Hanns Martin Schleyer

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Hanns Martin Schleyer (1973)

Hanns Martin Schleyer (born May 1, 1915 in Offenburg as Hans Martin Schleyer ; † October 18, 1977 in an unknown location on the border between France and Belgium ) was a German manager and economic functionary . At the time of National Socialism , Schleyer achieved, among other things, the officer rank of SS-Hauptsturmführer . From 1973 to 1977 he was the German employer president and since 1977 chairman of the Federation of German Industries (BDI).

As a representative and functionary of the German employers' associations with a past as a NS functionary and SS leader, Schleyer was the focus of criticism.

Schleyer's kidnapping and murder by the Red Army Fraction (RAF) during the so-called German Autumn was the culmination of one of the worst crises in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany .

origin

Schleyer was the only son of the district court director Ernst Schleyer and his wife Helene (née Rheitinger). His first name Hans is entered in the birth certificate with just an n . He wrote himself mostly as Hanns Martin Schleyer . Schleyer's great-uncle was the prelate Johann Martin Schleyer , creator of the planned language Volapük .

Education and political engagement in National Socialist organizations

After Schleyer in 1933 Rastatt the high school had taken off, he started at the University of Heidelberg a Jura -Studies. Schleyer had been a member of the Teutonia School Association in Rastatt since his school days and joined the Corps Suevia as a student in 1934 . At the same time, Schleyer was also involved in National Socialist organizations. On March 1, 1931, he joined the Hitler Youth and on June 30, 1933, he joined the SS (No. 227.014).

In the spring of 1935, Schleyer accused another corps of the Heidelberger SC for "lacking National Socialist sentiments" because it refused to expel Jewish old men . In the further course of the summer semester of 1935 he resigned from the Corps Suevia under public protest. It was not until 1958 that he was accepted back into the corps, later also chairman of the old gentlemen's association and on October 15, 1977, during his kidnapping, elected an honorary member.

Schleyer joined the National Socialist German Student Union (NSDStB) and found his first important mentor in the Heidelberg student leader (and later Gauleiter) Gustav Adolf Scheel . During the dispute over the Heidelberger Spargelessen , a series of statements directed against Hitler by Heidelberg Corps students, Schleyer resolutely defended the standpoint of the National Socialist student body, whose functionary he became. He joined the NSDAP on May 1, 1937 ( membership no. 5.056.527) and became head of the Heidelberg student union in the summer semester of the same year . In 1938 he finished his studies with the first state examination in law .

After the annexation of Austria , he was from the summer semester 1938 at Scheel's special request, meanwhile Reichsstudentenführer , head of the student union at the University of Innsbruck . End of September 1939 took place there his doctorate Dr. jur. according to Austrian law.

Marriage and military service

On October 21, 1939, Schleyer married Waltrude Ketterer (1916–2008), daughter of the doctor and Nazi politician Emil Ketterer . The marriage resulted in the four sons Hanns-Eberhard (* 1944), Arnd (* 1949), Dirk (* 1952) and Jörg (* 1954).

In May 1940 Schleyer was drafted into a mountain troop unit of the Wehrmacht and took part in the final phase of the western campaign. While preparing for the planned invasion of Great Britain , the rather "unsportsmanlike" Schleyer fell during a climbing exercise on the northern French chalk coast in the autumn of 1940. He dislocated both arms and returned to Innsbruck to cure his injuries there. On May 14, 1941, at the request of his mentor Scheel, he was dismissed as unfit for service. Scheel wanted to use Schleyer at the student union in Prague after the German universities in Prague had been taken over into the administration of the German Empire.

Activity in German-occupied Prague

On May 1, 1941, Schleyer took over the management of the student union at the German Charles University in Prague after all Czech universities in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia had been closed in 1939 after the special action in Prague .

On April 1, 1943, he joined the Central Association of Industry for Bohemia and Moravia as a clerk . Among other things, the association was responsible for the Aryanization of the Czech economy and the procurement of forced labor for the German Reich . Here he later became head of the presidential office and personal secretary of the president Bernhard Adolf .

post war period

At the beginning of May 1945, during or shortly before the outbreak of the Prague uprising , Schleyer left the city and fled to his parents in Constance . Here he was arrested by French soldiers on July 18, 1945 and taken prisoner by the US .

