Günther Merk

Günther Friedrich Wilhelm Merk (born March 14, 1888 in Münsterberg in Silesia , † January 16, 1947 in the Kharkov Oblast ) was a German lawyer and SS leader, most recently with the rank of SS brigade leader and major general of the police. After the end of the Second World War he was executed in the Soviet Union as an SMT convict for involvement in war crimes .

Life

After completing his school career in 1908, Merk embarked on a military career, took part in the First World War as an artillery officer and received several awards. After the end of the war he worked in a volunteer corps and was discharged from the army as a captain in 1920 . He then joined the police force in mid-July 1921. He also completed a law degree at the University of Berlin and was awarded a doctorate in 1926. jur. PhD . From 1926 to 1930 he was a teacher at the Munster Police School. In various positions he was finally deployed in Wuppertal, Berlin, Frankfurt am Main and from 1938 in Dortmund, most recently as commander of the police with the rank of police colonel.

Merk, a member of the NSDAP since 1932 (membership number 1.346.722), joined the SS after the beginning of the Second World War in early November 1939 (SS number 347.133) and was accepted into this NS organization with the rank of SS standard leader. As a full-time SS leader, he was employed by the Reichsführer SS office. From April to mid-August 1941 he was the commander of the SS Artillery Replacement Regiment and then until January 1942 the commander of the artillery regiment of the SS division "Reich" . From January 1942 to September 1943 he was employed in the main office of the Ordnungspolizei and during this period from mid-September 1942 to January 1943 he was in command of the SS Police Regiment 6 (Russia South). In autumn 1943 he was appointed SS and Police Leader Kharkov for a few weeks , the appointment being purely of a formal nature due to the recently liberated city by the Red Army . In September 1943 he was promoted to SS brigade leader and shortly afterwards to major general of the police. From October 1943 to April 1944 he was the commander of the Krakow police force. From August 1944 he was SS leader z. b. V. Inspector of the position construction at the Higher SS and Police Leader East (Cracow) and again from December 1944 to January 1945 commander of the police in Cracow.

Merk had been in Soviet custody since February 20, 1945 and was held in Butyrka prison in Moscow . On November 12, 1946, a Soviet military tribunal in Kharkov Oblast sentenced him to death by shooting for involvement in war crimes. Specifically, he was accused that, as head of the police, units in the Kharkov region were involved in "more than 1,000 cooperatives and public buildings, more than 200 Soviet citizens shot and hanged, including around 100 Soviet soldiers" and "around 5,000 young people [...] to Germany for forced labor ”. Willy Tensfeld was named by the prosecution as another main culprit for these crimes . After the presidium of the Supreme Soviet rejected his petition for clemency , Merk was probably executed on January 16, 1947.

literature

• Andreas Schulz, Günter Wegmann, Dieter Zinke: The generals of the Waffen SS and the police. Volume 3: Lammerding – Plesch. Biblio-Verlag, 2003, ISBN 978-3-7648-2375-7 .
• Klaus-Dieter Müller, Thomas Schaarschmidt, Mike Schmeitzner, Andreas Weigelt: Death sentences of Soviet military tribunals against Germans (1944–1947). A historical-biographical study . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-525-36968-5 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Quoted from: Klaus-Dieter Müller, Thomas Schaarschmidt, Mike Schmeitzner, Andreas Weigelt: Death sentences of Soviet military tribunals against Germans (1944–1947). A historical-biographical study , Göttingen 2015, p. 452
2. ↑ Klaus-Dieter Müller, Thomas Schaarschmidt, Mike Schmeitzner, Andreas Weigelt: Death sentences of Soviet military tribunals against Germans (1944-1947). A historical-biographical study , Göttingen 2015, p. 452