Hans Georg Calmeyer

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Hans Georg Calmeyer (1946)

Hans Georg Calmeyer (born June 23, 1903 in Osnabrück ; † September 3, 1972 ibid) was a lawyer who worked for the German occupation authorities in The Hague from 1941 to 1945 during the occupation of the Netherlands by the German Wehrmacht in World War II Saved Jews from deportation to the extermination camps. Yad Vashem posthumously awarded him the title “ Righteous Among the Nations ” in 1992 . That made him known as " Schindler from Osnabrück".

Life

Hans Georg Calmeyer was born in Osnabrück. Calmeyer's father was a judge. His two older brothers fell in World War I on the Western Front . Calmeyer attended the Ratsgymnasium in Osnabrück , the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gymnasium in Gnesen (today: Gniezno in Poland) and the Domgymnasium in Naumburg / Saale . There he passed his Abitur in 1922. He studied law in Freiburg im Breisgau , Marburg , Munich and Jena . He graduated from both state exams with grade marks. According to his own statements, he belonged to the Young National Federation and in 1923/24 a machine gun company of the Munich Volunteer Association under Hermann von Lenz, who sympathized with the National Socialists . He later explained that he experienced the Hitler putsch on November 9, 1923, “as a member of a student company of the black Reichswehr , but not as a follower of Hitler”. In 1930 he married his wife Ruth in Berlin. In the same year his first son Peter was born. In 1931 Calmeyer began his professional career as a public prosecutor in Halle / Saale . In 1932 he moved with his wife to his hometown Osnabrück and settled there as a lawyer.

Revocation of the license to practice law

As a lawyer, Calmeyer specialized in criminal defense and also represented communists on several occasions . This also included offenses against the decree issued by the Reich President after the National Socialist seizure of power for the protection of the people and the state . After Calmeyer had been accused in April 1933 of being Marxist- Communist and employing Jewish staff, the President of the Higher Regional Court in Celle arranged for an examination. Calmeyer brought in certificates of good repute , for example from the district court president, which portrayed him as politically reliable, and referred to having been a member of German national organizations during his student days. The Board of the Bar Association , however, accused him "volkszersetzende [r] activity." Calmeyer had "saved communists from punishment wherever he could". The OLG president came to the conclusion that Calmeyer had been in contact with the Red Aid of Germany and, through his defense of communists, “ supported and promoted the efforts of the KPD ”. In August 1933, Calmeyer's license to practice law was withdrawn because of communist activities. After re-examination, the license was re-admitted in May 1934, although there had been no new investigations. The reasons cannot therefore be traced in detail. In the meantime, however, Calmeyer had joined the National Socialist Motor Vehicle Corps and the National Socialist Lawyers' Association . However , he never joined the NSDAP .

Worked in the Netherlands from 1941 to 1945

In May 1940 Calmeyer took part in the occupation of the Netherlands as a soldier in an air intelligence company as part of the Western campaign . In March 1941 he was assigned to the " Reichskommissariat for the occupied Dutch territories ", the German occupation authority in The Hague. There he headed the “Internal Administration” department, which was also responsible for Jewish policy measures. I.a. it fell to Calmeyer to decide in "racial cases of doubt" whether someone was Jewish or not. As part of a comprehensive reporting campaign, the German occupiers wanted to record the entire Jewish population in the Netherlands in January 1941. For this purpose, a detailed registration form had to be completed by each person concerned. Section 3 of the relevant ordinance (Regulation) No. 6/41 of January 10, 1941 "on the obligation to report persons who are wholly or partially Jewish and reside in the occupied Dutch territories", stipulated: "If there are doubts about Whether a person is to be regarded as wholly or partially Jewish blood according to § 2 is decided upon application by the Reich Commissioner for the occupied Dutch territories or by the position determined by him. "Reich Commissioner Arthur Seyss-Inquart Calmeyers designated as the" position "to decide cases of doubt Department. The “decision-making body for the reporting obligation from VO 6/41” in The Hague, which was then formed by Calmeyer, therefore basically had the same role as the Reichssippenamt in Berlin, which decided more than 150,000 cases of doubt in matters of parentage during the Third Reich .

