Fritz Tittmann

Fritz Tittmann

Fritz Tittmann (born July 18, 1898 in Leipzig , † April 25, 1945 in Treuenbrietzen ) was a German politician of the NSDAP and with the rank of SS brigade leader from 1941 to 1942 SS and police leader in Nikolayev in the Ukraine.

Life

Tittmann completed an apprenticeship as a machine fitter after attending the elementary and community school . Shortly after the outbreak of the First World War , he registered as a volunteer on September 21, 1914. Last steward of the "Heimatdank" hospital in Zwickau , Tittmann was officially released from the Reichswehr on August 31, 1920 with the rank of sergeant . As early as 1919, Tittmann had completed retraining to become a commercial clerk; from 1921 to 1923 he was a swimming master in the service of the city of Zwickau.

Politically, Tittmann appeared for the first time in 1920 as managing director and editor of the Deutschvölkischer Schutz- und Trutzbund . He was to perform this function until 1921. According to Szejnmann, who describes Tittmann as an “aggressive and hateful opponent of the republican system”, Tittmann blamed three groups for the German misery of the time after World War I: First, the Social Democrats, whom Tittmann blamed for the lost war, and second, the capitalists, who exploiting the German people and, finally, thirdly, the Jews, whom Tittmann condemned as the driving force behind world capitalism and because of their alleged conspiracy against Germany.

In the summer of 1921 he took part in a meeting of the NSDAP in Munich . He joined the party in July. On October 11, 1921, Tittmann and a few others founded the first local NSDAP group in Saxony in Zwickau . On the same day he took over the office of NSDAP regional leader (Gauleiter) for the Gau Sachsen . With Adolf Hitler Tittmann met at the latest in April 1922 for the first time in person together when he paid a visit to the Zwickau group. Before the NSDAP was banned in November 1923 as a result of the Hitler putsch , he also worked for the party and the SA as district leader in Saxony, Thuringia and Upper Franconia . After the signs of an impending coup from the right against the Weimar state began to intensify in the spring of 1923, Tittmann devoted himself increasingly to the military training of the Saxon NSDAP supporters. The idea on which his efforts were based was the plan that the Saxon SA and NSDAP members should be able to support the Bavarian legal forces (Munich was then the rallying point for all conservative-nationalist overthrow plans) in the event of a coup. In September 1923, Tittmann finally moved his headquarters to Hof in Bavaria. In the same year Tittmann founded the publishing house "Der Streiter", which is based in Hof. As the owner of the publishing house, he then published the newspaper Der Streiter , which initially appeared weekly and from 1932 daily. In addition to his function as editor, Tittmann also contributed articles to his newspaper. In December 1923, for example, he wrote an extremely benevolent review of Gottfried Feder's book The German State on a National and Social Basis , which he praised as compulsory reading for “every fellow combatant”.

During the time of the NSDAP ban, Tittmann founded the Zwickau local group of the substitute organization Völkisch-Sozialer Block and led units of the Frontbanns , a catching organization of the also banned SA. In the elections in May 1924 he entered the Reichstag , which he initially belonged to until December 1924. Tittmann was elected on the Reich election proposal of the National Socialist Freedom Party, a list connection including the NSDAP and the German National Freedom Party . In 1924, when the NSDAP was still officially banned, Tittmann went to the Sudetenland , then part of Czechoslovakia , to promote the NSDAP and its goals at public meetings in front of the local German-speaking population . Along with Hermann Esser and Gottfried Feder, who undertook similar propaganda trips in 1924/25, he was one of the first to campaign for the Nazi movement to spread and to win supporters outside Germany.

After the re-admission of the NSDAP, he rejoined the party on July 25, 1925 ( membership number 12.225). From 1926 to December 1927 Tittmann acted as leader of the NSDAP Untergau in Zwickau. From October 1925 to May 1929 he was, along with Hellmuth von Mücke, one of the two members of the National Socialist freedom movement in the Saxon state parliament ; these were the first members of the regular NSDAP in a German parliament. Tittmann was also active again in the SA from 1925; In 1927 he carried the Zwickau SA standard.

In 1930 Tittmann became politically active in Brandenburg : Since that year , Tittmann was temporarily a member of the SS (membership number 3,925) and was SS standard leader for Brandenburg-Süd until 1931. From 1932 to 1933 he was a member of the Prussian state parliament and from 1932 to 1936 Gau inspector of the Brandenburg Gau leadership.

After the transfer of power to the National Socialists, Tittmann was honorary mayor in Treuenbrietzen until 1934. From September 1933 to May 1936, he was Reich Commissioner of the NSDAP for Berlin, Kurmark and Silesia on the staff of the Fuehrer's deputy , Rudolf Hess , and was also Reich Main Office Manager. At the Nazi party rallies in 1933 and 1934, Tittmann held the post of press chief. From November 1933 until the end of the war he was a member of the National Socialist Reichstag .

