Friederich D'heil

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Friederich D'heil , also Fritz D'heil (born July 8, 1898 in Hatzenport ; † September 19, 1971 in Düsseldorf ), was a German criminal investigator who was a functionary of the security police at the time of National Socialism and in the Federal Republic of Germany from 1948 to 1958 headed the State Criminal Police Office of North Rhine-Westphalia .

First World War and training

D'heil was the son of a postman. In 1916, after graduating from high school, he volunteered for the army and took part in the First World War as a soldier . After the war he worked as a farmer on his grandfather's estate and began studying medicine, which he broke off after four semesters. In 1926 he joined the police service as a trainee detective and was active in the detection service of the Düsseldorf Criminal Police. From 1928 to 1935 he was employed by the criminal police in Elberfeld and Wuppertal . He was appointed detective superintendent in 1929. D'heil was a specialist in a number of areas of forensic technology , including fire investigations, dactyloscopy and handwriting comparisons. In 1931 he was appointed as a sworn expert for forensic technology. He was responsible for fire and moral crimes in the 3rd police station in Wuppertal, and in the summer of 1935 he moved to the Essen criminal police station , where he was promoted to head of the 13th police station. From March 1, 1937, D'heil worked for the Gestapo at the Criminal Police Headquarters in Breslau , where he worked as a member of a sabotage commission headed by Walter Stahlecker .

Second World War

Command member of an SD task force in Poland

Removal of Jewish Men by an Task Force in Poland (September 1939)

A few days before the attack on Poland , on August 21, 1939, D'heil was recalled from Breslau to Einsatzkommando 2 of Einsatzgruppe III in order to take part in the German war of extermination against Poland with this special police formation under SS-Sturmbannführer Fritz Liphardt . After the occupation of Łódź by the 8th Army , from September 10, 1939, he was part of the management staff of the criminal police station, which after the city was renamed on April 11, 1940, was called the Litzmannstadt criminal police station.

Head of the criminal investigation department

Radegast Holocaust Memorial

Immediately after the military capture of the city, the German occupiers took action against the Jewish population in particular. Among the 672,000 inhabitants of Łódź were about 230,000 Jews, the second largest Jewish community in Poland after Warsaw . The local Polish intellectuals were recorded by the police and around 2,000 people were interned from November 10, 1939 to early January 1940 in a specially built prison camp in the Radogoszcz district , which resembled a concentration camp and was initially under the protection of the police. About 500 of these prisoners were murdered in the surrounding forests. Polish clergymen and most of the members of the first Judenrat were arrested and many of them shot. The three great synagogues of Lodz were blown up and burned down during D'heil's activity in the city.

Control of the Litzmannstadt ghetto

Deportation of Jews to the Litzmannstadt ghetto in March 1940

On December 10, 1939, District President Friedrich Uebelhoer sent out a circular on the “formation of a ghetto in the city of Lodsch”. In February 1940, the German Police President of Łódź, SS Brigade Leader Johannes Schäfer , declared the particularly backward districts of Stare Miasto (Old Town), Bałuty and Marysin, in which 90 percent of the houses had no sewage connection, to be ghetto in the north of the city . He issued a “special instruction” for concrete implementation. A copy of it was signed by D'heil for the criminal police subordinate to him “iV” and passed on to “the inspections, the 4th police station and the Pabianice branch for information and further reasons”. The Lodz ghetto was used as well as other Nazi ghettos mainly as a stopover before deportation to German death camp Kulmhof , Auschwitz-Birkenau , Majdanek , Treblinka and Sobibor . The shooting order for the police and criminal police contained in the guard was supposed to prevent all attempts to escape, as well as all attempts to smuggle food into the ghetto. The branch of the criminal police in the ghetto, known as the “Sonderkommando”, which moved into the rectory at Kościelna 8, was soon feared throughout the ghetto. It became known among the ghetto residents as "Czerwony Dom (Red House)", which referred to the red bricks of the facade, but also to the torture in the basement of the building. There were often shootings of ghetto residents by police officers. In police reports after the use of firearms at the ghetto fence, explicit reference was made to the “special order” of May 10, 1940 drawn up by D'heil, if justification was required from the point of view of the police.

Criminal Police Headquarters Hamburg

From October 1940 to November 1943 D'heil then worked at the Hamburg Criminal Police Headquarters. His area of ​​responsibility included the “ preventive fight against crime ”. As before, he worked as Head of Inspection in Łódź in a core area of ​​National Socialist criminal policy, the central instrument of which for preventive detention was “preventive detention by the police ”.

Deputy Head of the Judicial Police in Denmark

In November D'heil was seconded to the security police in Copenhagen . As deputy head of the criminal police (Department V) in Denmark Karl Zechenter, he was also involved in the fight against the Danish resistance movement. The raids carried out by Department V, partly in cooperation with the Gestapo, were aimed primarily at people who were classified as "anti- social " or " habitual criminals " according to the definition of the security police . Examples of this are the raids of September 27, 1944 in various coffee bars in Copenhagen , where about 160 people were arrested and taken to a German concentration camp that night, or the arrests of about 150 people as "habitual criminals" in late October and early November 1944 in Copenhagen.

