Hans Plesch

Hans Plesch (born February 26, 1905 in Wilhelmshaven ; † May 17, 1985 in Oldenburg (Oldb) ) was a German SS leader and lawyer. During the Second World War he was police chief in Munich.

Life

Hans Plesch attended the Alte Gymnasium Oldenburg and became a member of the Camera obscura Oldenburgensis . After graduating from high school, he studied law from 1923 at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich and the Julius Maximilians University in Würzburg . He became active in the Corps Transrhenania Munich and the Corps Guestphalia Würzburg . When he was inactive , he moved to the Georg-August University in Göttingen . He passed the first state examination in law in 1930. After completing his legal internship in Oldenburg, he passed the assessor examination in December 1932 . From February 1933 he worked as a lawyer in Oldenburg.

As early as 1923, Plesch had joined the National Socialist German Workers' Party . During the party ban in 1924, he was a member of the Oldenburg branch of the Völkisch-Soziale Block . He also joined the Association of Nationally Minded Soldiers . He rejoined the NSDAP ( membership number 347.695) in early January 1930 and also became a member of the Schutzstaffel (SS number 4,339) in early December 1930 . At the 24th SS-Standarte in Oldenburg, he worked as a part-time legal advisor and held various functions there in the following years. During the National Socialist era , from mid-May 1934 to mid-April 1936, he was a full-time personnel officer for the SS Upper Section North in Hamburg. Then he was staff leader of SS Section XVI in Magdeburg until the beginning of June 1937 . Plesch, who was promoted to SS-Sturmbannführer in November 1935 , ended his full-time work with the SS at the beginning of June 1937.

He then became the manager of the Opel general agency in Oldenburg, which was owned by his father-in-law, Joh. Hinrichs. During the Second World War, he was drafted into the army of the Wehrmacht in February 1940 . He took part in the German-Soviet War , most recently as a first lieutenant . As a lieutenant in the reserve and leader of the 12th Company of Infantry Regiment 6, Plesch received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on March 21, 1942 . He then worked with the rank of SS-Standartenführer at the police headquarters in Düsseldorf. There he was promoted to SS-Oberführer in March 1943 . From April 7, 1943, he was initially acting and from October 12, 1943, officially, police chief in Munich . In this role he was also a local air raid leader. At the end of January 1944 he was promoted to SS-Brigadführer in the SS and from that point on was authorized to wear the uniform of a major general of the police.

According to a member of the Munich resistance group O7 , a member of this resistance group contacted Plesch before the US Army marched into Munich from April 25 to 27, 1945 and convinced him not to use the Munich police to defend the city. Plesch himself behaved passively and was later willing to make himself available to the resistance fighters, but did not report to the putschists as agreed. On April 30, 1945, he was arrested by members of the United States Army . Nothing is known about his internment and denazification . Plesch later worked again as a car dealer in Oldenburg. After the end of the war, Plesch stated that he had participated in the Bavarian freedom campaign, which, however, was not confirmed by any participant.

literature

• Obituary in: Transrhenania. News of the Corps Transrhenania, Munich, New Episode 83, December 1994, p. 37 ff.
• Andreas Schulz, Günter Wegmann, Dieter Zinke: The generals of the Waffen SS and the police. Volume 3: Lammerding-Plesch. Biblio-Verlag, 2003, ISBN 978-3-7648-2375-7 .

Web links

• Joachim Lilla : Plesch, Hans. in: ders .: Minister of State, senior administrative officials and (NS) functionaries in Bavaria from 1918 to 1945.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Kösener Corpslisten 1996, 177/318; 57/176; 90/215.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Joachim Lilla: Plesch, Hans. In: ders .: Minister of State, senior administrative officials and (NS) functionaries in Bavaria from 1918 to 1945.
3. ↑ Veit Scherzer : Knight's Cross bearers 1939-1945. The holders of the Iron Cross of the Army, Air Force, Navy, Waffen-SS, Volkssturm and armed forces allied with Germany according to the documents of the Federal Archives. 2nd Edition. Scherzers Militaer-Verlag, Ranis / Jena 2007, ISBN 978-3-938845-17-2 , p. 597.
4. ↑ Bundesarchiv, Josef Henke: Personal Staff Reichsführer-SS: inventory NS 19. Volume 57, Part 1, Bundesarchiv, 1997, p. 156.
5. ^ Gustl Müller-Dechent : Resistance in Munich. The forgotten. ( Memento of the original from February 10, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 833 kB), Salzgitter 2004, pp. 88, 103. 
6. ↑ Benedikt Weyerer: Munich, 1933–1949: City tours on political history. MünchenVerlag GmbH, 1996, p. 27.