Friedrich Bosshammer

Friedrich Robert Boßhammer (born December 20, 1906 in Opladen ; † December 17, 1972 ) was a German lawyer and SS-Sturmbannführer and, as a Jewish advisor in Italy, one of Adolf Eichmann's closest collaborators .

School, education and private life

Friedrich Boßhammer grew up as the son of a machinist and later technical secretary for the Reichsbahn together with two sisters in Opladen. There he attended elementary school and then until 1926 the secondary school . After graduation, he studied law in Cologne and Heidelberg and passed the first state examination in law at the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court in 1931 and, on repetition, in August 1935, the second state examination with the grade “sufficient”. In 1936 he left the Protestant church and married. This marriage, which was divorced in 1949, had four children. In 1952 he married Luise Göhlmann.

Professional and political career

In April 1933 he joined the SA and with effect from May 1 of the same year joined the NSDAP (membership number 2,326,130); because of the " Röhm Putsch " he left the SA in September 1934. Because of his exam results, he was unable to realize his intention to serve as a judge. He joined the Hitler Youth and was increasingly active in the NSDAP, running children's camps and youth camps . On October 1, 1937, he joined the SS (membership number 307.435) and was initially employed by the SD in Aachen . His job was to gather news and write reports in the areas of administration, law and youth. In October 1940 he joined the security police in Wiesbaden as a court officer and investigating officer and was promoted to SS-Hauptsturmführer in March 1941 . From 1941 he worked for the Secret State Police in Wiesbaden and Kassel, among other things in "Jewish affairs". In January 1942 he was transferred to the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) in Berlin , Division IV B 4 ( Eichmannreferat ) and was promoted to SS-Sturmbannführer on November 9, 1943.

In 1940, Bosshammer was described in a personal sheet as firm, comradely and soldierly, with a special sense of duty and above-average agility, energetic, with considered judgment and above-average firmness in his worldview .

Activities in the "Judenreferat" (Section IV B 4)

As a clerk in the Eichmann department, Boßhammer was entrusted with the tasks of “ preparing the solution to the European Jewish question in political terms ” and “ counter-propaganda against the intensified atrocity of the enemy states about the final solution to the European Jewish question ”. In May 1943, before the German occupation of Italy , he received an order from Eichmann to report on the status of the "Jewish question" in Italy and to contact the German Foreign Ministry on this matter . At the end of January 1944, he was seconded as the successor to Theodor Dannecker to commander the Security Police and the SD (BdS) in Verona . There he had the task of carrying out the “Final Solution” in Italy as a “Jewish advisor” and in this position he had particular independence. He consistently opposed the personal agreement reached with the Republican-Fascist government of Italy not to arrest or deport any Jews from mixed marriages . The Italian authorities intervened continuously, but unsuccessfully, because of individual mixed marriages. On his orders, more than 6,000 Italian Jews were arrested and deported to extermination camps by September 1944 , with the Fossoli concentration camp playing an important role as a transit camp . While Boßhammer was responsible for drawing up the deportation lists of the Jews, those for the deportation of political prisoners were drawn up by his Gestapo colleague SS-Sturmbannführer Friedrich Kranebitter .

Heinrich Himmler awarded Boßhammer the War Merit Cross, Second Class with Swords, on September 1, 1944 . In the same month he was appointed head of the Sipo External Command Padua and tried to deport the Jews living in his sphere of influence. The “Judenreferat” in Italy was essentially dissolved at this point. By the end of the war , a total of around 7,750 Jews had been deported from Italy.

Friedrich Boßhammer and his predecessor Theodor Dannecker were among the advisors to Jews, along with Alois Brunner , Dieter Wisliceny and Franz Abromeit, among Eichmann's confidants and closest collaborators.

After the war

At the end of April 1945 he went to Austria as Sergeant "Max Fritz Müller" with false papers and was taken prisoner by the Americans , from which he was released in August. In addition to internment in Recklinghausen between January 1947 and April 1948 (which was credited to him as a category IV follower in the denazification proceedings in 1948), he lived undisturbed in West Germany and was able to keep his work as a "Judenreferent" secret. In August 1952 he was even admitted to the bar at the local and regional court in Wuppertal .

After the name Boßhammer was found in a list of suggestions for the War Merit Cross in 1963, the Central Office in Ludwigsburg began to investigate. The Dortmund public prosecutor continued to investigate the deportations from Northern Italy, for which Boßhammer was considered to be the main responsible. At the same time, there was an investigation against employees of the Reich Security Main Office in Berlin. On January 11, 1968 Boßhammer was arrested on "suspicion of accessory to murder of at least 150,000 Jews" and came in detention ; the proceedings because of his activity in northern Italy were linked to it. The main hearing before the Berlin Regional Court began on November 16, 1971 and was limited to the charge of having jointly murdered an unspecified number of Italian Jews, at least 3,336 people.

Throughout the process, the defendant showed no sense of wrongdoing, remorse or shame. He presented himself as a powerless tool within overpowering command structures, without knowledge of the murders and without motives of his own or even racial hatred. The indictment showed, however, that Boßhammer was an ambitious perpetrator with freedom of choice and action. On April 11, 1972, Bosshammer was sentenced to life imprisonment. The judgment did not become final because he passed away at the end of the same year.

literature

• Sara Berger: Self-portrayal of a 'Jewish advisor' in court - Friedrich Boßhammer and the 'functionalist image of perpetrators'. In: Jahrbuch für Antisemitismusforschung 17 (2008), pp. 243–268.
• Gerhard Paul , Klaus-Michael Mallmann (ed.): The Gestapo in the Second World War , WBG , Darmstadt 2000. ISBN 3-89678-188-X .
• Ernst Klee : The Personal Lexicon for the Third Reich: Who Was What Before and After 1945? Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 .
• Michael Okroy "... there can be no doubt that he will use his strength to build a free Germany." Nazi perpetrators from Wuppertal: back to "normality" in a roundabout way. in: Geschichte im Wuppertal Vol. 8, 1999, pp. 105–130, ISSN  1436-008X .
• Ludwig Laher : Bitter. Roman , Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2014, ISBN 978-3-8353-1387-3 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Sara Berger: "Self-staging of a 'Judenberater' in court - Friedrich Boßhammer and the 'functionalist image of perpetrators'", in: Yearbook for Antisemitism Research 17 (2008), p. 245.
2. ↑ Liliana Picciotto : La macchina antiebraica della RSI e l'Ispettore generale per la razza Giovanni Preziosi. In: Michele Sarfatti (ed.): La Repubblica sociale italiana a Desenzano: Giovanni Preziosi e l'Ispettorato generale per la razza. Giuntina, Florence 2008 ISBN 978-88-8057-301-2 p. 19
3. ↑ Ludwig Laher: Bitter. Roman , Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2014, ISBN 978-3-8353-1387-3 , p. 141 f.
4. ↑ Michael Okroy: "... it cannot be doubted that he will use his strength to build a free Germany." Nazi perpetrators from Wuppertal: back to "normality" in a roundabout way . In: History in Wuppertal . tape 8 , 1999, p. 124 .
5. ^ Sara Berger: Self-staging ... , p. 252f.