The practice of the proceedings in The Hague, however, differed considerably from that in Berlin. Calmeyer admitted evidence that was unusual or even forbidden in the German Reich (e.g. declaratory judgments by Dutch courts on the religious affiliation of petitioners, parentage reports from privately commissioned doctors instead of publicly appointed experts, or testimony from Jews).

After the war, Calmeyer stated that it was clear to him that he had "been lied to without limits and deceived with false evidence". He therefore explicitly saw himself as a “ saboteur of the Jewish legislation”. Most contemporary witnesses had no doubt about it. In particular, the lawyers involved in the parentage process agreed that Calmeyer and his staff had accepted "false" cases as real. But there were also critical voices, e.g. B. that of the young lawyer Jaap van Proosdij. He said it was "an established fact that many hundreds of Jews escaped deportation as a result of Calmeyer's appearance." Calmeyer did not make the favorable decisions to help, but “because of his habit of always swimming against the current.” According to van Proosdij, the lawyer has numerous things “out of moodiness, a bad mood or arbitrary power rejected, in which he could have made a favorable decision without risk ”. Calmeyer replied to such criticism: “That my compatriots did not understand me was nothing new to me. And the Dutch, on whose understanding I was dependent if the goal was not to be jeopardized, did not understand that I had to say no once, that I always have goodwill, passionate goodwill, only within the limits of what is possible, restrained by a cool mind. "Metaphorically, he described his conflict of conscience:" I saw myself as a kind of doctor who, in a post completely cut off from the outside world for 5,000 terminally ill patients, only has 50 ampoules of a medicine that makes it possible for him to save only 50 out of 5,000 from certain death with 50 injections. Which 50 patients should he save? "

Almost 6,000 cases of doubt were dealt with by the “decision-making body”. In around 3,700 cases, the petitioners who had previously reported themselves as Jews were reassigned to “ Aryans ” or “Aryan half-breeds”. This numerical ratio alone indicates a "generous" decision-making practice. At the Reichssippenamt in Berlin it was less than 10% of the decisions that led to the petitioners being downgraded. In addition, the positive parentage decisions led to the emergence of many “privileged mixed marriages ”. The Jewish spouses in these “mixed marriages” were then also protected from deportation. The term "Calmeyer Jews" got around among Jews in the Netherlands. Jacqueline van Maarsen , whom Anne Frank calls her “best friend” in her diary , was one of the people whose registration changed the decision-making body . Other "Calmeyer Jews" are z. B. Laureen Nussbaum (Hannelore Klein), a friend of Margot Frank , Anne's older sister, the Gallasch family, who ran the Oase ice cream parlor in Amsterdam, where Anne Frank and her friends met regularly, and the German actress Camilla Spira .

Over time, the SS became more and more suspicious of the parentage tests. In a report by SD employee Gertrud Slottke on a raid in May 1943 in Amsterdam's Jewish quarter , it was said: “It was striking that some of these Calmeyer Jews were of such a prominent Galician type that the suspicion was confirmed that these Jews were the Only have a declaration of parentage running in order to be released from work for a certain period of time. ”In the period that followed, there was increasing evidence of“ manipulations ”in the parentage process. In March 1944, the Reich Security Main Office in Berlin therefore ordered a “review of the notices of parentage issued by the General Commissioner for Administration and Justice - Department of Internal Administration”. "I know", Adolf Eichmann later admitted during an interrogation in Jerusalem, "that Holland - for a while at least - was given special attention, precisely because of this plague, that some groups are still walking around freely." Calmeyer was not informed of the planned review of the notices of parentage. Instead, the commander of the Security Police and the SD in The Hague, SS Brigade Leader Karl Eberhard Schöngarth , requested a letter dated July 5, 1944 from the SS Race and Settlement Main Office , written by the Head of Department for Jews IV B 4, SS Sturmbannführer Wilhelm Zoepf in Berlin the assignment of a "competent person who has the necessary genetic and documentary experience". In August 1944, the genealogy expert SS-Untersturmführer Dr. Ulrich Grotefend in The Hague. In a first note, he reported in the matter of “re-examination” all “so far in the office of Dr. C. parentage checks carried out "to Berlin that" Dr. C. will not publish these events "," because he wants reasons for this. He will definitely reject the allegations of forgeries to be made from here ... ”Grotefend therefore suggested the confiscation of the Calmeyer files. However, that did not happen. The events of the war, especially the approaching Allied front, prevented this.

