Hans Georg Klamroth

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Johannes "Hans" Georg Klamroth (born October 12, 1898 in Halberstadt , † August 26, 1944 in Berlin-Plötzensee ) was one of the people who knew about the perpetrators of July 20, 1944 .

Life

After he had passed the secondary school diploma at Halberstädter Domgymnasium in 1916, Klamroth was accepted on September 7, 1916 as a flag squire in the dragoon regiment "Prince Albrecht of Prussia" (Litthauisches) No. 1 in Königsberg. He took part in the Battle of Riga , was wounded and awarded the Iron Cross, 2nd class. He ended the war with the rank of lieutenant in Ukraine.

On May 13, 1919, he began an apprenticeship with a shipping company in Hamburg. Professional stays abroad followed in Curaçao , Venezuela and the USA . In July 1923 he became a partner in the family-owned company IG Klamroth in Halberstadt.

At first he was a supporter of National Socialism , a member of the NSDAP and the SS and served with the rank of major of the reserve as a defense officer in the high command of the Wehrmacht , most recently for the Peenemünde Army Research Center and Mittelwerk GmbH , which operated the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp . After the arrest of Wernher von Braun , Helmut Gröttrup and Klaus Riedel by the Gestapo in Peenemünde on March 15, 1944, Klamroth successfully campaigned for their immediate release from the Armaments Minister Albert Speer .

Through his second cousin and his son-in-law actively involved in the assassination attempt on Hitler on July 20, 1944 , Lieutenant Colonel in the General Staff Bernhard Klamroth , as well as Major General Hellmuth Stieff , Klamroth was initiated into the assassination plans of the military resistance on July 10, 1944 . He didn't show the plans.

Page 1 Minutes of the proceedings of the People's Court - other defendants are Bernhard Klamroth, Egbert Hayessen , Wolf-Heinrich Graf von Helldorff , Adam von Trott zu Solz and Hans Bernd von Haeften

After the unsuccessful assassination attempt on July 20, 1944, Hans Georg Klamroth was arrested on July 30, 1944, after a show trial on August 15, 1944, sentenced to death by the People's Court under its President Roland Freisler , and on August 26, 1944 in Plötzensee together with the other convicts Adam von Trott zu Solz , Ludwig Freiherr von Leonrod and Otto Kiep murdered because he had kept his knowledge to himself and had not reported the planned coup . During the interrogation, according to Ernst Kaltenbrunner's letter to Martin Bormann, when asked why he had not done anything , Klamroth stated that

“That his military upbringing had prevented him from trying to correct the general. [...] What the next superior orders is done, and what he does not order is none of my business. "

Consequences of Klamroth's execution

After Klamroth was sentenced and executed , his property and that of his wife and children were confiscated. The wife and children got their property back in December 1944, as the seizure was an accident, according to the SS. There was no compensation whatsoever in the Federal Republic for the confiscation of Klamroth's cash assets. His wife Else and daughter Ursula were expelled from the NSDAP and the Nazi women's association. The daughter Barbara was expelled from the University of Vienna and had to work in a chemical factory in Goslar. The only son, Joachim Gerd Klamroth (Jochen), was taken into kin custody and joined with common felons in the Penal Division 999 , which fought under the harshest conditions and with great losses on the eastern and western fronts. The experiences traumatized Joachim Gerd Klamroth and never let go of his life. Klamroth's brother Kurt, previously appointed to the UK government , was drafted. He served first in a flak unit on the Eastern Front and later in the SS special unit Dirlewanger .

In 1948 the wife and her two youngest daughters moved from Halberstadt to Braunschweig . The part of the family company in West Germany went bankrupt in 1948 because his wife had no business experience. After that the rest of the family was in financial difficulties and lived partly on donations from the relief organization July 20th . In the post-war years, the family was stigmatized as traitors by part of the population. Through the mediation of Eugen Gerstenmaier , the wife got a job in the embassy in Stockholm in 1949 . After years of negotiations, Else Klamroth was awarded compensation for the sentencing and execution of her husband in 1957. She received compensation of DM 22,924 and a pension of DM 404. In addition, she received an additional pension of DM 13,784. Her two daughters, who were minors at the time of the execution, also received a pension. In 1962, the compensation authorities asked for repayment. The compensation and back-payment of the pension had been placed in a bank and the authorities found that interest payments should be offset against the pension. It was not until 1966 that the Federal Court of Justice ruled against repayment or that the interest did not have to be offset.

family

Klamroth came from an old merchant family and came to Halberstadt as the first of four children of Kommerzienrat Kurt Klamroth (* 1872; † 1947) and his wife Gertrud, nee. Vogler (* 1875; † 1951) to the world. The lawyer Gustav Ernst Kurt Klamroth is his brother. He still had two sisters, Anna Marie and Erika.

From September 15, 1922 until his death he was with Else Klamroth, geb. Podeus (* 1899; † 1987) married. The marriage resulted in five children, Barbara (* 1923; † 1990), Ursula (* 1924; † 1981), Joachim Gerd (Jochen) (* 1925; † 2009), Sabine (* 1933) and Wibke (* 1938; † 2019).

Hans Georg Klamroth's youngest daughter, the television journalist Wibke Bruhns , published a much discussed biography about her father in 2004, which became a bestseller . The ARD broadcast on 3 January 2007 under the title My Father's Country , a documentary on the life of Klamroth family 'were parents whose center Wibke Bruhns.

Another daughter is the lawyer and author Sabine Klamroth . The television producer Jörn Klamroth was his grandson.

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Wibke Bruhns: My father's country. Story of a German family. Econ-Verlag, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-430-22571-X
  2. ↑ For the Klamroth family see: Günther Franz:  Klamroth, Ludwig (Louis). In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 11, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1977, ISBN 3-428-00192-3 , p. 705 ( digitized version ).
  3. ^ Walter Dornberger : V2 - The shot into space. Story of a great invention . Bechtle, Esslingen 1952, p. 224–225 (296 pages): “After a visit to Stettin, in close cooperation with Major Klamroth, we succeeded in getting Professor von Braun to Schwedt after a few days and then completely free. [..] A little later I was able to welcome Riedel and Gröttrup to my office. "
  4. ↑ Klamroth, Bernhard , in: Lexicon of Resistance 1933–1945. Edited by Peter Steinbach and Johannes Tuchel. Beck, Munich 1994, ISBN 3-406-37451-4 , p. 104.
  5. ↑ Image file of the judgment of the People's Court of the Plötzensee Memorial
  6. ↑ 13 - July 20, 1944 , Plötzensee Memorial , 2003
  7. ↑ The Chief of the Security Police and the SD B. No. 57536/44 g. Back [h] To Reichsleiter Pg. Martin Bormann, Berlin, August 2, 1944, in: Opposition to Hitler and the coup d'état of July 20, 1944. Secret documents from the former Reich Security Main Office. Volume 1. Edited by Hans-Adolf Jacobsen . Mundus, Stuttgart 1989, p. 124ff.
  8. ^ Wibke Bruhns: News Time. My unfinished memories. Munich: Droemer Verlag, 2012, p. 13 ff.
personal data
SURNAME Klamroth, Hans Georg
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Klamroth, Johannes-Georg; Klamroth, Johann Georg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Confidante of the planned assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler on July 20, 1944
DATE OF BIRTH October 12, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Halberstadt
DATE OF DEATH August 26, 1944
Place of death Berlin