Hans Krüger (politician, 1902)

Hans Krüger (1963?)

Hans Krüger (born July 6, 1902 in Neustettin ; † November 3, 1971 in Bonn ) was a German politician ( CDU ). From October 17, 1963 to February 7, 1964, he was Federal Minister for Expellees, Refugees and War Victims .

Life and work

After graduating from high school , Krüger, who was of Protestant faith, studied law and political science in Jena , Greifswald and Bonn from 1922 , which he completed in 1927 with the first state examination and in 1931 with the second state examination . During his studies he joined the Teutonia Jena fraternity in 1922 . He then worked as a judge in Pomerania . In 1938 he was appointed regional judge in Stargard and in 1940 that of chief magistrate in occupied Chojnice . He was called up in June 1943. In June 1943, when he received the draft notice, his superior authority advised him to apply to the UK again over the party ; Kruger refused. Until 1945, Krüger took part in the Second World War as an officer in the naval artillery . In 1946 he was released from British captivity.

After the Second World War, Krüger came to Olpe in Westphalia as a displaced person . In 1948 he became the district manager of the Association of Expellees there . In 1950 he became district chairman and in 1954 deputy state chairman for North Rhine-Westphalia ; from 1958 to 1964 he was President of the Confederation of Expellees.

Since 1957 he worked as a lawyer and notary in Olpe .

Political party

Many writings erroneously say that Krüger took part in the Hitler putsch in Munich in November 1923 . In January 1964, shortly before his resignation, something else became known (see below - quote from Der Spiegel ).

Krüger was then a member of the NSDAP and numerous other NS organizations, for example, he belonged to the Reichsbund Deutscher Officials , the NS-Rechtswahrerbund and the Volksbund für das Deutschtum Abroad . In 1943 he was also the NSDAP local group leader in Konitz.

After the war, Krüger became a member of the CDU.

MP

Krüger had been a member of the district council in the Olpe district since 1952 . From the federal election 1957 to 1965 he was a member of the German Bundestag . From 1961 to 1963 he was deputy chairman of the committee for displaced persons.

Hans Krüger has always entered the Bundestag via the state list of North Rhine-Westphalia .

Public offices

On October 17, 1963, he was appointed Federal Minister for Expellees, Refugees and War Victims in the Federal Government ( Erhard I cabinet ) led by Chancellor Ludwig Erhard . At that time ( Cold War ) the SED regime tried systematically to discredit or defame politicians and officials of the Federal Republic as National Socialists or other people.

On January 8, 1964, Der Spiegel described it this way:

“Bonn's new minister of expellees ... was not one of Hitler's marchers of November 9, 1923, as his Nazi superiors believed fifteen years later, nor was he the faithful Protestant Christian in all situations that his current party, the CDU, has always believed him to be . Here as there, Kruger has whispered in his favor with the authorities.

Such arabesques in the minister's curriculum vitae became apparent when, at the beginning of December, the GDR propagandist Albert Norden caught the whisper. The Pankow agitprop had obtained the Krüger files from the personal archive of the Nazi state employees - often used and carefully cherished loot in East Berlin - and discovered an interesting entry in it.

On a personal sheet in 1938, Krüger, who had just been appointed district judge at the time, stated under item 12 on military service after the First World War: 'Participation in the survey attempt in November 1923'.

In East Berlin, Norden promptly announced to Eastern and Western reporters: 'In the Bonn government there is an active participant in the Hitler coup of November 1923, who tried with Hitler in Munich 40 years ago to overthrow the Weimar Republic.'

In truth, the 21-year-old Krüger was studying law at the University of Jena at the time , where he was also active in national associations.

Krüger: 'We students from Jena, Halle and Leipzig were registered in the Black Reichswehr , and I was there with them.' He came to Munich for the first time many years later, 'on a belated honeymoon'.

Apparently after 1933, in order to please the National Socialist rulers, Krüger had passed himself off as an old marcher and thus caused the incorrect entry in the personnel file. The minister does not deny today that the wording in his Nazi personal papers is considerably excessive. Embarrassed, he looks around his office: 'I don't know why I expressed myself that way back then.' "

Albert Norden was then the chief ideologist of the SED . On January 17, 1964, Kruger was suspended at his own request; on January 31, he submitted his resignation; on February 7, 1964 he was dismissed as Federal Minister.

literature

• Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich . Who was what before and after 1945 . 2nd Edition. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 .
• Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume I: Politicians. Volume 3: I-L. Winter, Heidelberg 1999, ISBN 3-8253-0865-0 , pp. 186-187.

Web links

Commons : Hans Krüger  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ spiegel.de 1964: It came to him
2. ↑ ^{a b c} spiegel.de January 8, 1964: It came to him , just hold out , Date: January 27, 1964 Re: Krüger , official expulsion
3. ^ German Bundestag, 17. Election period, 204th session on November 8, 2012, PDF document 17/8134 Dealing with the Nazi past