Fritz Karl Engel

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Fritz Karl Engel

Fritz Karl Engel (* 3. August 1898 in Strelowhagen , Pomerania , † after 1952) was a German police officer and SS - functionary .

Live and act

Engel took part in the First World War from 1914 to 1918 . After the Kapp Putsch of 1920 he was released from the Reichswehr . From then on he worked as a businessman.

In 1924 Engel joined the Stahlhelm Front Soldiers Association , but in 1925 he turned to the NSDAP ( membership number 25.147), which he joined on December 7, 1925. In the party he was assigned to the Essen-Ruhr local group. In the Sturmabteilung (SA) he took over the leadership of the Standarte Ruhr in 1927. In 1929, Engel was commissioned to set up the SS in the Ruhr area. His official entry into the SS (SS No. 2,400) followed on April 24, 1930, where he was immediately given the rank of SS standard leader .

From April 28 to September 14, 1930 Engel officiated as the leader of the SS Standard XI "Essen-Bergisches Land" and (at the same time) appointed administrator of the SS Standard XXII "West". He was then from September 14 to November 14, 1930 adjutant to SS-Oberführer West in Düsseldorf , and then from November 21, 1930 to June 24, 1931, he managed the SS Brigade Ruhr. From June 24, 1931 to July 15, 1932, Engel was staff leader in SS Section V and then until January 17, 1933 staff leader of SS Group West in Düsseldorf.

In January 1933 Engel was transferred to Berlin as an SS leader . After six months in the staff of the SS Group East, which was mainly responsible for the management of the SS units in the area of ​​the Reich capital Berlin and its surroundings as well as the eastern provinces, he held the post from June 12 to September 14, 1933 of the staff leader of this SS group. His superior in this position was the leader of the SS group East Kurt Daluege .

On September 15, 1933, Engel took over the leadership of SS Section XIII in Pomerania. He held this position until February 28, 1934. Practically at the same time he also served from September 26, 1933 to February 28, 1934 as police chief of Stettin . At Engel's instigation, the first concentration camp in the Szczecin area, the Bredow concentration camp , was set up on the site of the former Vulkan shipyard in Stettin-Bredow. After the serious mistreatment of prisoners committed there under the aegis of Engels subordinate Joachim Hoffmann , the head of the Stettin Gestapo, became public, the camp was closed on March 11th at the instigation of the Prussian State Ministry .

Since Heinrich Himmler saw his SS compromised by the Stettin events, Engel, whom Himmler held responsible for this desaveu, was suspended as SS leader in April 1934. On July 4, 1934, he was released from the SS at his own request (June 22, 1934). In the so-called Bredow Trial of 1934, which dealt with the crimes committed by the SS in the Bredow concentration camp, Engel was not charged because his subordinates refused to make statements that incriminated their boss, both in the preliminary proceedings and in the main hearing. In addition, the State Secretary in the Prussian State Ministry, Paul Körner , had instructed the State Secretary in the Justice Ministry, Roland Freisler , in April 1934 not to take any action against Engel for the time being.

After Gustav Fink, convicted as a participant in the abuse of prisoners in Bredow, testified in custody that Engel not only knew about the abuse of prisoners, he had even ordered it and that he had also blackmailed prisoners for personal gain, Engel was ordered in June 1934 the Central Public Prosecutor's Office in the Prussian State Ministry still arrested. However, the advocacy of his powerful protectors Heinrich Himmler (Inspector of the Secret State Police) and Kurt Daluge (Chief of the Ordnungspolizei) saved him from worse consequences: Himmler spoke out in favor of suppressing the proceedings, since Engel was a deserving front officer and old "party member" He particularly emphasized that Engel was addicted to morphine as a result of a lung shot he suffered in the war with asthmatic consequences, which explains his failure in Stettin. Even before charges could be brought, the proceedings, in which the public prosecutor Werner von Haacke expected a long prison sentence, had to be discontinued due to the amnesty law of August 1934.

From May 12, 1934 to 1945, Engel then served as director of the Berlin garbage disposal facility (garbage disposal company), a post that his protector Kurt Daluege had given him. After Engel became captain of the police in the SS Police Division in 1940 , he was re-accepted into the organization on September 1, 1941 under his old SS number with the rank of SS-Hauptsturmführer . In 1943 he was promoted to police major and SS-Sturmbannführer . In the last days of the war, Engel fled to Flensburg, following the northern rats line .

In 1949/1950, the Stettin proceedings were legally reopened: As part of a trial before the Flensburg Regional Court , Engel had to answer for the killing and mistreatment of prisoners by the SS men under him. In particular, he was accused of eighteen cases of bodily harm in office in unity with serious bodily harm and deprivation of liberty. By judgment of May 23, 1950, he was sentenced to five years and one month in prison. This judgment was overturned on April 22, 1952 by the Federal Court of Justice. The new sentence was two years and six months, which were considered served by the pre-trial detention.

After 1952, no published information is available about Engels' whereabouts, whom Bruno Retzlaff-Kresse describes as “one of the darkest figures in the Nazi hierarchy”.

Promotions

  • April 28, 1930: SS Standartenführer
  • July 15, 1932: SS-Oberführer
  • April 1934: Exclusion from the SS
  • September 1941: SS-Hauptsturmführer (after resumption)
  • July 29, 1942: SS-Hauptsturmführer d. R. of the Waffen-SS (with effect from September 1, 1941)
  • November 9, 1942: SS-Sturmbannführer
  • June 24, 1943: SS-Sturmbannführer d. R. of the Waffen-SS (with effect from September 12, 1943)

literature

  • Lothar Gruchmann : Justice in the Third Reich 1933–1940: Adaptation and submission in the Gürtner era , Munich 2001, especially p. 352f.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Supervisory Board minutes of May 11, 1934 in: Landesarchiv Berlin, A Pr. Br. Rep. 057 No. 1758
  2. ↑ Wolfgang Benz / Barbara Distel / Angela Königseder / Verena Walter: Instrumentarium der Macht: early concentration camps 1933-1937 , 2003, p. 68.
  3. ↑ Stephan Link: "Rattenlinie Nord". War criminals in Flensburg and the surrounding area in May 1945. In: Gerhard Paul, Broder Schwensen (Hrsg.): Mai '45. End of the war in Flensburg. Flensburg 2015, p. 22.
  4. ↑ Bruno Retzlaff-Kresse: Illegality-Dungeon-Exile. Memories from the anti-fascist struggle . Dietz Verlag, Berlin (East) 1981, p. 51.
personal data
SURNAME Engel, Fritz Karl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German police president and SS leader
DATE OF BIRTH August 3, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Strelowhagen , Naugard district
DATE OF DEATH 20th century or 21st century