Friedrich Karl Florian

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Friedrich Karl Florian (1934)

Friedrich Karl Florian (born February 4, 1894 in Essen , † October 24, 1975 in Mettmann ) was Gauleiter of the NSDAP of the Gaus Düsseldorf .

Life

The son of a senior railway master from East Prussia attended secondary school in Essen and the Stallupönen district . Between 1912 and 1929 he was employed as a mine clerk in Buer . During the First World War , he volunteered and was used as an infantryman and fighter pilot.

From 1920 Florian was a member of the Deutschvölkischer Schutz- und Trutzbundes . He founded the local group Buer of the "Association of National-Minded Soldiers" and took over functions in the "Westfalentreubund". In 1924 he joined the “ Völkisch-Soziale Block ”, founded to circumvent the NSDAP ban, and the “ National Socialist Freedom Movement ”. In 1925 he founded the local group Buer of the NSDAP and joined the SA . In 1927 he became district leader of the party in the Emscher-Lippe district . From January 1, 1930 until the unconditional surrender of the Third Reich on May 8, 1945, he was Gauleiter of the Gau of Düsseldorf.

From the election in September 1930 , Florian was also a member of the Reichstag . He was also a member of the Prussian State Council and was chairman of the Rhenish Municipal Council . He remained a member of the Reichstag until 1945. On May 1, 1936, he was appointed to the Reich leadership. From September 25, 1933 he was SA-Gruppenführer and on January 30, 1937 SA-Obergruppenführer . In 1939 he became Reich Defense Commissioner . In 1941 he was one of the invited guests at the opening ceremony of the Institute for Research into the Jewish Question , initiated by the Nazi chief ideologist Alfred Rosenberg .

In the Empire Exhibition Working People 1937 created Schlagetersiedlung Florian lived in the biggest house, built by Peter Grund . At Theodor-Andresen-Strasse 1, the swastikas on the bronze grids are now provided with welded bronze roses. In 1944 a bunker was built in Lantz'schen Park for the Gauleiter and Reich Defense Commissioner Florian.

He was also responsible for the fact that shortly before the Oberkassel Rhine Bridge / Skagerrak Bridge was blown up on March 3, 1945 in Düsseldorf, Hitler Youth minors were brought from the Oberkassel district on the left bank of the Rhine and, completely inadequately armed, were deployed southeast of Düsseldorf in a hopeless fight against American armored forces . Only two of the young people from the Oberkassel Hitler Youth survived.

On April 16, 1945, some citizens of Düsseldorf, including Deputy Police President Franz Jürgens , tried to arrest the local National Socialist authorities in order to hand Düsseldorf over to the American troops without a fight. Five citizens were shot after a trial court ruled and on the orders of Gauleiter Friedrich Karl Florian. The judgment of the court martial was later confirmed by the Federal Court of Justice and only overturned in 1999 as a result of the law to repeal unjust judgments of the Nazis . With this act, Florian has integrated himself into the list of final phase criminals.

He was interned after the end of World War II , but released from US internment in 1951. According to his own statements, Florian's political views had not changed after the internment. According to the British secret service, he then belonged as an employee of the former Nazi State Secretary Werner Naumann to the Naumann circle , which wanted to infiltrate the young Federal Republic of Germany. The displaced persons' associations enabled him to write various articles about their lost homeland, with which Florian earned his living.

In the course of the 68 student movement , he became the target of protests. The background was his behavior in the last days and weeks of the Second World War . According to contemporary witnesses, he had forced laborers to be executed in the last few hours before the Allied forces marched in for nothing. In response to the student protests, he described himself in a detailed letter to the Rheinische Post as an “innocent citizen” and showed no remorse for his behavior at the time. In March 1967, Florian's apartment had been searched on suspicion of disseminating anti-constitutional publications and incitement to hatred. During the search, address lists of former NSDAP members with whom Florian was still in contact were confiscated.

literature

  • Erwin Dickhoff: Essen heads. Who was what Bacht, Essen 1985, ISBN 3-87034-037-1 .
  • Peter Hüttenberger : The Gauleiter. Study on the change in the power structure in the NSDAP. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1969, (series of the quarterly books for contemporary history 19, ISSN  0506-9408 ), (extended dissertation, Bonn, 1966).
  • LG Düsseldorf, March 5, 1949 . In: Justice and Nazi crimes . Collection of German criminal judgments for Nazi homicides 1945–1966, Vol. IV, edited by Adelheid L Rüter-Ehlermann, CF Rüter . Amsterdam: University Press, 1970, No. 125, pp. 191-257 Trial of three defendants for crimes of the final stage. Acquittal.

Web links

Commons : Friedrich Karl Florian  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ registry office Mettmann, S 410/1975; the last place of residence was Düsseldorf-Unterbach.
  2. ↑ a b c 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. 156.
  3. ↑ a b High and noble. In: Der Spiegel 20/1967 of May 8, 1967, p. 81.
  4. ↑ Ernst Klee, Personenlexikon p. 156 with reference to the source BA N 1080/273.
personal data
SURNAME Florian, Friedrich Karl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (NSDAP), MdR, Gauleiter of the NSDAP of Düsseldorf
DATE OF BIRTH February 4, 1894
PLACE OF BIRTH eat
DATE OF DEATH October 24, 1975
Place of death Mettmann