Georg Preuss

This article deals with the SS officer Georg Preuss. For the historian who fell in 1914, see Georg Friedrich Preuss .

Georg Preuss (born April 24, 1920 in Danzig ; † February 3, 1991 in Dalitz ) was a German Hauptsturmführer of the Waffen-SS and bearer of the Knight's Cross . Preuss was sentenced to death as a war criminal in the Malmedy trial , but was later pardoned.

Life

The son of a senior paymaster in the Wehrmacht graduated from high school with a high school diploma . At the age of 13 Preuss became a member of the Hitler Youth . As a schoolboy he reported to the Schutzstaffel (SS no. 400.116); from April 1, 1939 he was a member of the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler . He completed a course at the SS Junk School in Braunschweig and, promoted to SS Untersturmführer in April 1940, took part in the Russian campaign. On the Eastern Front he was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class, the Infantry Assault Badge and the Winter Battle in the East medal in 1941/42 . Appreciated and protected by his superior Joachim Peiper for his unconditional obedience, Preuss became company commander in the Leibstandarte. Preuss was unpopular among soldiers; He commented on the high losses of his company with the remark that more women would be left for him.

During the stationing of the Leibstandarte in northern Italy, Preuss was in September 1943 the commandant of the Borgo San Dalmazzo police detention camp, in which predominantly Jews were held. According to one inmate, the conditions of detention were "reasonably normal" compared to concentration camps ; Excessive beating was the exception.

In December 1944 Preuss took part in the Battle of the Bulge with Peiper's combat group . On February 5, 1945 he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross at Peiper's suggestion . According to Peiper's reasoning, Preuss had "proven himself to the highest degree" on the offensive, killing an American security post in close combat .

After the end of the war, Preuss was sentenced to death in the Malmedy trial before an American military court on July 15, 1946 . In the vicinity of the Malmedy massacre, Preuss had ordered a subordinate to shoot a downed American pilot. Subsequently, Preuss stole the murdered man's wedding ring and flight trousers - a fact that was confirmed by Peiper in court. The Governor General of the American Occupation Zone, Lucius D. Clay, commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment on March 17, 1949. On November 30, 1956, Preuss was released from the Landsberg war crimes prison as the third from last of the defendants in the Malmedy trial .

After his release, Preuss applied to the Bundeswehr ; however, it was rejected by the staff appraisal committee. Most recently he worked as an engineer in Hamburg . Preuss, who was a member of the Order of the Knight's Cross , married during his imprisonment in September 1948.

The military historian Jens Westemeier classifies the awarding of the Knight's Cross to Prussia as a “bad joke” and a case of “fellowship”. During the Battle of the Bulge, Preuss had lost his orientation several times, got into ambushes, lost half of his company and in no way excelled in making independent decisions, as required by the rules for awarding the Knight's Cross. According to Westemeier, the alleged achievements in close combat are the robbery and murder of the downed pilot.

literature

• Jens Westemeier : Himmler's warriors. Joachim Peiper and the Waffen-SS in the war and the post-war period (= War in History, Vol. 71) Schöningh, Paderborn 2014, ISBN 978-3-506-77241-1 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Westemeier, Himmlers Krieger , p. 228.
2. ^ Westemeier, Himmlers Krieger , p. 269.
3. ↑ ^{a b} Westemeier, Himmlers Krieger , p. 355.
4. ↑ Westemeier, Himmlers Krieger , p. 515 f.
5. ^ Westemeier, Himmlers Krieger , pp. 446, 466, 703.