Gerhard Hein

This article deals with the officer Gerhard Hein; on the painter see Gerhart Hein .

Captain Gerhard Heim

Gerhard Hein , originally Gerhard Franz Philippczyk (born July 9, 1916 in Klein Paniow ; † June 6, 2008 in Harrislee ) was a German officer in World War II . Highly decorated as a soldier, after being wounded several times , he took over the inspection of the military training camps of the Hitler Youth and played a key role in establishing the 12th SS Panzer Division "Hitler Youth" . As a member of the Waffen SS , Hein also commanded a regiment of the division towards the end of the war. At the beginning of the 1950s, he worked as a manager of the neutralist soldiers 'association " Former Soldiers' Leaders " , which was financed by the SED .

Life

Hein attended elementary school in Gliwice and completed an apprenticeship as a reviersteiger in mining . From November 1931 he was a member of the Hitler Youth (HJ) and was location leader of the HJ in Upper Silesia . From May 1933 to June 1934 Hein was in the Reich Labor Service , from 1936 to 1938 in the Wehrmacht , most recently with the rank of private. In December 1938 he changed his name from Philippczyk to Hein . In 1939 Hein attended the Landführer school and then became the Landjahrführer in Trüning in Schleswig-Holstein. In April 1940 he became a member of the NSDAP (No. 7,595,754).

From September 1939 on, Hein took part in the Second World War as an infantryman . As a sergeant, he took part in the western campaign in 1940 . He was awarded the Iron Cross First and Second Class and was promoted to Sergeant . In September 1940, as a member of the 209 infantry regiment, he received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross for his service in the conquest of the fortress of Toul . On the invasion of the Soviet Union Hein took over as lieutenant part. As a first lieutenant in September 1942 he received the oak leaves for the Knight's Cross, according to the Reich Youth Leadership as the "first infantryman of the entire Wehrmacht, [...] except for the infantry generals". He was also awarded the Eastern Medal and the Silver Wound Badge .

When Hein was no longer able to work at the front after being wounded three times, he received a farm in the Gnesen / Wartheland district from Gauleiter Arthur Greiser as a donation worth RM 100,000 and was thus a “ military builder ”. However, he was complained about by the Reich Youth Leadership , and from October 1942 he served as Reich inspector of the military training camps of the Hitler Youth with the rank of ban leader and later chief ban leader . He was instrumental in building the 12th SS Panzer Division "Hitler Youth". Then he took over a command in the RJF command post " Adriatic Coast ". From May 1944 he was a member of the Waffen SS . As SS-Hauptsturmführer he commanded a battalion , from January 1945 as SS-Sturmbannführer a regiment of the 12th SS Panzer Division "Hitler Youth" in Hungary. In April 1945 Hein was promoted to lieutenant colonel and transferred to the staff of Field Marshal Ernst Busch in the Dönitz government .

In the young Federal Republic of Germany , Hein was involved in the field of soldiers and veterans' associations on the right-wing edge of the political spectrum, which were covertly financed and influenced by the SED . Hein worked in Schleswig-Holstein for the regional committee of the National Front and is said to have received DM 450 per month plus expenses from the Society for Eastern Trade . He took over the management of the leadership ring of former soldiers founded at the beginning of June 1951 on the initiative of the KPD and SED . For tactical reasons, this organization pursued a national neutralist line that was directed against the rearmament of the Federal Republic of Germany. The presidium included Herbert Münchow , Lieutenant Colonel a. D. Hanns Baier and General a. D. Max Cabinet , once commander of the 5th Mountain Division, temporarily also Gerda-Luise Dietl, Eduard Dietl's widow . In 1952 the organization collapsed when Hein criticized the desired cooperation with the Emergency Community for Peace in Europe and publicly accused Baier and Cabinet of having communistically infiltrated the leadership ring. The Federal Ministry of the Interior declared the leadership ring to be a communist front organization, while the SED and KPD, already dissatisfied with the work of the leadership ring, stopped funding. The guide ring disintegrated and officially dissolved in 1953.

literature

• Michael Buddrus : Total education for total war. Hitler Youth and National Socialist Youth Policy. Saur, Munich 2003, ISBN 3598116152 .
• Alexander Gallus: The neutralists. Advocate of a united Germany between East and West, 1945–1990. Droste, Düsseldorf 2001, ISBN 3770052331 .
• Gerhard Rempel: Hitler's children. The Hitler Youth and the SS. Univ. of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, NC 1995, ISBN 9780807842997 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Michael Buddrus: Total education for total war. Hitler Youth and National Socialist Youth Policy. Saur, Munich 2003, ISBN 3598116152 , p. 1152.