Because of his rank as SS-Hauptsturmführer Schleyer was interned in Baden for three years . He was released from captivity on April 24, 1948. In the denazification process , he was initially classified as a minor . Schleyer objected to this, and in the appeal proceedings he was classified as a follower in December 1948 . Schleyer had given his personal information a lower rank in order to reduce the possible sentence: Instead of his rank as SS-Hauptsturmführer, he noted SS-Oberscharführer .

Manager and economic functionary

On March 1, 1949, he began working as a consultant at the Baden-Baden Chamber of Commerce and Industry .

On October 1, 1951, he moved to Daimler-Benz AG as a clerk . Here he took over the management of the main secretariat in May 1953 and was also assistant to the chairman of the board, Fritz Koenecke . With the protection of Koenecke, he rose quickly; from January 1, 1956, he was head of the personnel department, and on January 1, 1959, he was appointed as a deputy member of the board . From October 1, 1963, he was a full member of the Board of Management, responsible for human resources and social affairs. From 1968 to 1971 he was also assigned the corporate planning department , which he gave up because of the election of Joachim Zahn as chairman of the board. Unlike Zahn, Schleyer wanted to accelerate the expansion of the commercial vehicle division at Daimler and had sought the office of spokesman for the board himself.

Schleyer was also deputy chairman of the supervisory board of Pegulan-Werke AG, which his college friend and corps brother Fritz Ries built up after the war.

In 1970 Schleyer joined the CDU . On February 12, 1970 he was made an honorary senator of the University of Innsbruck .

Federal Chancellor Helmut Schmidt (left) receives Hanns Martin Schleyer in 1974.

From 1962 to 1968 Schleyer was chairman of the Baden-Württemberg Metal Industry Association . After 1971 he concentrated more on his work for the employers' associations. On December 6, 1973 Schleyer was elected President of the Confederation of German Employers' Associations (BDA). From January 1, 1977, he also served as President of the Federation of German Industries (BDI).

As an economic functionary, he complained about the lack of entrepreneurial freedom in post-war Germany and saw codetermination as a “communist work”. Due to his tough stance in the labor disputes of the 1960s - the lockouts in 1963 are controversial - Schleyer became an enemy of the unions, while his National Socialist past brought him hostility from the left. In 1977 Schleyer fought a battle of words with the DGB chairman Heinz Oskar Vetter at the 8th St. Gallen Symposium , which also became known because of its proximity to Schleyer's later kidnapping.

Kidnapping and murder

Memorial in Cologne on the 40th anniversary of the assassination attempt on Hanns Martin Schleyer

On September 5, 1977, in the so-called German Autumn , Schleyer was kidnapped in Cologne-Braunsfeld by the RAF command " Siegfried Hausner ". His driver Heinz Marcisz and the three bodyguards Reinhold Brändle, Roland Pieler and Helmut Ulmer following in a car were shot. His kidnappers asked the federal government to release eleven prisoners from the RAF.

The government under Chancellor Helmut Schmidt decided not to respond to the demands. She stayed there even after the hijacking of the plane "Landshut" on October 13, 1977. She had the Landshut storm on October 18 at Mogadishu airport by the GSG 9 of the Federal Border Guard . The passengers who were taken hostage were freed. On the same night, three RAF prisoners killed themselves in the correctional facility in Stuttgart- Stammheim (the night of the death of Stammheim ).

Schleyer's relatives had rejected the government's position and provided a ransom of DM 15 million, which the authorities prevented. Thereupon Schleyer's son Hanns-Eberhard applied to the Federal Constitutional Court to release the RAF prisoners . The application was rejected a few hours before the last RAF ultimatum expired.

The RAF command shot Schleyer. His body was found on October 19, 1977 in Mulhouse (France) in the trunk of an Audi 100 .

Of the 20 identified people in the group of perpetrators, 17 were caught and legally convicted, and two were shot while being arrested. One person was not caught and is considered missing. Those who were still alive did not reveal the name of the shooter for a long time. Ex-RAF member Peter-Jürgen Boock publicly stated in September 2007 that Rolf Heissler and Stefan Wisniewski were the perpetrators.

