Fritz Klein (SA member)

Fritz Klein (born December 14, 1908 in Pfaffenhofen in what is now the district of Heilbronn ; † October 18, 1966 in Cologne ) was an SA standard leader who was responsible for the "probably first systematic pogrom with fatalities after the so-called seizure of power ".

Life

origin

Klein came from a farming family, attended elementary and agricultural schools and helped out in his parents' farm until he was sixteen. He then worked briefly in shipbuilding in Hamburg before joining the Reichswehr , which he left as a private after two years due to an accident . In 1928 he began an apprenticeship in a tobacco factory in Dresden , where he also joined the SA in 1930. From 1931 he was back in his place of birth as a representative of the Dresden tobacco factory. In nearby Brackenheim he was initially an SA storm leader, and in 1932 he became a storm leader. In the same year he finally became leader of SA-Standarte 122, which had its seat first in Neckarsulm and later in the Brown House at Fleiner Straße 1 in Heilbronn .

Operations against Jews in March 1933

As SA banner leader made small talk in March 1933 by violent actions in Nordwürttemberg of himself, by the Heilbronner police -Unterkommissar Otto Sommer had been arranged and allegedly searching for weapons in the possession of Jews and other unwanted Nazism groups such as Communists and Social Democrats were . On March 18, 1933, the SA, under Klein's command, mistreated several members of the local Jewish community in Öhringen . The abused Jews were then photographed in front of the prison and then driven through the city center under further humiliation. On March 20, Klein and the police carried out such a “weapons search” in Künzelsau . The teacher Julius Goldstein was badly mistreated, as was Max Ledermann , the head of the Jewish community , who died of a heart attack the following day . On March 25, 1933, members of the Jewish community in Creglingen were rounded up under Klein's command . Sixteen men from the ward were brutally mistreated. On the same day, the 67-year-old Hermann Stern died as a result of the beatings, a few days later the 53-year-old Arnold Rosenfeld also died from his injuries. Klein's attack on the Creglingen Jewish community is described in Lion Feuchtwanger's novel Die Geschwister Oppenheim ; Fritz Klein is named there by his real name. Sommer immediately withdrew the command because of the extraordinary cruelty of the operations, but Klein nevertheless took part in further actions against Jews in Neckarsulm and Möckmühl .

Further career until the end of the war

Because of the incidents in Creglingen, Klein, who was appointed SA leader in Ravensburg in 1934 , was investigated by the criminal police, but proceedings initiated for bodily harm resulting in death were put down as a mercy in 1935. After the “ Röhm Putsch ” in 1934 he was expelled from the SA, but that did not change his attitude. He then worked as a farmer on a farm near Isny in the Allgäu . After a brief military deployment from 1941, during which he lost three fingers in his left hand, after which he was dismissed as incapacitated, he returned to the Allgäu, where he was most recently deputy head of a local NSDAP group.

Detention and trial in 1952

After the war ended, he was arrested by French officers and interned for about a year. In 1947 the Bad Mergentheim district court issued an arrest warrant for him. Klein went into hiding under a false name on a farm and was only arrested by German authorities on Menerhofer Berg in April 1951.

Although Fritz Klein had been involved in numerous attacks on Jews and other population groups, only the Creglingen case with sixteen physical injuries in office in 1952, two of which resulted in death, was reopened before the Ellwangen jury , since the remaining cases were statute barred. A former police officer was co-accused, but he was unable to follow the proceedings because of a serious head injury, which is why the proceedings against him were dropped. Klein was sentenced to five years in prison, of which he only served about one, as his time in captivity and pre-trial detention was credited. After a probationary period, his remaining sentence was finally released in 1957. He then lived as an innkeeper in Isny and Oberstaufen .

literature

• Jewish citizens in Öhringen - a documentation. City of Öhringen 1993, on Fritz Klein in particular pp. 37–43.
• Hartwig Behr, Horst F. Rupp: From life and death. Jews in Creglingen. 2nd Edition. Königshausen and Neumann, Würzburg 2001, ISBN 3-8260-2226-2 .

Web links

• Biography on sign-der-erinnerung.org
• Proceedings against Fritz Klein , article in the Heilbronn vote

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hartwig Behr, Horst Rupp: From living and dying. Jews in Creglingen. Quoted after the review on idw-online.de
2. ↑ Richard Drauz - Nazi career and downfall ( memento from December 13, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) on mahnung-gegen-rechts.de
3. ↑ From March 14 to 28, 1933, sub-commissioners were installed in all police departments in Württemberg to bring the police into line with the Nazi state . The Heilbronn sub-commissioner, SA-Standartenführer Otto Sommer, remained as a special commissioner in Heilbronn until the end of April 1933 because there were conflicts between Heilbronn police director Josef Georg Wilhelm (1887–1952) and district leader Richard Drauz and "special measures" appeared necessary. Compare: Susanne Schlösser: Chronicle of the City of Heilbronn . Volume IV: 1933-1938. Heilbronn City Archives, Heilbronn 2001, ISBN 3-928990-77-2 , p. XVII, XXXIV, 10, 13, 17 ( publications of the archive of the city of Heilbronn . Volume 39).
4. ^ Stadtarchiv Heilbronn , Zeitgeschichtliche Sammlung, signature ZS-13124, entry on Josef Georg Wilhelm in the HEUSS database
5. ↑ Desk book The seizure of power in Heilbronn (PDF), p. 7.
6. ^ Jüdische Bürger in Öhringen - a documentation , Öhringen 1993, pp. 37–43.
7. ^ The synagogue in Künzelsau on alemannia-judaica.de
8. ↑ Hohenloher were the first victims on Stimme.de
9. ↑ When Nazi thugs drove their mischief on Stimme.de