Günter Hellwing

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Günter Hellwing (born March 29, 1914 in Vormholz ; † April 22, 1996 in Mülheim an der Ruhr ) was a German police officer and politician of the SPD .

During the Second World War he was Hauptsturmführer of the SS and a member of the SS Security Service . He was also the head of the Gestapo's “state police station” in Marseille, France, and was involved in the raids in 1943 ( Rafle de Marseille ) and the extensive destruction of the old town , the expulsion and arrest of its residents and the deportation of Jewish people to the extermination camps .

After the war, Hellwing joined the SPD and became head of the criminal police in Mülheim an der Ruhr . Within the SPD, he first rose to the state executive committee, became a member of the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia in Düsseldorf and finally joined the party's federal executive committee in 1958.

School, apprenticeship, training and military service

After attending elementary school and high school, he completed an apprenticeship as a miner at Hibernia-Bergwerks AG , and then from 1934 to 1935 began training as a businessman. In 1933 he became a member of the Hitler Youth , which he had to give up again in 1935 because he took up service in the Wehrmacht in the second half of 1935 to 1938 .

Criminal and Security Police, SS and SD

After completing his military service, he started working for the criminal police in Recklinghausen in 1938 as a detective inspector candidate. At the same time he became a member of the NSDAP . With the beginning of the Second World War he had to briefly return to the Wehrmacht. He then attended the Sipo and SD leadership school in Berlin-Charlottenburg , which was closely associated with the RSHA . Towards the end of 1939 he was taken over by the detective commissioner and the SS . In the following year he became a member of the Security Service (SD) of the SS.

Head of the Kripo in Bottrop and the end of the war

In the period from 1943 to 1944 he was head of the Gestapo in Marseille and headed the Marseille State Police Headquarters . In the meantime he had been promoted to SS-Hauptsturmführer. Then he came to Bottrop and took over the management of the criminal police. In March 1945, he was ordered supposedly a five Soviet POWs execution supply, where looting was accused.

A three-man squad, which he put together from his detectives, shot four of the five Soviet citizens at the park cemetery in Bottrop. The officers shot the fifth while fleeing. All five bodies were thrown into an adjacent bomb crater and covered with material. With the surrender of the Nazi regime , his police service temporarily ended. In 1947, the public prosecutor's office in Essen began investigations against him for the first time because he had also shot a German bricklayer at the end of the war.

First investigation and sentencing to two years imprisonment

However, these investigations were discontinued in May 1949 without any consequences for him. But the criminal police in Munster were already investigating the deaths of the five Soviet citizens. This procedure was eventually ceded to the British military government. Hellwing confirmed the sequence of events, but stated that he had received the order from the chief of the security police (SiPo) in Bottrop. On February 28, 1949, Hellwing was sentenced to two years' imprisonment for inciting manslaughter by the military court in Iserlohn , which he also had to serve.

Re-entry into the criminal investigation department

His conviction led to an entry in the criminal record of the chief public prosecutor in Essen. In 1950 he became a member of the SPD in Bottrop. He applied to the Gelsenkirchen City Police towards the end of 1952 / beginning of 1953 for a re-entry into the criminal police. This process dragged on from January 1953 to November 24, 1953. Then Hellwing was able to work again as a detective inspector. He became a member of the police union in 1953. In the same year he became a city councilor in Bottrop, and he held this mandate until 1959.

Death sentence in France

A military court in Marseille sentenced him to death on February 1, 1954 for his crimes as head of the Gestapo in Marseille . His supporters viewed the conviction as an organizational offense, with no evidence of personal guilt. This judgment therefore had no consequences for Hellwing.

State parliament and chief of the Mülheim police force

In 1958 he moved up to the state and federal executive boards of the SPD. Before that, he had a mandate in the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia from 1957 to 1958 . He had his entry in the criminal record deleted through his lawyer in 1956. In the meantime, however, the police department in the Public Services, Transportation and Traffic Union had noticed him and issued a warning about him. Nevertheless, he was promoted to chief detective without objection from the social democratic interior minister Hubert Biernat .

Before 1958 he was appointed head of the criminal police in Mülheim. In 1959, the chief public prosecutor in Essen reopened the investigation into the shooting of the five Russians, but dropped the case in 1960. In 1961, the career of the police officer ended abruptly: if he managed to get into the state parliament again in October 1961 via a reserve position on the SPD's state list, the new interior minister Josef Hermann Dufhues , CDU , retired him. His parliamentary mandate also ended in July 1962.

Hellwing was deputy chairman of the SPD Bottrop city ​​association from 1955 to 1956 and from 1958 to 1961 and a member of the city council of Bottrop.

See also

literature

  • Diether Posser : Political criminal justice from the point of view of the defense attorney. Karlsruhe 1961 (p. 48, note 94).
  • The President of the State Parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia: 50 years of the State Parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia. The country and its deputies. Düsseldorf 1996, (p. 264).
  • Stefan Noethen: Old comrades and new colleagues. Police in North Rhine-Westphalia 1945-1953. Klartext, Essen 2003, ISBN 3-89861-110-8 , (pp. 405-407).
  • Donna F. Ryan: The Holocaust and the Jews of Marseille. The enforcement of anti-Semitic policies in Vichy-France. UP of Illinois. Urbana 1996 ISBN 0-252-06530-1 (English).
  • Renée Dray-Bensousan: Les juifs à Marseille pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Août 1939 - août 1944. Belles lettres, Paris 2004 ISBN 2251380663 (in French; readable and searchable in online bookshops).
  • Maurice Rajsfus: La Police de Vichy. Les forces de l'ordre françaises au service de la Gestapo 1940 - 1944. Le Cherche Midi, Paris 1995 ISBN 2862743585 .
  • Andrej Angrick & Klaus-Michael Mallmann Ed .: The Gestapo after 1945. Careers, conflicts, constructions. Publications of the research center Ludwigsburg , 14. WBG , Darmstadt 2009 ISBN 9783534206735 .

Web links

supporting documents

  1. ^ According to [1] head of a "Section 4" of the Gestapo SD. The organizational names and affiliations of the Germans in Marseille vary, on the one hand because of the confusion of competence of the occupiers on site, on the other hand due to targeted manipulations after 1945 in order to be more difficult to find. Other relevant terms for research are Sipo or SS, both in short and long form; also protection police. Figures: according to Rajsfus and Dray 1500 to 1600 destroyed apartments, it is known that these were densely occupied; 2000 Jews on death trains in the direction of the extermination camp; 6000 arrests in total; 30,000 from the quarter "displaced" according to Dray or 40,000 during the Rafle "controlled" according to Rajsfus, who refers to French state sources (prefecture lower Rhône), but wrote nine years before Dray.
  2. ↑ Since he was considered to have a criminal record, he should not have been a civil servant according to the legal situation, Article 131 of the Basic Law
  3. ↑ Judgment see web links
  4. ↑ that was the name of today's sub-district
personal data
SURNAME Hellwing, Günter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (SPD), Member of the State Parliament, police officer
DATE OF BIRTH March 29, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH Vormholz
DATE OF DEATH April 22, 1996
Place of death Mülheim an der Ruhr