Hans Fridrich
Hans Fridrich (born October 24, 1884 in Waldenburg , Province of Silesia ; † January 8, 1947 in special camp No. 4 Bautzen ) was Lord Mayor of the city of Breslau from October 1934 to December 1943 . From December 16, 1943 to October 17, 1944 he was Deputy Chief of the Military Administration in Belgium and Northern France.
Life
Fridrich was the second of five children of the painter Eugen Fridrich. He attended the humanistic high school in Waldenburg. After graduating from high school, he studied law at the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg , the Friedrich Wilhelms University in Berlin and the Silesian Friedrich Wilhelms University . He took part in the First World War as a soldier in the German Army from 1915 to 1918 and was seriously wounded in both hands. After the war he began a career in the Prussian civil service. Via the districts of Waldenburg (Schles) and the districts of Neumarkt he came to the provincial administration of the province of Lower Silesia , where he rose to governor in 1934 . Even before the National Socialists won the Reichstag election in March 1933 , Fridrich had joined the National Socialist German Workers' Party in 1932 .
On October 1, 1934, Fridrich became Lord Mayor of Breslau. Among other things, he was involved in the restoration of old monuments, including all the interiors of the town hall and the Schweidnitzer cellar , which he had freed from their falsifications during the founding years according to old models. In 1935 he dismissed Franz von Hoeßlin as general music director of the Stadttheater because Hoeßlin was married "to a fully Jewish woman". During his tenure, the construction of the thousandth German motorway kilometer near Wroclaw fell in 1936. A year later, the German Singers Association took place in Wroclaw. Fridrich made Reich Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels an honorary citizen . In the summer of 1938, the city hosted the 12th German Gymnastics and Sports Festival. Fridrich was very popular among the people of Wroclaw. He is said to have expressly distanced himself from the pogroms against the Jews of November 9, 1938. As Lord Mayor, Fridrich was in conflict with the Gauleiter of Lower Silesia, Karl Hanke, who was appointed in 1941 . He therefore entered the Wehrmacht in December 1943 and became Deputy Chief of the Military Administration in Belgium and Northern France in Brussels . His superior there was General Alexander von Falkenhausen , who was active in the resistance against National Socialism .
After the liberation of Brussels by the Allies , Fridrich returned to Breslau in the autumn of 1944 with the claim to exercise his mayor's office again - knowing full well that Gauleiter Hanke would not let him. Politically, he was sidelined. At the end of the war, Fridrich made his way to Merseburg on foot , where he arrived on May 25, 1945 and stayed with his sister Käthe Rudolph nee. Fridrich stayed. He worked in agriculture for a few months. At the end of 1945 he was arrested by the Soviet military administration in Germany and taken to the Bautzen camp. He died in 1947 at the age of 62 without charge or trial. He left his wife Emy Fridrich geb. Cornelius (1889–1979), with whom he had an adopted daughter.
Party affiliation
After the First World War, Hans Fridrich joined the Pan-German Association . From 1929 to March 1932 he was a member of the German People's Party . He then joined the working group of National Socialist senior civil servants and became a member of the NSDAP on December 1, 1932 (membership number 1.413.841). SS candidate on April 1, 1934 and SS member on January 19, 1935 (ID No. 272 275). In the SS he was promoted to Standartenführer .
Awards
- Iron Cross (1914) 2nd and 1st class
- Wound badge (1918) in silver
- SS sword of honor
- SS ring of honor
literature
- Norman Davies, Roger Moorhouse: Breslau. The flower of Europe. The story of a central European city. Munich 2002.
Individual evidence
- ^ Original letter dated December 24, 1935 in Winterthur libraries , special collections
Benjamin Gottlieb Müller | Friedrich August Carl von Kospoth | Gottlieb Donatus Menzel | Karl Gottlieb Lange | Julius Pinder | Alexander Julius Elwanger | Arthur Hobrecht | Max von Forckenbeck | Ferdinand Friedensburg | Georg Bender | Paul Matting | Otto Wagner | Helmut Rebitzki | Hans Fridrich | Ernst light star
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Fridrich, Hans |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Lord Mayor of Wroclaw |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 24, 1884 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Waldenburg |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 8, 1947 |
| Place of death | Bautzen |