Post-war career as a criminal investigator in North Rhine-Westphalia

After the end of the war, D'heil was interned in the Civilian Interrogation Center in Copenhagen, transferred to the Gadeland internment camp on November 17, 1945 and then to the Eselheide internment camp in autumn 1946 . After his release on January 31, 1947, on October 27, 1947 in Hamburg-Harburg, despite his membership in the NSDAP and his previous functions, he was classified in Category V as "exonerated" in the course of denazification . His defense strategy, which essentially corresponded to the emerging legend of the apolitical criminal police, paid off for him.

With reference to his many years of experience in the criminal investigation department, he successfully applied for the position of head of the State Criminal Police Office in Düsseldorf, leaving out burdensome Nazi activities. From March 8, 1948 until his retirement on September 30, 1958, he was head of the State Criminal Police Office in North Rhine-Westphalia . During his tenure, there were also accusations and criminal investigations due to his Nazi activities, which, however, had no consequences for him. As head of the LKA, he dedicated himself in particular to the reorganization of his office and the development and introduction of forensic equipment for collecting and managing data for keeping criminal and criminal offense registers. Because of his advocacy, two of his colleagues in the security police, the former criminal police officer Walter Helfsgott , who was heavily burdened by his involvement in Nazi crimes, and the former Gestapo employee Walter Thiel , were able to return to the police service.

A study presented in December 2019 by the historian Martin Hölzl on behalf of the LKA North Rhine-Westphalia came to the conclusion that the first four directors of the State Criminal Police Office - in addition to D'heil, his predecessor Friedrich Karst and Oskar Wenzky and Günter Grasner who followed D'heil - were involved in Nazi crimes. State Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU) assessed the result as follows: "From today's perspective, you should never have been allowed to work as police officers."

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Martin Hölzl: Report "NS past former head of the State Criminal Police Office of North Rhine-Westphalia". (pdf, 822 kB) p. 18ff. , accessed on February 9, 2020 .
  2. ^ Bastian Fleermann: The Commissioners: Criminal Police in Düsseldorf and in the Rhenish-Westphalian industrial area (1920–1950) . Droste, Düsseldorf 2018, ISBN 978-3-7700-6032-0 . Martin Hölzl: Expert opinion "Nazi past of former head of the State Criminal Police Office of North Rhine-Westphalia". (pdf, 822 kB) p. 18 , accessed on February 9, 2020 .
  3. ↑ Martin Hölzl: Report "NS past former head of the State Criminal Police Office of North Rhine-Westphalia". (pdf, 822 kB) pp. 19–22 , accessed on February 9, 2020 .
  4. ↑ The Book of the Łódź Martyrdom. A Guide to the Radogoszcz and other Sites of National Remembrance. Łódź 2005. pl: Muzeum Tradycji Niepodległościowych w Łodzi
  5. ↑ Martin Hölzl: Report "NS past former head of the State Criminal Police Office of North Rhine-Westphalia". (pdf, 822 kB) p. 25 , accessed on February 9, 2020 .
  6. ↑ Lodz: The Jewish Community: History. In: Virtual Shtetl. Retrieved January 24, 2020 .
  7. ↑ Andrea Löw: Jews in the Litzmannstadt ghetto. Living conditions, self-perception, behavior . Wallstein , Göttingen 2006, ISBN 978-3-8353-0050-7 .
  8. ^ Joanna Podolska: Traces of the Litzmannstadt Getto: A Guide to the Past . Piątek Trzynastego, Lodz 2004, ISBN 83-7415-000-9 .
  9. ↑ Martin Hölzl: Report "NS past former head of the State Criminal Police Office of North Rhine-Westphalia". (pdf, 822 kB) p. 29 , accessed on February 9, 2020 .
  10. ↑ Martin Hölzl: Report "NS past former head of the State Criminal Police Office of North Rhine-Westphalia". (pdf, 822 kB) p. 32 , accessed on February 9, 2020 .
  11. ↑ Martin Hölzl: Report "NS past former head of the State Criminal Police Office of North Rhine-Westphalia". (pdf, 822 kB) p. 34 , accessed on February 9, 2020 .
  12. ↑ Jürgen König: "Order and Destruction - the Police in the Nazi State": An exhibition in the German Historical Museum Berlin. In: Deutschlandfunk broadcast “Culture Today”. April 1, 2011, accessed January 4, 2020 .
  13. ↑ Several former LKA bosses were Nazi criminals. In: Spiegel Online . December 16, 2019, accessed December 16, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME D'heil, Friederich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES D'heil, Fritz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German criminal investigator and functionary of the security police
DATE OF BIRTH July 8, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Hatzenport
DATE OF DEATH 19th September 1971
Place of death Dusseldorf