Hans Schweighart

Hans Schweighart (1933)

Johann Hans Schweighart (born July 12, 1894 in Allach near Munich ; † July 1, 1934 in Dachau concentration camp ) was a German murderer and SA leader.

Live and act

Youth, World War I and Post War

Schweighart was the son of the elementary school teacher Hans Schweighart and his wife Franziska, geb. Rentsch. After he had left high school in the 8th grade due to illness , he joined the Bavarian Army , from which he was released as a sergeant in April 1914. His plan to do the Abitur and study medicine did not materialize because of the outbreak of the First World War . Instead, he took part in the war from 1914 to 1918, in which he was promoted to lieutenant in the reserve in 1916. After the end of the war, Schweighart belonged to a resolution office for a few weeks, from which he left due to conflicts with the workers 'and soldiers' councils . On May 1, 1919, he joined the Epp Freikorps . He was then accepted into the Bavarian 41st Rifle Regiment, from which he was released in October 1919 for dismissing officers in connection with the Versailles peace provisions. In November 1919 he became a member of the Berthold Freikorps in the Baltic States , from which he was released due to differences with Berthold . He also left the Loewenfeld Brigade after a short time .

After a long hospital stay in Hamburg , Schweighart returned to Munich in May 1920. Without a high school diploma or regular vocational training, it was difficult for him to gain a foothold in civilian life: He managed by taking on all sorts of occasional tasks in the vicinity of his friends from the circle of the extreme political right in southern Germany . From May to August 1920 he worked in the department for foreign affairs of the Bavarian regulatory bloc . At the same time he was involved in arms recovery operations on behalf of the Home and Reichswehr as well as in private arms smuggling. He also worked as a newsman for the Munich military district command, which he provided with reports about possible traitors and about Hitler events. In 1920 Schweighart worked temporarily in the equipment depot of the Reichswehr, for which Captain Ernst Röhm , who later became Chief of Staff of the SA, was responsible, whom he met on this occasion at the latest. In the same year Schweighart took part in the transport of weapons, which were carried out by young people from the so-called regulatory block on behalf of Otto Braun. After a brief employment with his friend German Böhm, he had been without permanent work since the beginning of September 1920.

Actual and alleged involvement in femicide

On October 6, 1920 in Munich Schweighart was at Fememord to the maid Maria Mayer sand that had threatened the Entwaffnungskommissar the kingdom a hidden weapons cache Freikorps view on the castle of their former masters motion involved. The murderer who strangled the victim was Hermann Berchtold, who confessed to the murder in 1931. Although he was officially wanted as an urgent suspect, Schweighart managed to flee to Austria with the help of the Munich police led by Ernst Pöhner , which sympathized with the national right . The police had issued him with a false passport for this purpose. In Austria Schweighart was again involved in arms deals. He also maintained close contacts with the leaders of the Austrian Home Guard .

It was not until more than a year after Sandmayer's murder that Schweighart was arrested in Innsbruck in December 1921 . After he was extradited to Bavaria, proceedings against him were no longer brought about: the reasons for this were, on the one hand, the continued protection by the Munich police and, on the other hand, the fact that the public prosecutor , who also sympathized with the nationalist right, initiated main proceedings against him with the questionable Reason refused that "a full [!] Explanation after the result of the preliminary investigation is not to be expected".

As a result, Schweighart was released on December 22, 1922. Through the mediation of Ernst Röhm and Franz von Epp , he got a job as a forest clerk with Duke Wilhelm Ludwig at Tegernsee , where, according to police reports, he only worked a few hours a day and otherwise enjoyed himself. Hofmann ties in with the fact that Schweighart was able to lead a comfortable life despite the low wages he received for his little job, the conclusion that he continued to receive financial support from political like-minded people.

On July 11, 1924 Schweighart was again in detention taken but which was finally put out of persecution. He then worked for German Böhm's automobile agency until January 1926. In the same year he was arrested again on suspicion of murdering USPD politician Karl Gareis in 1921 . After his release, Schweighart's trail is lost for a few years. In 1932 he can be verified as sales manager of the Ford car sales company .

Career in the Nazi movement and death

Around 1931 Schweighart joined the Sturmabteilung (SA), the party army of the NSDAP, in which he quickly made a career as a friend of Ernst Röhm . There is evidence that until 1932 he provided the Munich police with information about internal party matters as an informant. Shortly after the National Socialist " seizure of power " in the spring of 1933, Schweighart was accepted into the staff of his old friend Franz von Epp, who was now Reich Governor in Munich, as "Adjutant of the SA". After he had belonged to Epp's staff from April 10 to December 15, 1933, Schweighart switched to Röhm's staff as an adjutant.

On the morning of June 30, 1934, Schweighart was arrested together with Röhm and some members of his staff in the course of the Röhm affair in Bad Wiessee and taken to Munich-Stadelheim prison. After Röhm was shot in his cell there on the evening of July 1, Schweighart was transferred to the Dachau concentration camp together with SA leaders Edmund Paul Neumayer , Erich Schiewek and Max Vogel and executed there in the early evening by an SS firing squad.

Schweighart was posthumously expelled from the SA by means of the Fuehrer's Order No. 26 of the Supreme SA Leadership, with the removal of his post and his rank.

Promotions

• June 24, 1932: SA Sturmführer
• ? : SA-Sturmbannführer
• July 20, 1933: SA Standartenführer

image

• Internationales Criminal Polizeiblatt , 1920, number 45, p. 163 (wanted number 354).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ulrike Claudia Hoffmann: Upper Bavarian Archive Volume 126 p. 243 first paragraph almost at the end
2. ↑ Hoffmann: Verräter , p. 142.
3. ↑ Ulrike Claudia Hoffmann: Traitors fall for the distance! Fememorde in Bavaria in the twenties , p. 140.
4. ^ Andreas Dornheim: Röhm's man for abroad. Politics and assassination of the SA agent Georg Bell. Lit, Münster 1998, ISBN 3-8258-3596-0 , p. 124.
5. ↑ Paul Egon Hübinger , Thomas Mann and Reinhard Heydrich in the files of the Reichsstatthalters v. Epp , in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte , 1/1980, p. 128 ( PDF )
6. ↑ Leader Order of the Supreme SA Leadership No. 26, p. 5.
7. ↑ Fuehrer order of the Supreme SA Leadership No. II of September 9, 1932, p. 3.
8. ↑ Leader's Order of the Supreme SA Leadership No. 16, p. 3.