Funeral and aftermath

Grave site in the Ostfilder cemetery in Stuttgart

Before Schleyer's funeral in the Ostfilder cemetery in Stuttgart-Sillenbuch , a state ceremony took place on October 25, 1977 in the Catholic Cathedral of St. Eberhard in Stuttgart , at which almost all leading German politicians were present. Chancellor Helmut Schmidt's expression of condolences to Schleyer's widow was partly understood as a kind of apology.

In 1977 the BDA and the BDI founded the Hanns Martin Schleyer Foundation , which today mainly supports young scientists in the fields of law, economics and cultural studies. The Hanns-Martin-Schleyer-Halle was inaugurated in Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt in 1983 . In many cities in West Germany streets were named after Schleyer.

Schleyer's widow and above all his son Hanns-Eberhard, who was Secretary General of the Central Association of German Crafts from 1989 to 2009 , have repeatedly spoken out in public as representatives of the RAF victims, for example in the discussion about an exhibition about the RAF, which took place from January to May 2005 in Berlin.

literature

Movies

Web links

Commons : Hanns Martin Schleyer  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Willi Winkler : The history of the RAF . 2nd edition Hamburg 2008, p. 349.
  2. ↑ Kösener Corpslisten 1960, 67, 1085; * Armin Danco: The Yellow Book of the Corps Suevia zu Heidelberg, 3rd edition (members 1810–1985), Heidelberg 1985, No. 1090
  3. ↑ Alex J. Kay: Dr. Hanns Martin Schleyer: "I am an old National Socialist and SS leader" . In: Wolfgang Proske (Hrsg.), Täter Helfer Free Riders, Volume 6: Nazi-burdened people from South Baden (Gerstetten: Kugelberg Verlag, 2017), p. 302.
  4. ↑ De- Nazify a hall. Retrieved July 10, 2020 .
  5. ↑ Hachmeister: Schleyer. A German story, p. 430.
  6. ^ Armin Danco: Yellow Book of the Corps Suevia zu Heidelberg . 3rd edition, Heidelberg 1985, p. 229; Lutz Hachmeister: Schleyer. A German story . Munich 2004, p. 105.
  7. ^ Ernst Klee : The culture lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5 , p. 525.
  8. ↑ Kay: Dr. Hanns Martin Schleyer , p. 305.
  9. ↑ Hachmeister: Schleyer. Eine deutsche Geschichte , pp. 173–176 and 180f.
  10. ↑ Kay: Dr. Hanns Martin Schleyer , p. 306.
  11. ↑ Nothing can be explained by death . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , March 24, 2004, No. 71, p. L16.
  12. ↑ Heinz Klaus Mertes : The bond for life. In: manager magazin 06/1975, pp. 74–77.
  13. ^ Hermann G. Abmayr. In: der Freitag , No. 51–52 / 2007, p. 22
  14. ↑ ISC Symposium: Practical Management in the Villa Kunterbunt . FAZ ; Retrieved January 16, 2012.
  15. ↑ The other dead. In: Frankfurter Rundschau. November 29, 2017. Retrieved April 22, 2019 .
  16. ↑ Murdered by the RAF - Unprominent victims are forgotten. In: Berliner Zeitung. November 29, 2017. Retrieved April 22, 2019 .
  17. ↑ The kidnapping and murder of Dr. Hanns Martin Schleyer. Documentation of the BMI
  18. ↑ Patricia Dreyer: Boock names Schleyer's alleged murderers. In: Spiegel Online . September 7, 2007, accessed December 25, 2008 .
  19. ↑ Hanns Martin Schleyer , on knerger.de
  20. ^ German continuities. Schleyer and the RAF: Lutz Hachmeister wrote a profound biography ( memento of August 18, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) in the time of June 17, 2004
personal data
SURNAME Schleyer, Hanns Martin
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schleyer, Hans Martin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German manager and economic functionary, kidnapped and murdered by the RAF
DATE OF BIRTH May 1, 1915
PLACE OF BIRTH Offenburg
DATE OF DEATH October 18, 1977
Place of death France