On April 20, 1938, Tittmann rejoined the SS under his old membership number. With the rank of SS-Oberführer he was responsible for questions of the " Volksdeutsche ": Tittmann was equally "Plenipotentiary for Volksdeutsche questions and representative of the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle in the Reich organizational leadership of the NSDAP" as well as "Special Plenipotentiary of the Reich Organizational Leader and Head of the German Labor Front (DAF), Robert Ley , for ethnic German affairs ”. On July 1, 1941, Heinrich Himmler confirmed Tittmann in these functions; Tittmann's area of ​​responsibility now also encompassed the representation of Himmler's interests as Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Volkstum (RKFDV) with the NSDAP and the DAF.

After the German attack on the Soviet Union , Tittmann was appointed SS and Police Leader (SSPF) for the General District of Nikolayev in the Reich Commissariat of Ukraine on October 22, 1941 . In the winter months of 1941/42 he began there to recruit ethnic German deserters , predominantly Romanians , for a Waffen SS unit, by May 1942 about 1,000 people. He came into conflict with the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle, who feared the dissolution of the German self-protection by setting up such a battalion and therefore appealed to Himmler. However, through the mediation of Werner Lorenz , a compromise was reached that provided for the battalion to be deployed at the front instead of civil administration. On August 22, 1942, Tittmann changed to the staff of the Higher SS and Police Leader (HSSPF) for Russia South, Hans-Adolf Prützmann, as SS leader . In September 1944, Tittmann received a severe reprimand from Himmler for making private claims on SS personnel. In the same month he was transferred to Italy, where he led a section in the construction of the fortifications.

Tittmann died in fighting in the final phase of the Second World War in Treuenbrietzen. According to other sources, Tittmann is said to have killed his three children, his wife, his sister-in-law, his mother-in-law and then himself on April 23, 1945 in Treuenbrietzen.

Fonts

• Völkisches Liederbuch , Verlag Der Streiter, Zwickau 1924.

literature

• Joachim Lilla , Martin Döring, Andreas Schulz: extras in uniform: the members of the Reichstag 1933–1945. A biographical manual. Including the Volkish and National Socialist members of the Reichstag from May 1924 . Droste, Düsseldorf 2004, ISBN 3-7700-5254-4 , p. 667 f .
• Andreas Peschel: Fritz Tittmann - The ´forgotten´ Gauleiter. A biographical sketch. In: Sächsische Heimatblätter 56/2010, issue 2, pp. 122–126.
• Andreas Peschel: Fritz Tittmann - Mayor of Treuenbrietzen 1933–1941. In: Official Journal for the City of Treuenbrietzen 20/2010, Issue 11, pp. 15-16.
• Andreas Peschel: The Treuenbrietzen Nazi mayor Fritz Tittmann in the Second World War. In: Barbara message. Bulletin on Brandenburg Military History, No. 29 (2014), pp. 17–25.

Web links

• Fritz Tittmann in the database of members of the Reichstag
• Andreas Peschel: Fritz Tittmann (1898–1945) . In: Institute for Saxon History and Folklore (Ed.): Saxon Biography .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Joachim Lilla , Martin Döring, Andreas Schulz: extras in uniform. The members of the Reichstag 1933–1945. A biographical manual. Including the national and national socialist members of the Reichstag from May 1924. Droste, Düsseldorf 2004, ISBN 3-7700-5254-4 , pp. 667–668.
2. ↑ Claus-Christian Szejnmann: Nazism in Central Germany. The Brownshirts in 'Red' Saxony , Berghahn Books, New York 1999, ISBN 1-57181-942-8 , p. 28.
3. ↑ Szejnmann: Nazism in Central Germany , S. 26th
4. ↑ Adelheid von Saldern (Ed.): Staged pride. City representations in three German societies (1935-1975). , Steiner, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-515-08300-6 , p. 199.
5. ↑ Szejnmann: Nazism in Central Germany , S. 29th
6. ↑ Der Streiter, Edition 3, December 15, 1923.
7. ^ Jörg Osterloh: National Socialist Persecution of Jews in the Reichsgau Sudetenland 1938–1945. Oldenbourg, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-486-57980-0 , p. 72.
8. ^ Lilla: extras , p. 667; State election 1926 at www.gonschior.de.
9. ^ Ingeborg Fleischhauer: The Third Reich and the Germans in the Soviet Union . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1983, ISBN 3-421-06121-1 , pp. 145 f.
10. ↑ Werner Eckart: Chronicle of the Eckart Degener family , Neustadt an der Aisch 1967.