Günter Grasner

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Günter Erwin Grasner , until 1940 Günter Erwin Murawski (born April 12, 1909 in Graudenz ; died April 30, 2000 in Neuss ), was a German criminal investigator . From 1964 to 1969 he headed the State Criminal Police Office in North Rhine-Westphalia . Grasner was involved in violent National Socialist crimes .

Life

After graduating from high school in Kiel in 1929, Grasner joined the Prussian Police as an officer candidate . After the transfer of power to the National Socialists, he became a member of the NSDAP on May 1, 1933 . With the criminal police since 1932 , he completed the criminal inspector candidate course in Berlin-Charlottenburg in 1934/1935 . From May 1935 on, Grasner was a detective chief in the burglary and homicide department in Kassel . Between November 1936 and February 1938 he headed a crime group for the fight against property crimes at the criminal police headquarters in Berlin. Then he took over the identification service at the criminal police in Kassel. Between October 1940 and January 1941 Grasner taught criminology at the Pretsch border police school .

During the Second World War , Grasner was seconded to the Secret Field Police (GFP) in February 1941 ; from March 1941 he belonged to the GFP group 530 based in Brussels. In February 1942 he moved to GFP Group 711, which - subordinated to Security Division 444 - operated in the Ukraine and southern Russia . In December 1942 Grasner was awarded the War Merit Cross 2nd Class with Swords . From September 1944 he was a unit leader in GFP Group 626 at the headquarters of the 1st Panzer Army .

At the end of the war, Grasner was captured by the Red Army and held in a prisoner-of-war camp near Stalingrad from June 1945 to November 1947 . He suffered a severe head injury while in captivity. Grasner's denazification process was discontinued in April 1948 due to an amnesty.

Grasner belonged to the group of so-called 131s , who were to be preferred when filling positions in the public service. In December 1951 he was hired as a criminal police inspector at the State Criminal Police Office in North Rhine-Westphalia and worked in the central identification service. After being promoted to chief detective, he moved in September 1953 to the department of the state interior ministry responsible for police issues . In July 1956 he became deputy head of the Düsseldorf criminal police as a criminal adviser; in July 1961 he took over the management of the criminal police in Recklinghausen . In June 1964 he was appointed director of the State Criminal Police Office, which he headed until his retirement in September 1969.

According to a report published in December 2019 by the historian Martin Hölzl, Grasner, like his three predecessors in office, Friedrich Karst , Friederich D'heil and Oskar Wenzky, was involved in violent Nazi crimes. Hölzl refers to Grasner's membership of the Secret Field Police, which historians characterize as the " Gestapo of the Wehrmacht ". Mission reports from the GFP group in Belgium show that the unit arrested members of the resistance , deserters , escaped prisoners of war and suspects of espionage. After the end of the war, Belgian authorities wrote out the leaders of the GFP group, including Grasner, to be searched internationally. The allegations were murder, torture and deportation of civilians, imprisonment in inhumane conditions and property confiscation. The Belgian investigations against Grasner were brought to an end in December 1947, as there were no concrete charges.

In the Soviet Union , the CFP served primarily as an instrument to combat partisans ; she was involved in the torture and mass shooting of partisans, commissioners , Jews and suspects. Mere suspicion was enough to be shot immediately. According to a November 1942 report, the GFP group to which Grasner belonged shot dead six out of seven people they had previously arrested.

After the end of the war, Grasner presented "his previous career as permanent resistance to National Socialism". His application for redress was rejected in December 1955 because he had been a member of the NSDAP and because his claim that he had not been promoted for political reasons had turned out to be incorrect.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hölzl, report on the Nazi past , p. 90.
  2. ↑ biographical information in Hölzl, report NS-Past , pp. 89-102.
  3. ↑ Hölzl, Report on the Nazi Past , pp. 91–93.
  4. ↑ Hölzl, report on the Nazi past , pp. 94, 96.
  5. ↑ Hölzl, report on the Nazi past , p. 97.
  6. ↑ Hölzl, report on the Nazi past , p. 98.
personal data
SURNAME Grasner, Günter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Murawski, Günter (maiden name); Grasner, Günter Erwin (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German criminal investigator, director of the State Criminal Police Office in North Rhine-Westphalia
DATE OF BIRTH April 12, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Graudenz
DATE OF DEATH April 30, 2000
Place of death Neuss