Discussion about Calmeyer's work after the war

The “decision-making body on the reporting obligation from Regulation 6/41” made numerous negative decisions in addition to the positive ones. The negative decisions amounted to a death sentence. The rejected petitioners were deported to the extermination camps. Calmeyer's work is therefore still controversial today. The Dutch historians Jacques Presser and Louis de Jong, and later Ruth van Galen-Herrmann, who assumed that she owed Calmeyer her survival, initially gave him a positive assessment. The German authors Peter Niebaum and Mathias Middelberg were just as positive . At the end of the 1990s, more critical voices came up: the Dutch historian Coenraad Stuhldreher criticized that Calmeyer had ultimately “acted no differently than any other legalistic German official”. He was a "functioning cog" in the machinery of the occupation administration. Geraldien von Frijtag Drabbe Künzel concluded that it was certain that Calmeyer's office had “accepted” “wrong” parentage applications. The conclusion that "Calmeyer had the intention to help" could not be proven. Ultimately, the lawyer seemed "ambivalent". Rescuing individuals would be countered by “participating in total discrimination, robbery, marginalization and deportation of Jews”. The former Federal President Johannes Rau therefore counted Calmeyer among the “people who helped, but who were also guilty because of their involvement in the injustice regime”. The Bundestag member Mathias Middelberg comes to the conclusion in his book about Calmeyer: “He was aware of that and did not let go of him until his death. But if he had not remained part of the system, he would not have been able to help anyone. ”Similarly, the former Yad Vashem director Joseph Michman, who himself survived the Holocaust in the Netherlands, said:“ Whoever wanted to save all Jews saved nobody. ... Calmeyer was very much the guardian angel of the Jews. Although he was threatened with concentration camps or even the death penalty, he maneuvered in a manner that deserves admiration. "

Honors

Calmeyer's work went unnoticed in Germany for a long time, until the Osnabrück high school teacher and councilor Peter Niebaum began studying Calmeyer in the 1980s and launched an initiative to commemorate him.

  • In 1989 the city of Osnabrück named the hitherto unnamed square where Blumenthalstrasse, Friedrichstrasse and Roonstrasse intersect, as Hans-Calmeyer-Platz.
  • In 1992, Yad Vashem recognized it as “ Righteous Among the Nations ”.
  • In 1995, the city of Osnabrück awarded Calmeyer its highest award, the Justus Möser Medal, posthumously in the presence of his son Peter Calmeyer and the Israeli ambassador Avi Primor .
  • In 2010 - for the first time also in the Netherlands - an exhibition about the “Jewish rescuer in German service” was shown in Zwolle.
  • The songwriter Günter Gall from Osnabrück dedicated the "Song for Hans Calmeyer" to Calmeyer.

Calmeyer's grave is in the Heger cemetery in Osnabrück.

