Hans Brandes

Hans Brandes (* 1922 Berlin ; † April 15, 1971 Schäftlarn ) was a German arms dealer .

Life

Brandes was from 1940 to 1945 as attaché of the war organization (KO) at the embassy of the German Reich in Portugal . Roger Hentges was there too .

After 1945 Hans Brandes was a businessman and sales representative at Fritz Werner Machine Tools . After internment and political review at Hohenasperg Fortress , Brandes was released in November 1945 as "unencumbered". Brandes joined the newly founded Fritz Werner Fertigung GmbH, Geisenheim , as an authorized signatory . A short time later, Brandes was sales manager at Fritz Werner, Geisenheim . In 1954 Brandes was appointed managing director with sole signing authority. In 1957 Brandes fell ill.

After the Saarland was annexed, Brandes represented Becolin Dr. Becker & Co. in Saarbrücken with the federal government . The representation was housed in a joint office in Mainzer Landstrasse in Frankfurt am Main , where Roger Hentges was also the foreign language correspondent for Dipl.-Ing. Friedrich Großkopf , Bonn, worked, who represented two French arms companies on behalf of the French government. Radio Air Paris and SOCAPEX were traditional suppliers to the Air Force . The vice-president of the French radio Air Louis Macaigne had been in contact with the Germans since his time in Dakar . Brandes reported in a memorandum dated January 29, 1969 that there had been contacts between Hentges and Otto Praun .

Karl Helmut Schnell

The head of the Investigation in Special Cases (ES) department in the Federal Ministry of Defense , Ministerialrat Karl Helmut Schnell, made detailed inquiries from Brandes about Hentges and Heinrich Sellschopp in 1958 . In 1958 the secretary of Hentges, Amelie Hertel, reported to the Brandes that Hentges had made her an offer to work for the French government , that she would earn more and that she had interesting jobs. Brandes gave a record of this recruitment attempt to the representative of the Military Counter-Intelligence Service (MAD) in the procurement office of the Ministry of Defense, Mr. Düsterberg, in the presence of Großkopf. As a result, Schnell then, on the instructions of Franz Josef Strauss, imposed a ban on Großkopf from the Ministry of Defense. For an arms dealer, being banned from the Ministry of Defense acts like a ban on the profession. From conversations with Friedrich Großkopf, Wilhelm Canaris ' pilot , Brandes learned that Otto Praun worked in the Defense as a shop steward in Department 1-Wi and was managed by the Defense Department at the Munich General Command. Großkopf can remember that the name of "Doctor Dr. Praun ”in connection with Josef Müller in conversations with Canaris. Because of the still very great influence of Josef Müller today, Großkopf is extremely afraid to reveal himself in this matter, although he knows absolutely more about this complex than he told Brandes. Very unpleasant things have happened around Müller, some of which go back to 1943, and also have a connection with the death of Canaris, who was sitting in Flossenbürg with a Mr. Liedig who lived with Großkopf in Bonn before his death entrusted him with the details. Müller knows that Großkopf is a confidante.

In 1967 Hans Brandes fell ill and spent the years 1967 to 1968 mainly in hospitals and sanatoriums.

Hentge's life confession

On January 29, 1968, Der Spiegel reported that in 1958 Brandes had given a memo about connections between the French intelligence service and Hentges via Großkopf to the security officer of the Koblenz procurement office . In this initiative, Brandes wrote a letter to Schnell on February 1, 1968 and offered himself as a witness. In response, Government Director Fritz-Josef Rath told Brandes that Mr. Schnell was ill and that Government Councilor Gerhard Scheidges, an employee, would visit Brandes in Bad Schussenried . Scheidges visited Brandes with a questionnaire. Scheidges explained to Brandes that Hentges' information was being checked and that various facts had already been discovered, and that it was believed that Werner Repenning had a mess, but with his death the investigation against him was closed. Information from Hentges regarding the murder of Praun and a connection between the murder and Minister Strauss were not investigated by Scheidges and Schnell due to reasons of jurisdiction. Nevertheless, Scheidges wanted to know whether Chief Public Prosecutor Karl Rüth from Munich had already contacted Brandes. When Brandes said no, Scheidges was astonished. Brandes heard no more on this matter. In December 1968 Brandes told Birgitta Wolf from Murnau about the incident . Birgitta Wolf notified the lawyer Franz Moser in Munich, the defense attorney for Vera Brühne . At the beginning of January 1969, Moser Brandes called Schussenried and asked him for an appointment in Schussenried for himself or for his associate, lawyer Neuper. On Friday, January 10, 1969, Brandes called Schnell on the phone. Mr. Schnell asked again whether public prosecutor Rüth had been with Brandes, since statements by Brandes to Scheidges had been communicated to the public prosecutor in Munich. Rüth has not yet been to Brandes. Hentges quickly stated that there would be a tendency in Bonn to portray Hentges as a liar and absolutely unbelievable. He stated that Brandes would do well if he took the same point of view, because there would be so many entanglements and difficulties that Hentge's accounts should not be believed. Brandes is a free person and is allowed to say what he knows. However, and Schnell repeated, Brandes, after all that had happened, also had to take the position that Hentges was lying. On Saturday, January 11, 1969, Brandes reported to Neuper, who had come to Schussenried. On January 17, 1969, Brandes received a call in Schussenried from a male person who did not introduce himself and whose voice he did not know. This person said she was kindly advising Brandes not to move on the Hentges matter. Brandes asked the caller to give his name. However, the latter stated that the name was irrelevant, that he only wanted to protect him, Brandes, from harm. Brandes received more calls and attempts were made to kidnap Brandes.

Brandes later devoted himself to tasks in Pullach . As a confidante of the Federal Intelligence Service , Brandes wrote a report on June 29, 1970 about his visits to Hentges and Großkopf. Brandes visited Hentges on June 25, 1970 in Kall in his “Confilux” praline factory, after which the two had not seen each other since 1959. Initially, Brandes reports on the confectionery factory, the origin of Hentges, the time in the defense from 1939 to 45 and his convictions in France and Luxembourg, and includes supporting documents. In Pullach, Brandes saw a document with the letterhead of the Federal Ministry of Defense and the subject Journey with Hentges on April 14, 1960 to Pöcking . Brandes reported this observation to the journalist Joachim Glomm. On April 15, 1971, Brandes was found dead in his vehicle on a dirt road near Schäftlarn. Poisoning was named as the cause of death. An appointment with Udo Joanni, Christl Märkl and Joachim Dietrich in Murnau had been arranged for April 17, 1971.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Merit in the semi-darkness . In: Der Spiegel . No. 5 , 1968 ( online ).