Friedrich Krebs (politician)

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Friedrich ("Fritz") Krebs (born May 9, 1894 in Germersheim ; † May 6, 1961 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German lawyer and member of the NSDAP . During the National Socialist era , he was Lord Mayor of Frankfurt am Main from March 1933 to March 1945 .

Life

Krebs grew up in Alsace and attended schools in Thann , Weißenburg and Strasbourg . After graduating from high school in 1912, he studied law and political science at the Kaiser Wilhelm University of Strasbourg . During his studies in 1913 he became a member of the Germania Strasbourg fraternity . From 1914 to 1918 he took part in the First World War as a war volunteer . After the annexation of Alsace by France, he was expelled from Strasbourg at the end of 1918 and came to Frankfurt am Main, where he passed his legal state examination in 1919 . After receiving his doctorate in 1922 at the University of Gießen , he was judge at the local and regional court in Frankfurt from 1923 to 1925 , from 1926 to 1928 employee of the German representation at the German-English arbitration court in Berlin and from 1928 to 1933 regional judge in the 4th Civil Chamber of the Frankfurt Higher Regional Court .

Politician

Parallel to his legal career, he was involved in the Völkische movement (1922 to 1925). In 1924 he became the Frankfurt local group leader of the National Socialist Freedom Party , a substitute organization for the then banned NSDAP. In 1929 he joined the NSDAP, for which he moved in 1932 as a member of the Prussian state parliament, to which he belonged until the body was dissolved in October 1933.

When the Lord Mayor of Frankfurt, Ludwig Landmann , was expelled from office on March 12, 1933 as a result of Hitler's seizure of power and the associated new elections in the city ​​council , Krebs was appointed his acting successor. On June 13th, his appointment was confirmed in an election by the new parliament. However, almost only members of the NSDAP were present at the election. The members of the SPD and the KPD would have had a joint majority, but were previously banned. Cancer itself was not present.

On March 28, 1933, Krebs ordered all Jewish employees and officials in the city to be removed from office. This affected 81 members of the city administration or city societies. A legal basis for this was created a few days later with the law for the restoration of the civil service of 7 April 1933. The statue of Friedrich Ebert in front of the Paulskirche in Frankfurt also had to disappear. In 1935, after Adolf Hitler's consent was given by telegram, Krebs named Frankfurt City of German Crafts , although as successor to Ludwig Landmann he was temporarily chairman of the board of directors of HaFraBa and initially tried several times to get Frankfurt the title city ​​of streets . The General Inspector for German Roads, Fritz Todt , knew how to successfully prevent this request in order to erase any memory of the place where HaFraBa was founded and the immense importance of this association for the preparatory work on the Autobahn ; During his time at work, Todt tried very hard to attribute the fame for the autobahn idea to Hitler alone and thus to let the Fuehrer's streets shine in undiminished splendor.

Krebs, who was also active in the Reichsmusikkammer , became head of the Reichsfachschaft Konzertwesen in 1935. In 1937 he joined the SA , in which he rose to Obersturmbannführer in 1939. In 1941 he was one of the keynote speakers on the occasion of the opening of Rosenberg's anti-Semitic Frankfurt Institute for Research into the Jewish Question .

After the heavy air raids on Frankfurt on March 18 and 22, 1944, the NSDAP held a cancer rally under the motto We will never capitulate! . The Second World War ended for Frankfurt on March 28, 1945 .

Cancer after the end of the war

After his escape and subsequent arrest, Krebs was interned in the Darmstadt camp by the American military government until 1948 . In 1947 he was classified as less polluted in the arbitration chamber proceedings . The reason was that he had exercised his office fairly, correctly, cleanly and uninfluenced by National Socialist tendencies , so that his behavior was not sanctioned. Decisive for this assessment were the numerous Persilscheine that fellow citizens issued to his discharge. These related to individual events, e.g. B. Krebs' instruction to the fire brigade on November 9, 1938, to extinguish the burning Westend synagogue , or his conflicts with Gauleiter Jakob Sprenger . It should be noted, however, that in his twelve-year term in office, Krebs was jointly responsible for all measures to bring the Frankfurt institutions into line ( Johann Wolfgang Goethe University , Städtische Bühnen ), to enforce the Nazi racial policy and to destroy the Jewish community in Frankfurt up to and including deportation in 1941/42 Has.

He became party chairman and city councilor of the German party and tried from 1950 to 1953 for admission to the bar , which the Hessian Ministry of Justice, however, refused to do. a. because of a public speech hostile to democracy and influenced by the National Socialist spirit in 1952. It was not until November 1953, after he had resigned his mandate as a city councilor and resigned from the DP, that he was admitted to the bar and established himself as a lawyer. He lost a legal dispute between 1956 and 1961 with the city about his pension as Lord Mayor. However, the city approved him the pension of a district judge.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dieter Rebentisch: Frankfurt am Main in the Weimar Republic and in the Third Reich 1918-1945 in: Frankfurter Historical Commission (Hrsg.): Frankfurt am Main - The history of the city in nine contributions. (=  Publications of the Frankfurt Historical Commission . Volume XVII ). Jan Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1991, ISBN 3-7995-4158-6 , p. 488 .
  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. 337.
personal data
SURNAME Krebs, Friedrich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Krebs, Fritz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer and politician (NSDAP), MdL
DATE OF BIRTH May 9, 1894
PLACE OF BIRTH Germersheim
DATE OF DEATH May 6, 1961
Place of death Frankfurt am Main