Friedrich Krauss (SA member)

Friedrich 'Fritz' Georg Otto Krauss (born March 14, 1894 in Fürth ; † after 1941) was a German SA functionary . Among other things, he acted as staff leader of the SA group in Berlin.

Life and activity

Krauss was a son of the businessman Georg Kraus (born March 18, 1859; November 21, 1917) and his wife Bertha, b. King (born November 20, 1867). As a child, Krauss attended the public school in Leipzig and then for three years an elementary school in Berlin and from 1903 to 1911 the humanist Friedrich-Werdersche Gymnasium in Berlin , which he left shortly before the Prima in August 1911. He then learned banking from September 1911 to April 1913.

From April 15, 1913 to August 1, 1914 Krauss worked in his father's business, a machine shop for bookbinding, book printing and cardboard packaging machines.

At the beginning of the First World War , Krauss registered as a volunteer in the Bavarian Army , with which he took part in the war with the 6th Bavarian Infantry Regiment until 1918. During the war he was promoted to lieutenant (lieutenant patent from September 30, 1916) and awarded the Iron Cross 2nd class (December 24, 1915).

From 1919 to 1932 Krauss worked as an independent businessman in the machine trade. Politically, he was initially active in the Freedom Party from 1920 to 1926 without belonging to it, and from 1925 in the Defense Organization Frontbann Nord in Berlin, for which he kept weapons hidden in his apartment.

On August 1, 1929, Krauss joined the NSDAP under the name Crusius (membership number 143.678).

In the course of the suppression of the Stennes revolt , an uprising by parts of the Berlin SA against the Munich party leadership of the NSDAP in April 1931, Krauss, who was one of the loyal SA men who did not take part in the uprising, was declared on April 1, 1931 Appointed acting staff leader of the SA Standard 3. After the imprisonment of the leaders of the Berlin SA Wolf-Heinrich von Helldorff and his staff leader Karl Ernst due to their role in the Kurfürstendamm riot of September 1931, Krauss acted from September 21 to November 14, 1931 as acting staff chief of the SA sub-group Greater Berlin. From February 22, 1932 to July 25, 1932, Krauss belonged to SA Standard 3 as SA leader zV (group order 936 of February 22, 1932).

On July 26, 1932, Krauss was appointed staff leader of the SA sub-group East (the SA sub-group Berlin had meanwhile been elevated to a regular SA group and two sub-groups of its own were subordinate to it). In this position he stood by the leader of this sub-group, Karl Ernst. At that time he was one of the six highest functionaries of the Berlin SA, alongside the leaders of the Berlin-Brandenburg SA group, the leaders of the Berlin East and West subgroups and the staff leaders of the Berlin-Brandenburg group and the West subgroup. Shortly after the Reichstag fire of February 28, 1933, Krauss was assigned a position in the staff of the Berlin-Brandenburg SA group on March 9, 1933 .

In the period from April 20, 1933 to February 28, 1934, Krauss was editor and editor of the daily newspaper The Attack .

From March 1, 1934 to June 30, 1934 Krauss acted as staff leader of SA Brigade 6 in Danzig.

After the liquidation of a large part of the leadership of the Berlin-Brandenburg SA group in the course of the Röhm affair in the summer of 1934, a comprehensive political cleansing and reorganization of the same took place in the following weeks under the supervision of the Berlin SS chief Kurt Daluege . This called u. a. Krauss in the committee of inquiry appointed by him, which was entrusted with carrying out the cleaning up of the group, which was primarily responsible for carrying out investigative procedures to check whether individual leading Berlin SA members had been charged political burdens in previous years had existed. Above all, from July 5 to October 5, 1934, he was commissioned by Dalueges to manage the business of the chief of staff of the Berlin-Brandenburg group in place of the shot Wilhelm Sander .

In the following years Krauss worked as a department head in the Reichsbund der Officials.

During the Second World War Krauss was reactivated as an officer. He was successively promoted to first lieutenant (September 1, 1941) and captain (September 1, 1942).

family

On April 15, 1937 Krauss married Apula Wolf (born April 25, 1911 in Frankfurt am Main). The marriage resulted in the son Dieter (born December 30, 1937) and the daughter Steffi (December 13, 1940).

Promotions

• September 9, 1932: SA Standartenführer
• November 9, 1934: SA Oberführer

estate

Personnel documents on Krauss have been preserved in the Federal Archives in Berlin: there is a PK file and an SA file in the former BDC.

literature

• Bernhard Sauer: "Goebbels'" Rabauken ". On the history of the SA in Berlin-Brandenburg", in: Berlin in past and present. Yearbook of the Berlin State Archives , Berlin 2006.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Marriage register of the Berlin Tempelhof registry office for 1937: marriage register number 135/1937.
2. ↑ Fuehrer's order of the Supreme SA Leadership II of September 9, 1932.