Hans Günther (SS member)

Hans Günther (born August 22, 1910 in Erfurt ; † May 5, 1945 in Hlásná Třebaň ) was a German accountant, police officer and SS-Sturmbannführer (1942). From July 1939 to May 1945 he headed the “ Central Office for Jewish Emigration in Prague ”.

Career

Hans Günther, son of the businessman Emil Günther and his wife Lydia, had three brothers Rolf , Gerd and Klaus and, after a regular school career, completed a commercial apprenticeship at a publishing house and then worked as an accountant until 1931. After joining the SA in November 1928, he quickly rose to become SA leader and in March 1929 also became a member of the NSDAP ( membership number 119,925). From April 1931 he was a member of the voluntary labor service and from 1932 to 1933 also headed a group of members of the voluntary labor service on an estate in Mecklenburg. He also became managing director of the local NSDAP local group leader . After that, Günther was unemployed for two years, during which he did advanced training at SA leadership schools.

From September 1935 Günther began working as a criminal assistant candidate with the Gestapo in Erfurt, where he was subsequently responsible for the so-called " Jewish question " together with his brother Rolf Günther in Department IIb . After the change from the SA to the SS in 1937 (SS no. 290.129), Günther worked, again with his brother Rolf, as a consultant in the newly created " Central Office for Jewish Emigration in Vienna ". While his brother Rolf was subsequently deputy head of the “ Jewish Department” under Adolf Eichmann in the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) Department IVB4 , Hans Günther rose to head the “Central Office for Jewish Emigration” in Prague (later “Central Office for the Regulation of the Jewish Question”) in July 1939 ") And stayed at this post until the beginning of May 1945. Formally, his office was subordinate to the commander of the Security Police and the SD , but in practice there was cooperation with Eichmann's department at the RSHA in connection with the" final solution " . Günther took part in the discussion “about the solution of Jewish questions” on October 10, 1941, which was initiated by Reich Protector Reinhard Heydrich and Adolf Eichmann.

His deputy was temporarily Karl Rahm , whom he transferred to the Theresienstadt ghetto in February 1944 as director . The anti-Jewish ordinances in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia as well as the deportations of Czech Jews to the Theresienstadt ghetto and from there to the extermination camps fell within his area of responsibility . Günther, married since 1941 and the father of at least one child, often stayed in this capacity in person in the ghetto. There are no reports of unauthorized ill-treatment in the ghetto, but he monitored the executions he ordered. The prisoners in the camp are said to have referred to him as the "smiling executioner".

Günther, together with his colleague Karl Rahm, was responsible for the rededication of the Prague Museum into the “ Central Jewish Museum ”, in which objects of art from the destroyed synagogues in Bohemia and Moravia were kept and shown from 1942 onwards. While it was the intention of the Jewish scientists working there to save the art objects, the National Socialists wanted to use it to demonstrate a culture that was regarded as inferior.

In order to be able to counteract the foreign " atrocity propaganda " regarding the mass murder of Jews, Günther implemented his idea for a propaganda film on his own initiative. The film “ Theresienstadt. A documentary film from the Jewish settlement area ”was shot in the ghetto from late summer 1944 and was not completed until the end of March 1945. This film was intended for a foreign audience, but due to the approaching end of the war it was only shown to individual representatives of foreign organizations.

Probably on May 5th, 1945, when the Prague uprising began, Günther withdrew with a heavily armed motorcade and was blocked by Czech partisans near Beroun . After Günther and his companions were arrested and disarmed, Günther was able to steal the weapon from a guard and was shot in the subsequent scuffle. Günther, who threw a hand grenade after the escaping guard, died shortly afterwards of his injuries. Only after the Czech authorities confirmed this version did the German judicial authorities stop investigating Günther.

literature

Jan Björn Potthast: The Jewish Central Museum of the SS in Prague - Opponent Research and Genocide under National Socialism. Campus-Verlag, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-593-37060-3 .
Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich: Who was what before and after 1945. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-596-16048-0 .

Web link

Günther, Hans. In: Theresienstadt Lexicon.

supporting documents

↑ Jan Björn Potthast: The Jewish Central Museum of the SS in Prague - Opponent Research and Genocide under National Socialism. Munich 2002, p. 77 f.
↑ Miroslav Kárný, Jaroslava Milotová, Margita Kárná (eds.): German politics in the “Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia” under Reinhard Heydrich 1941–1942. A documentation (= National Socialist Occupation Policy in Europe 1939–1945 , Vol. 2). Metropol, Berlin 1997, ISBN 978-3-926893-44-4 , Document No. 29, p. 137.

personal data
SURNAME	Günther, Hans
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German SS-Sturmbannführer and head of the “Central Office for Jewish Emigration” in Prague
DATE OF BIRTH	August 22, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH	Erfurt
DATE OF DEATH	May 5, 1945
Place of death	Hlásná Třebaň

[Potthast77f.-1] Jan Björn Potthast: The Jewish Central Museum of the SS in Prague - Opponent Research and Genocide under National Socialism. Munich 2002, p. 77 f.

[2] Miroslav Kárný, Jaroslava Milotová, Margita Kárná (eds.): German politics in the “Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia” under Reinhard Heydrich 1941–1942. A documentation (= National Socialist Occupation Policy in Europe 1939–1945 , Vol. 2). Metropol, Berlin 1997, ISBN 978-3-926893-44-4 , Document No. 29, p. 137.