literature

  • Mathias Middelberg : “Who am I to decide between life and death?” Hans Calmeyer - “Race advisor” in the Netherlands 1941–1945 , Wallstein, Göttingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-8353-1528-0 .
  • Peter Niebaum: Hans Calmeyer - a "different German" in the 20th century. Frank & Timme, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3865963765 .
  • Ruth van Galen-Herrmann: Calmeyer, dader of mensenredder? Visies op Calmeyers rol in de jodenvervolging. Aspect BV, Soesterberg 2009.
  • Geraldien by Frijtag Drabbe Künzel: Het geval Calmeyer. Mets En Schilt, Amsterdam 2009.
  • Coen Stuhldreher: De legal rest. Boom, Amsterdam 2007.
  • Mathias Middelberg: Jewish law, Jewish policy and the lawyer Hans Calmeyer in the occupied Netherlands 1940–1945. V&R unipress, Göttingen 2005, ISBN 3-89971-123-8 .
  • Geraldien von Frijtag Drabbe Künzel: Between perpetrators, spectators and victims. Hans Georg Calmeyer and the persecution of the Jews in the occupied Netherlands. In: Gerhard Hirschfeld , Tobias Jersak (Hrsg.): Careers in National Socialism: Functional elites between participation and distance. Campus Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. 2004, ISBN 3-593-37156-1 , pp. 127-145.
  • Joachim Castan, Thomas F. Schneider (ed.): Hans Calmeyer and the rescue of Jews in the Netherlands. Catalog for the exhibition of the same name. Göttingen 2003, ISBN 3-89971-122-X .
  • Peter Niebaum: A Righteous Among the Nations. Hans Calmeyer in his time (1903–1972). Ed .: Rolf Düsterberg , Siegfried Hummel u. Tilman Westphalen. 2. corr. u. extended edition Rasch Verlag, Bramsche 2003, ISBN 3-89946-002-2 .
  • Petra van den Boomgaard: Voor de nazi's geen Jood. Hoe ruim 2,500 Joden door ontduiking van de rassenvoorschriften aan de deportaties zijn ontkomen. Verbum Verlag 2019, ISBN 978-94-93028-04-3 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Harff-Peter Schönherr: Hans Georg Calmeyer: Rescuer and perpetrator at the same time . In: The daily newspaper: taz . July 22, 2019, ISSN  0931-9085 ( taz.de [accessed July 22, 2019]).
  2. ^ Curriculum vitae written by Calmeyer on November 27, 1946, quoted from: Mathias Middelberg: Judenrecht, Judenpolitik and the lawyer Hans Calmeyer in the occupied Netherlands 1940–1945. V&R, Göttingen 2005, p. 193
  3. ↑ "What about Calmeyer?", Self-written curriculum vitae (1946), quoted from: Mathias Middelberg: "Who am I that I decide about life and death?" Hans Calmeyer - "Racial advisor" in the Netherlands 1941–1945. Göttingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-8353-1528-0 , p. 26
  4. ↑ Peter Niebaum: A Righteous Among the Nations. Hans Calmeyer in his time (1903–1972) . Ed .: Rolf Düsterberg, Siegfried Hummel u. Tilman Westphalen. 2. corr. u. extended edition Rasch Verlag, Bramsche 2003, ISBN 3-89946-002-2 , p. 113 and 126 ff .
  5. ^ Mathias Middelberg: Jewish law, Jewish policy and the lawyer Hans Calmeyer in the occupied Netherlands 1940–1945 V&R, Göttingen 2005, pp. 194–196, cited above. 196.
  6. ^ Mathias Middelberg: Jewish law, Jewish policy and the lawyer Hans Calmeyer in the occupied Netherlands 1940–1945 V&R, Göttingen 2005, pp. 194–196, cited above. 196. Mathias Middelberg: Jewish law, Jewish policy and the lawyer Hans Calmeyer in the occupied Netherlands 1940–1945 V&R, Göttingen 2005, p. 197.
  7. ^ Ordinance sheet for the occupied Dutch territories (VOBl. NL) 1941 . 1941, p. 19th ff .
  8. ↑ Mathias Middelberg: "Who am I that I decide about life and death?" Hans Calmeyer - "Racial advisor" in the Netherlands 1941–1945 . Göttingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-8353-1528-0 , pp. 78 ff .
  9. ↑ Calmeyer's written submission to the Bureau voor Nationale Veiligheid (BNV), Scheveningen, 16./17. April 1946 . In: Nederlands Instituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie (NIOD), Doc. I, 271, 9 . April 1946.
