1. He was to hold this position until January 1, 1942. From December 24, 1934, Breithaupt was an honorary vice-president of the People's Court . A special fund administered by Breithaupt was set up for the survivors of the approximately 200 murdered people in the alleged Röhm Putsch , from which the surviving dependents were provided for at state expense. On April 1, 1936, Breithaupt became SS leader in the staff of the SS Main Office, to which he belonged until January 1, 1942. On April 21, 1936, Breithaupt was appointed honorary representative of the Reich Sports Leader for Berlin and the Province of Brandenburg. Breithaupt was also deputy head of the Supreme Authority for Trotter Breeding and Racing.

From April 20, 1936 to June 20, 1937, Breithaupt was an arbitrator in the "Great Arbitration Court RFSS". On April 20, 1938, he took over the function of third arbitrator and was also an assessor at the Supreme Party Court of the NSDAP . On December 20, 1937, Breithaupt received a formal reprimand from Himmler for violating the Foreign Exchange Act, which, however, was repealed on April 14, 1938.

Franz Breithaupt ran in the Reichstag election in 1938 , but received no mandate.

From October 1939 to December 5, 1940 Franz Breithaupt was commander of the “8. reinforced SS-Totenkopfstandarte "in Krakow and took over the command of the" 5. reinforced skull standard ”in Oranienburg . In August 1940 he began his training in the official business of a police chief in Danzig , which he completed in October. From October 25 to April 18, 1941 he was acting police chief in Breslau .

From January 1, 1942 "SS leader in the RFSS staff", Breithaupt became "SS leader in the Reich Security Main Office " (RSHA) on March 1, 1942 . He went through the "Führer course for the SS administration service" in the SS leadership school of the economic administration service , which also provided for assignments in the various SS main offices. Breithaupt resigned from the Protestant Church on May 19, 1942 and then described himself as " believing in God ".

On August 15, 1942, Franz Breithaupt succeeded Paul Scharfe as head of the main SS court office in Munich. As a result, he was released from civil service on September 18, 1942. The SS was not subject to the normal martial law of the Wehrmacht , but had its own jurisdiction for violations of the law by its members. The paragraphs of the Military Code and the War Criminal Procedure Code did not apply , but according to a “Guide to SS and Police Jurisdiction” from 1944, “justice should result from the German sense of justice and the National Socialist worldview”. The main office of the SS Court, headed by Breithaupt, was the highest administrative authority for the SS and police jurisdiction and supervised the jurisdiction.

On February 22, 1943 he was an assessor when the death sentence against the Scholl siblings was pronounced by the People's Court under Roland Freisler .

Breithaupt was shot by his driver shortly before the end of the war.

Honorary positions

In the spring of 1933 Franz Breithaupt became the editor of the Berlin newspaper "Deutscher Sport - The sports organ of the national survey". He also became a representative of the German Gymnastics Association in the Brandenburg district. In 1934, Breithaupt became the treasurer of the German Life Rescue Society (DLRG). On December 6, 1935, Breithaupt became an honorary Gau leader of Gau III (Berlin-Brandenburg) in the German Reich Association for physical exercises . In 1941 Franz Breithaupt became President of the German Life Saving Society ( DLRG) . In October 1942 Franz Breithaupt became honorary Gaufführer of the Sportgau Munich-Upper Bavaria of the National Socialist Reich Association for Physical Exercise (NSRL) and deputy leader of the association "Deutsche Sportpresse".

evaluation

The sports historian Hajo Bernett describes Breithaupt's life path as "characterized by the characteristics of a typical German male life, fixated on the elements of a traditional male ideology". His intellectual horizon was filled with clichéd ideas about Germanness. He linked “gymnastics and National Socialism” and propagated the “path from Jahn to Hitler”. Bernett: "Breithaupt was thus a representative of the focus of German sport on Hitler." According to research by Bernett, the fate of Breithaupt after the end of the war is unclear.

Awards, Nazi awards

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Andreas Schulz and Günter Wegmann: Germany's Generals and Admirals - Part V: The Generals of the Waffen-SS and the Police 1933–1945 , Biblio-Verlag Bissendorf 2003, 1st volume, pp. 158–162.
  2. ↑ SS Personnel Office: List of seniority of the NSDAP Schutzstaffel, as of December 1, 1937, serial no. 121 Oberführer
  3. ^ Henning Radtke: The SS and police jurisdiction - the jurisdiction of a self-appointed elite. In Albrecht Kirschner (Ed.): Deserters, Wehrkraftzersetzer and their judges Marburg interim balance sheet on Nazi military justice before and after 1945 . Published on behalf of the Marburg History Workshop. Publications of the Historical Commission, Volume 74, Marburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-942225-10-6 . P. 250 f.
  4. ^ Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Second updated edition, Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 74.
  5. ↑ Glossary B. Breithaupt, Franz. In: 100 (0) key documents on German history in the 20th century ( 1000dokumente.de ). Bayerische Staatsbibliothek , accessed on February 1, 2020 .
  6. ↑ a b Hajo Bernett: Franz Breithaupt - From Managing Director of the German Gymnastics Association to General of the Waffen SS . In: Social and Contemporary History of Sport . 12th year, issue 3. Meyer & Meyer, Aachen November 1998, p. 46 f .
personal data
SURNAME Breithaupt, Franz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer, SS-Obergruppenführer and general of the Waffen-SS, chief of the main SS court office
DATE OF BIRTH December 8, 1880
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH April 29, 1945
Place of death Prien am Chiemsee