Fritz Schmelter

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Fritz Schmelter (born March 3, 1904 in Deutsch-Lissa , Posen ; † August 12, 1964 ) was a German lawyer and civil servant.

Fritz Schmelter during the Nuremberg Trials (around 1946).

Life

After attending school, Schmelter studied law . He then entered the legal preparatory service . In 1931 he did his doctorate at the University of Breslau with a dissertation on Section 37 of the Reichsbahngesetz and the building police permit in Prussia for Dr. jur. He passed the Great State Examination in Law (Assessorexamen) in 1933.

In 1933 Schmelter, who had been a member of the NSDAP since 1932 ( membership number 1.137.184), was accepted into the civil service as an assessor. After he had been employed by the trustee of work in Berlin , he was appointed Reich trustee of work for the Hesse economic area in January 1938, based in Frankfurt am Main . He held this office until 1942.

On May 10, 1942, at the suggestion of Albert Speer , Schmelter was appointed special trustee for the work of the Todt Organization (OT) by Fritz Sauckel, the general representative for work . In this capacity, which he retained until the end of the war, he was entrusted in particular with regulating the working conditions (working hours, vacation, etc.) of all German employees employed by OT. At the same time Schmelter was from May 1942 to December 1943 main department head at the headquarters of the Todt Organization.

In December 1943 Schmelter was transferred to the Reich Ministry for Armaments and War Production , where he headed the main department for the allocation of labor until December 1944 with the rank of ministerial director. Subsequently, until the end of the war, he was responsible for the central department for work and work performance. In this capacity, from March 1 to August 1, 1944, he was a member of the so-called Jägerstab , a coordinating body set up to organize the armaments efforts of the German Reich more effectively , representing the various bodies involved (Ministry of Armaments, SS, Post, etc. ) belonged to. Schmelter was the representative for labor issues within the Jägerstab. In order to remedy the shortage of labor in the field of building aircraft factories, the Jägerstab finally decided that the involvement of Jewish concentration camp prisoners was necessary. For this purpose, around 100,000 of the Hungarian Jews deported en masse to Auschwitz in the summer of 1944 were to be included in the staff's construction program with the consent of Adolf Hitler . Schmelter criticized the insufficient supply of suitable workers in the course of this project:

“So far, two transports have arrived that have come to the Auschwitz SS camp. Only children, women and old people with whom there was very little to do were offered for the hunters' burrows. If the next transports do not bring men of working age, the whole campaign should not be very successful. "

Shortly before the war came Schmelter, who is also the SS belonged (membership. 188076), in which he as honorary rank leaders to the rank of the November 9, 1941 SS Lieutenant Colonel reached in April 1945 in Allied captivity. In the following years he was questioned as a witness during the Nuremberg Trials . In particular, he appeared in the proceedings against his former colleague in the Jägerstab, Field Marshal Erhard Milch .

In the post-war period Schmelter was a member of the board of directors of Deutsche Industrie-Finanz AG in Frankfurt am Main.

Fonts

  • 37 of the Reichsbahngesetz and the building police permit in Prussia , (= Public Law, Tax Policy and Public Finance Vol. 3) 1931. (Dissertation)
  • The most important labor law provisions in particular the Reich tariff regulations for long-distance freight transport. From October 15, 1936. With introduction and explanations , 1936.
  • Reich tariff regulation (tariff regulation) to regulate the wage and working conditions for the auxiliary staff of doctors, dentists, veterinarians, dentists and naturopaths for the territory of the German Reich. From Feb. 1, 1939 , 1939.
  • Reich tariff regulation for the special working conditions of assembly workers and temporary workers in the iron, metal and electrical industry from November 7, 1939-15. April 1940. As of December 15 , 1941, 1941.
  • Collection of tariff regulations, orders and decrees for the German construction industry abroad. As of March 1, 1943 , Vol. 1, 1943.

literature

Web links

  • Examination of Fritz Schmelter on November 19, 1946, examination of April 29, 1947, examination of May 8, 1947, examination of May 8, 1948 and affidavit of December 9, 1946 . In: Archive of the Institute for Contemporary History , Munich, signature ZS-1432 ( online , PDF; minutes of some of Schmelter's interrogations in the context of the Nuremberg trials).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rudolf Absolon: The Wehrmacht in the Third Reich. December 19, 1941 to May 9, 1945 , 1995, p. 64.
  2. ↑ Raul Hilberg: The Destruction of European Jews , Vol. 2, 1990, p. 999.
  3. ↑ Raul Hilberg: The Destruction of European Jews , Vol. 2, p. 999f.
  4. ↑ Raul Hilberg: The Destruction of European Jews , Vol. 2, p. 999f.
  5. ^ List of promotions in the SS
  6. ^ Gerald Reitlinger: The Final Solution. The Attempt to Exterminate the Jews of Europe, 1939-1945 , 1987, p. 427.
personal data
SURNAME Schmelter, Fritz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer and civil servant
DATE OF BIRTH March 3, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH German Lissa
DATE OF DEATH August 12, 1964