Fritz Schmidt (General Commissioner)

Fritz Schmidt

Fritz Schmidt (born November 19, 1903 in Eisbergen , † June 20, 1943 in Chartres , France) was a German politician (NSDAP). He was best known as General Commissioner for special use in the German-occupied Netherlands during World War II .

Live and act

Empire and Weimar Republic (1903 to 1933)

Schmidt was born in 1903 as the son of the master painter Wilhelm Schmidt. His brother was the politician Wilhelm Schmidt. After attending elementary school in Eisbergen and high school in Rinteln, which he left without a high school diploma, Schmidt was trained as a photographer and photo dealer. From 1922 to 1926 he was a member of the 6th Prussian Pioneer Battalion in Minden . There he was one of the survivors of the Veltheim ferry accident , in which 81 people died.

After leaving the Reichswehr, he worked as a freelance photographer and photo dealer from 1926 to 1934 . On September 14, 1928, Schmidt married Emma Bünte, with whom he had four children.

In early 1929, Schmidt joined the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP). In 1929 he became an SA man. Soon afterwards he took over various functionaries in quick succession: in 1930 he was local group leader and in 1932 district leader in Minden.

Promotion in the NSDAP (1933 to 1940)

In 1934 Schmidt took over the post of head of propaganda in the Gauleitung for the Gau Westfalen-Nord . In the same year he was appointed representative of the NSDAP for the provincial capital of Münster. In 1934 he came to the Reich Propaganda Office for North Westphalia. In addition, he became regional cultural warden in Münster and an employee in the organizational management of the Nazi Party Congress .

From March 1936 until his death in June 1943, Schmidt was a member of the German Reichstag as a representative of constituency 17 (Westphalia North) . His mandate was then carried on by August Mietz until the end of the war .

In the party apparatus, Schmidt made a career as a protégé Martin Bormann , who valued him for his rhetorical skills and his organizational talent. In 1938 he joined Rudolf Hess' staff .

General Commissioner in the Netherlands (1940 to 1943)

Arthur Seyß-Inquart , left and Fritz Schmidt, right (Rotterdam, October 1941)

On May 23, 1940, a few days after the occupation of the Netherlands by the German Wehrmacht, Schmidt was appointed General Commissioner for Special Use in the Netherlands at the suggestion of Bormann. As a representative of Bormann and representative of the NSDAP, Schmidt was one of three top German officials in the Netherlands, alongside the Reich Commissioner for the Netherlands Arthur Seyß-Inquart and SS Commissioner Hanns Albin Rauter . His area of activity included "all questions of public opinion formation and non-economic associations" as well as those tasks that were assigned to him by the Reich Commissioner "on the basis of a special resolution".

Schmidt's work in the Netherlands had considerable political weight. He ensured the cultural alignment , the realignment of the Dutch media and created a separate Ministry of Propaganda for the occupied country. In terms of occupation policy, in contrast to Seyss-Inquart, he advocated direct intervention in the lives of the Dutch and for radical conformity and Nazification of the Dutch. In the continuation of this policy he saw himself as the Gauleiter of a Reichsgau "Westland" to be formed after the annexation of the Netherlands by Germany.

Schmidt also managed to win the trust of the "Führer" of the Dutch National Socialists NSB , Anton Adriaan Mussert . However, his unauthorized approach ultimately ensured that he was isolated in the Reichskommissariat and in the Munich headquarters of the NSDAP. The historian Gerhard Hirschfeld attributes this to the fact that Schmidt's "business of political blackmail and intrigue" exceeded his "intellectual abilities".

In the Netherlands, Schmidt was involved in a series of internal party power struggles: when he and Bormann tried to detach the Dutch national group of the NSDAP from the foreign organization of the NSDAP / AO and bring it under their control, this aroused resistance from the head of the NSDAP / AO , Ernst Wilhelm Bohle . However, Schmidt and Bormann were able to prevail, so that the national group was ultimately subordinated to Seyß-Inquart. In The Hague , where Schmidt had his official seat, he also tried to expand the power-political position of the NSDAP in the Netherlands at the expense of the SS. In the subsequent power struggle between Schmidt and Commissioner General Hanns Albin Rauter , the SS representative in the Netherlands, the latter, however, retained the upper hand.

The majority of researchers assume that the opposition to the SS that arose from this policy, as well as the dwindling trust in Bormann, with which Schmidt gradually lost support due to intrigues and his hunger for power, ultimately became his undoing: Schmidt died in 1943 when he fell from a moving train in France while on a trip to the Atlantic Wall . It was officially declared that he had committed suicide due to "nervous overstimulation". Whether this is actually true, whether Schmidt's death was suicide , or whether he was murdered, is still not completely certain. Schmidt's post as commissioner was taken over by Wilhelm Ritterbusch , who did not know how to assert himself politically. In addition, there was a tactical rapprochement between Bormann's party headquarters and Himmler and the SS, so that power in the Netherlands fell even further into the hands of the latter.