  10. ↑ Mathias Middelberg: "Who am I that I decide about life and death?" Hans Calmeyer - "Racial advisor" in the Netherlands 1941–1945 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-8353-1528-0 , pp. 178 f. and 204 ff .
  11. ↑ statement by Jaap van Proosdij opposite the National Bureau voor Veiligheid (BNV) of 22 October 1945 Netherlands Institute for War Documentation (NIOD), Doc. I, 271, October 3 , October 22, 1945.
  12. ↑ Calmeyer's written submission to the Bureau voor Nationale Veiligheid (BNV), Scheveningen, 16./17. April 1946 . In: Nederlands Instituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie (NIOD), Doc. I, 271, 9 . April 1946.
  13. ^ Levelow: Determining “People of German Blood”, “Jews” and “Mischlinge”: The Reich Kinship Office and the Competing Discourses and Powers of Nazism, 1941-1943 . In: Contemporary European History, 15, I . 2006, p. 43, 64 .
  14. ↑ Mathias Middelberg: "Who am I that I decide about life and death?" Hans Calmeyer - "Racial advisor" in the Netherlands 1941–1945 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-8353-1528-0 , pp. 141 ff. and 217 .
  15. ↑ Suddenly a great many Jews had “Aryan” fathers. welt.de, April 15, 2015, accessed October 26, 2016 .
  16. ↑ Mathias Middelberg: "Who am I that I decide about life and death?" Hans Calmeyer - "Race advisor" in the Netherlands 1941-1945 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-8353-1528-0 , pp. 10 ff. and 89 .
  17. ↑ Peter Niebaum: A Righteous Among the Nations. Hans Calmeyer in his time (1903–1972) . Ed .: Rolf Düsterberg, Siegfried Hummel u. Tilman Westphalen. 2. corr. u. extended edition Rasch Verlag, Bramsche 2003, ISBN 3-89946-002-2 , p. 15th ff .
  18. ↑ Mathias Middelberg: "Who am I that I decide about life and death?" Hans Calmeyer - "Racial advisor" in the Netherlands 1941–1945 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-8353-1528-0 , pp. 102 .
  19. ↑ Calmeyer's List: How a "Racial Officer" saved thousands of Jews from the concentration camp. tagesspiegel.de, July 29, 2015, accessed October 26, 2016 .
  20. ↑ Note from SD employee Slottke from May 27, 1943 . In: Nederlands Instituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie (NIOD), Archives 77-85, 181 a . May 27, 1943.
  21. ^ Joachim von Lang: The Eichmann Protocol. Tape recordings of the Israeli interrogations . 2nd Edition. Ullstein, Munich 2001, p. 171 .
  22. ↑ Bundesarchiv, NS 2, 224, Bl. 8 ff.
  23. ↑ Personal decree of the SS Race and Settlement Main Office of August 1, 1944, Federal Archives, RuSHA, Ulrich Grotefend.
  24. ↑ Mathias Middelberg: "Who am I that I decide about life and death?" Hans Calmeyer - "Racial advisor" in the Netherlands 1941–1945 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-8353-1528-0 , pp. 172 .
  25. ↑ In: Ondergang. De vervolging en verdelging van het Nederlandse Jodendom 1940–1945, Vol. II, Amsterdam 1965, p. 50 ff.
  26. ↑ In: Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden in de Tweede Wereldoorlog, Vol. VI / 1, p. 537.
  27. ↑ Ruth van Galen-Herrmann: Calmeyer, dader of mensenredder? Visies op Calmeyers rol in de jodenvervolging . Aspect BV, Soesterberg 2009.
  28. ↑ Coen Stuhldreher: De legal rest . Boom, Amsterdam 2007, p. 221 .
  29. ↑ Calmeyer should have gone better . New Osnabrück Newspaper, 1998.
  30. ↑ Geraldien of Frijtag Drabbe Künzel: Het geval Calmeyer . Mets En Schilt, Amsterdam 2008, p. 271 f .
  31. ↑ The Savior from the Apparatus of Death. noz.de, April 6, 2015, accessed October 26, 2016 .
  32. ↑ Whoever wanted to save all Jews saved no one . New Osnabrück Newspaper, 1999.
  33. ↑ Günter Galls "Songs of War and Peace". noz.de, April 23, 2014, accessed October 26, 2016 .
personal data
SURNAME Calmeyer, Hans Georg
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Calmeyer, Hans
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer, rescuer of Jews
DATE OF BIRTH June 23, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Osnabrück
DATE OF DEATH 3rd September 1972
Place of death Osnabrück