Friedrich Kochheim

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Friedrich Kochheim (born December 15, 1891 in Dortmund ; † August 23, 1955 ) was a German engineer , inventor and entrepreneur and prisoner, particularly in the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp .

Life

A Grude stove from around Kochheim's birth

Fritz Kochheim, born in Dortmund in 1891, became both the owner and managing director of a medium-sized company in the then still independent town of Linden near Hanover in 1918 . As the head of “ Tänzer's Original Grudeofenfabrik from 1907 ”, he had further developed the so-called “Tänzer- Grude ”: after this coal stove could previously also be used as a “warming chest”, Kochheim turned it into an all-rounder.

After the National Socialists seized power , Friedrich Kochheim - like many other industrialists - became a supporting member of the SS in the summer of 1934 , "whether voluntary or compulsory can no longer be clarified today."

In 1942 Kochheim was denounced for "subversive statements" and arrested by the Gestapo . This began a journey through various prisons and concentration camps for Kochheim . The convicted of insulting the " Führer ", defamation of the Gestapo and " economic crimes " was brought from Buchenwald to Mittelbau-Dora at the end of January 1944 . There, more than 10,000 prisoners vegetated and died in the so-called "sleeping tunnels ". In his 1952 published book Balance Sheet: Experiences and Thoughts described Kochheim, the "Dora" prisoner 21 549 ,

“... the horrific discovery that dead comrades lay between the ( lavatory ) buckets . Disgust and outrage rose up in me, and it seemed incomprehensible to me that civilians were working in this place of horror who lived outside the camp and did not reveal anything about what was horrific here. "

When production of the V2 ( retaliation weapon 2 ) began in the so-called “Mittelbau” , Kochheim was assigned to the “Merchants Command” as engineer and operations manager. But despite his comparatively privileged job, the conditions of his forced labor weakened him so much that he was admitted to the infirmary in early 1945. There he could observe the suffering of his fellow inmates in the "Revier". In February 1945 Kochheim witnessed a mass execution in the tunnel. In his later book Bilanz , Kochheim described "unequivocally the purpose of the underground armaments works , [...] its connection with the concentration camp, the interlinking of SS and civil supervision over slave labor by camp inmates."

With the advance of the Allies at the end of World War II , the SS began evacuating "Dora" - and shot those who could not keep up on the forced marches. Via one of the transports, the so-called "Taifun Express" came Kochheim in an odyssey through Germany and Czechoslovakia finally to Austria in the branch camp Ebensee the concentration camps Mauthausen . There he was liberated on May 6, 1945.

Soon afterwards, Friedrich Kochheim, whose sons Fritz and Rudolf had meanwhile died on the Eastern Front , began writing down his experiences as a prisoner of the National Socialists. In his autobiographical book balance: experiences and thoughts , which as one of the most important documentation is valid about the concentration camp, the balance sheet of the Catholic :

"Things must never fall into the kind of oblivion that makes it possible that the face of man will ever again be desecrated in this way."

At the same time, the formerly wealthy entrepreneur fought for both his social and legal rehabilitation : In 1950, however, a court initially "only lifted the punishment from the insidious trial, not [but] the conviction for defamation (of a Gestapo official!) And for violating the War Economy Ordinance . ”In a revision procedure, the conviction for defamation was also overturned,“ The prison sentence for violating the War Economy Ordinance was confirmed. ”Legally, Kochheim continued to have a criminal record and was therefore excluded from the right to compensation .

After the Federal Compensation Act came into force in 1953 , Kochheim again applied for compensation in prison in September 1954 - but no decision was made in the proceedings, as Friedrich Kochheim died on August 23, 1955 at the age of 63.

Fonts

family

The family's tomb in the New St. Nikolai Cemetery in Hanover

The name Friedrich Kochheim can be traced back to the inventor's life several times: shortly after Kochheim was born in Dortmund, the address book of that city from 1894 showed a baker of the same name at Augustastrasse 14 .

Former concentration camp inmate Friedrich Kochheim was buried in a family grave in the New St. Nikolai Cemetery in Hanover . It has inscriptions for the two sons: “cand. forest. Fritz Kochheim "(* May 6, 1920; fallen May 9, 1942 in Russia) and" High School Graduate Rudolf Kochheim "(* February 2, 1923; fallen Easter 1945 in Russia) as well as for Theodora Kochheim (May 13, 1894; April 27 1966) and the industrial engineer Gerhard Kochheim (January 10, 1928; † June 13, 2011). After Gerhard Kochheim's death , the Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung (HAZ) published an obituary notice of the bereaved in 2011 , among whom there was also a "Friedrich Kochheim and family". In 2013 the tombstone still has an unmarked area free.

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Compare the documentation at Commons (see under the section Web Links )
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Jörg Kulbe: Considered: Memories In: online edition of the Neue Nordhäuser Zeitung . April 22, 2003, last accessed April 4, 2013.
  3. ^ A b c Claus Conrad: Friedrich Kochheim's tomb (1891–1955). In: St. Nikolai Stift zu Hannover (Hrsg.): New St. Nikolai cemetery. Your guide. (Open overview map with explanations of individual grave sites, with texts on the Nikolai Chapel and the Old and New St. Nikolai Cemetery). 3rd revised edition. Self-published, Hanover 2013.
  4. ^ Klaus Mlynek : incorporations. In: Klaus Mlynek, Waldemar R. Röhrbein (eds.) U. a .: City Lexicon Hanover . From the beginning to the present. Schlütersche, Hannover 2009, ISBN 978-3-89993-662-9 , p. 153.
  5. ↑ Compare this transcription of the Verein für Computergenealogie
  6. ↑ Compare this obituary notice in the HAZ from June 18, 2011, last accessed on April 5, 2013
personal data
SURNAME Kochheim, Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German engineer, inventor, entrepreneur, SS member and concentration camp prisoner as well as author
DATE OF BIRTH December 15, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Dortmund
DATE OF DEATH 23rd August 1955