Schmidt was the holder of the golden party badge of the NSDAP as well as the holder of the service award in bronze and silver.

literature

Gerhard Hirschfeld : Foreign rule and collaboration. The Netherlands under German occupation 1940–1945 . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1984 (= studies on contemporary history; 25), ISBN 3-421-06192-0 .
Christoph Kreutzmüller : Fritz Schmidt ( 1903-1943 ). From NSAP district leader in Minden to general commissioner in the Netherlands . In: Announcements of the Minden History Society 81.2009. Pp. 15-30. Minden 2012.

Konrad Kwiet : Reichskommissariat Netherlands. Attempt and failure of a new National Socialist order . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1968.

Joachim Lilla , Martin Döring, Andreas Schulz: extras in uniform. The members of the Reichstag 1933–1945. A biographical manual. Including the ethnic and National Socialist members of the Reichstag from May 1924. Droste, Düsseldorf 2004, ISBN 3-7700-5254-4 .

Web links

Fritz Schmidt in the database of members of the Reichstag

Individual evidence

↑ Article about the death of Fritz Schmidt in 1943 in DeWeZet December 14, 2013
↑ Reinhold Kölling: The accident in Veltheim on March 31, 1925, under Historical on Veltheim-Weser.de
^ Reinhold Kölling: The Reichswehr accident on March 31, 1925 in Veltheim and its consequences
↑ Wolfgang Stelbrink: The district leaders of the NSDAP in Westphalia and Lippe , North Rhine-Westphalian State Archives Münster, Münster 2003, p. 185.
^ Konrad Kwiet: Reichskommissariat Netherlands. Attempt and failure of a new National Socialist order . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1968, p. 80.
^ Gerhard Hirschfeld: Foreign rule and collaboration. The Netherlands under German occupation 1940–1945 . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1984, p. 27.
^ ^A ^b ^c Gerhard Hirschfeld: Foreign rule and collaboration. The Netherlands under German occupation 1940–1945 . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1984, p. 33.
^ Konrad Kwiet: Reichskommissariat Netherlands. Attempt and failure of a new National Socialist order . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1968, pp. 86–91.
^ Konrad Kwiet: Reichskommissariat Netherlands. Attempt and failure of a new National Socialist order . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1968, p. 172.
^ Robert Bohn: The German rule in the "Germanic" countries 1940-1945 , Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 1997, p. 147, footnote 10. Gerhard Hirschfeld: Foreign rule and collaboration. The Netherlands under German occupation 1940–1945 , Stuttgart 1984, p. 217, footnote 183.

personal data
SURNAME	Schmidt, Fritz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German politician (NSDAP), MdR, general commissioner in the Netherlands
DATE OF BIRTH	November 19, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH	Icebergs
DATE OF DEATH	June 20, 1943
Place of death	at Chartres

[1] Article about the death of Fritz Schmidt in 1943 in DeWeZet December 14, 2013

[2] Reinhold Kölling: The accident in Veltheim on March 31, 1925, under Historical on Veltheim-Weser.de

[3] Reinhold Kölling: The Reichswehr accident on March 31, 1925 in Veltheim and its consequences

[4] Wolfgang Stelbrink: The district leaders of the NSDAP in Westphalia and Lippe , North Rhine-Westphalian State Archives Münster, Münster 2003, p. 185.

[5] Konrad Kwiet: Reichskommissariat Netherlands. Attempt and failure of a new National Socialist order . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1968, p. 80.

[6] Gerhard Hirschfeld: Foreign rule and collaboration. The Netherlands under German occupation 1940–1945 . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1984, p. 27.

[Hirschfeld_Fremdherrschaft33-7] A ^b ^c Gerhard Hirschfeld: Foreign rule and collaboration. The Netherlands under German occupation 1940–1945 . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1984, p. 33.

[8] Konrad Kwiet: Reichskommissariat Netherlands. Attempt and failure of a new National Socialist order . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1968, pp. 86–91.

[9] Konrad Kwiet: Reichskommissariat Netherlands. Attempt and failure of a new National Socialist order . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1968, p. 172.

[10] Robert Bohn: The German rule in the "Germanic" countries 1940-1945 , Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 1997, p. 147, footnote 10. Gerhard Hirschfeld: Foreign rule and collaboration. The Netherlands under German occupation 1940–1945 , Stuttgart 1984, p. 217, footnote 183.