Executive Reich government

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As managing national government was in Germany , both at the time of the Weimar Republic from 1920 to 1933 and after the end of Nazism in 1945 after retiring the Chancellor for the time being the business further government of the German Reich referred.

The sports school on the outskirts of the naval school in Flensburg - Mürwik , where the seat of the executive government was in 1945. (Photo 2014)

If the governments between 1920 and 1933 had a legal basis for their rules of procedure, this is completely absent for the so-called Dönitz government . The office of Reich President was transferred from Hitler to Karl Dönitz in his will on May 1, 1945 without any legal basis . On May 2, 1945, the latter commissioned Count Lutz Schwerin von Krosigk as the leading Reich Minister to form a government, who then convened a Schwerin von Krosigk cabinet . In terms of constitutional and international law, Doenitz's appointment and thus also the appointment of the executive government by him was irrelevant, since formally the Weimar constitution was still in force, which did not provide for a testamentary transfer of a state office.

Shortly after the unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht and all branches of the armed forces , an "Allied Control Commission at the High Command of the Wehrmacht" arrived in Flensburg . Their job was to oversee the loyal implementation of the Allied surrender conditions . At first it consisted only of English and Americans under the direction of Major General Rooks (USA) and Brigadier General Foord (Great Britain). The headquarters of the commission was the Patria anchored there . On Wednesday, May 23, 1945, Dönitz, Colonel General Alfred Jodl and Admiral General Hans-Georg von Friedeburg were ordered to the Patria for 9.45 a.m. US General Rooks read out a letter that read:

"I have the assignment [...] to inform you that the Commander-in-Chief, General Eisenhower , has decided in agreement with the Soviet High Command that the current government and the German High Command and its members will be arrested as prisoners of war as of today. The incumbent German government has thus been dissolved. "

literature

  • Klaus Goehrke: In the shackles of duty. The way of the Reich Finance Minister Lutz Graf Schwerin v. Krosigk. Verl. Wissenschaft und Politik, Cologne 1995, ISBN 3-8046-8825-X .
  • Jörg Hillmann: The 'Reich Government' in Flensburg. In: John Zimmermann (Ed.): End of the war in Germany in 1945. Munich [u. a.] 2002, ISBN 3-486-56649-0 , pp. 35-65.
  • Herbert Kraus: Karl Dönitz and the end of the 'Third Reich'. In: Hans-Erich Volkmann (Ed.): End of the Third Reich - End of the Second World War. A perspective review. Munich 1995, ISBN 3-492-12056-3 , pp. 1-23.
  • Marlis G. Steinert: The 23 days of the Dönitz government. The agony of the Third Reich. Munich 1978, ISBN 3-453-48038-4 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sven Felix Kellerhoff : Yes, the German Reich really went under , Welt Online , October 20, 2016, accessed on May 14, 2017.