Hans Walter Schmidt

The title of this article is ambiguous. For the writer, see Hans Walter Schmidt (writer) .

Hans Walter Schmidt (born April 19, 1912 in Breslau , † July 2, 1934 , in the SS barracks in Berlin-Lichterfelde) was a German SA leader and one of the victims of the Röhm affair .

Life

Adjutant to Edmund Heines

Schmidt joined the NSDAP as a young man on December 1, 1932 ( membership number 1,269,815 ). Between 1932 and 1934, as protégé of the Breslau SA group leader Edmund Heines, he was promoted within a short time from Hitler boy to SA standard leader and personal adjutant Heines, with whom he is said to have had homosexual love affairs. The background to these relationships, however, should have been mainly personal ambition and financial interests: Specifically, he saw the connection to Heines as an opportunity to solve his money problems and to advance his personal advancement.

In Breslau Schmidt became notorious soon after Heine's appointment as police chief in the spring of 1933 for his role in the police chief's wild orgies and drinking bouts and for joint violent riots. Heines' affection is said to have been so pronounced that he let him get away with even the most serious crimes without intervening: Once, Schmidt is even said to have killed a drunkard with a sword, without Heines seeing any reason to intervene, but as the chief of police expressly forbade the responsible public prosecutor to proceed against Schmidt. The Jewish historian Willy Cohn , who was born in Wroclaw, reports in a similar way that Schmidt once stabbed a man in the Fürstenkeller in Bad Kudowa “so that his spleen had to be taken out and he will probably not come up”. The officer and later member of the resistance against National Socialism Rudolf-Christoph Freiherr von Gersdorff , who was able to observe the Silesian conditions at this time from close up, compared the behavior of Heines and his adjutant later with the behavior of "Asian [n]" Usurpers ”and reports how he and his friend Pückler once separated Schmidt from his bodyguard in a pub in Breslau and“ beaten them terribly ”.

Schmidt, a blond young man, was not only considered a personal favorite of Heines, but also his lover and "lust boy", which is why after Heines' accession to power in Silesia he was known throughout the German Empire under the nickname "Fräulein Schmidt" and "Frau Heines" became known. An anonymous SA man wrote about Schmidt's role in Breslau that he was "a cute little boy who can do everything, who mediates everything, who can obtain every promotion, every commendation, every punishment, to whom the group leader cannot refuse a request" . Konrad Heiden also claimed in his Hitler biography, published in 1936, that Schmidt had not only acted as a lover but also as a “matchmaker” of Heines, whom he had brought to high school students from Breslau, whom he and Heines then forced to “be their will ".

Heinrich Himmler began to collect information about the riots by Heines and Schmidt by the summer of 1933 at the latest.

Despite the bad reputation of his adjutant, Heines pushed through his promotion to Obersturmbannführer in 1933.

By the Führer order No. 18 of October 1, 1933 Schmidt was appointed adjutant of SA-Obergruppe III with effect from September 15, 1933. At the same time he was relieved of his previous position as adjutant of the Silesia group.

Arrest and death

Schmidt was shot dead in the summer of 1934 as part of the Nazi government's political cleansing action, known as the Röhm affair .

In the literature there is often the assertion that Schmidt was the man who was found in bed with Heines on the morning of June 30, 1934, when Heines was arrested at the Hanselbauer guesthouse in Bad Wiessee . Since Heines' companion in Wiessee was later identified as Erich Schiewek , the statement that Schmidt accompanied Heines to Wiessee is demonstrably incorrect. The fact that Schmidt was not arrested immediately after the arrests began on the morning of June 30th, but rather was arrested relatively late, is also supported by the fact that on the morning of July 2nd, 1934, a long wanted report from the state police with the heading "Obersturmbannführer Schmidt is to be arrested ”was published in the Breslauer Latest News . He must therefore have been at large at the time this newspaper edition was edited, or had been seized so late that the police could no longer withdraw the search report that had already been submitted for publication on July 2nd.

It is guaranteed that Schmidt was arrested no later than July 1, 1934, taken to Berlin and then murdered by members of the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler in the SS barracks in Lichterfelde on the night of July 2, 1934 . His execution in Lichterfelde was registered on December 19, 1934 at the Lichterfelde registry office under the death register number 1934/782 with a death time of 0.15 a.m. on the morning of July 2, 1934, following notification from the Secret State Police .

Since the exact circumstances of Schmidt's capture and killing were not made public, all sorts of things were circulated in the foreign press. Some contradictory information about it: The white book published in France about the shootings of June 30, 1934 - a publication from German exile circles - stated that Schmidt had been “on a journey during the action in Wiessee” and had “knowledge of the events "and tried to flee across the border, where he was" recognized, arrested and shot ". The German reports of the SPD abroad also noted in the summer of 1934: “The adjutant von Heines, a 22-year-old hero by the name of Schmidt, flees with his car and Mk. 5000. He is to be arrested by order. ”There seems to have been some confusion about Schmidt's fate even later. A contemporary report stated: “It is unclear whether the former adjutant von Heines, Standartenführer Schmidt, was shot or not. In Sudeten German circles in the Giant Mountains , the intention was to eliminate a person who lived in Spindleruv Mlyn and was believed to be the standard leader. "

In his Reichstag speech of July 13th, in which he justified the arrests and shootings of June 30th and the following days, Hitler also addressed the person of Schmidt:

“The inspections of the promotions carried out in some certain SA areas in May led to the terrible realization that people had been promoted to SA positions without regard to National Socialist and SA merit, simply because they belonged to the group of these particularly predisposed ones. Individual processes that are well known to you, e.g. B. that of Standartenführer [recte: Obersturmbannführer] Schmidt in Breslau, revealed a picture of conditions that had to be regarded as unbearable. My order to take action against it was theoretically obeyed, but actually sabotaged. "

By the Führer order No. 26 of October 31, 1934, Schmidt was posthumously expelled from the SA with the removal of his previous position and the revocation of his rank.

estate

A large part of Schmidt's personal papers were destroyed after his execution, like the personal files of most of the other executed higher SA leaders, on the orders of the Nazi government. Some splinters have been preserved that are now being kept in the Federal Archives (BDC: PK-files Schmidt, kept as film PK Q 22, pictures 1491ff.).

Individual evidence

1. ^ Max Gallo: The Night of the Long Knives. 1972, p. 60.
2. ^ Max Gallo: The Night of the Long Knives , p. 59.
3. ^ Norbert Conrads: Willy Cohn. No right nowhere. Diary of the fall of Wroclaw Jewry. 2006, p. 159.
4. ^ Rudolf-Christoph Gersdorff: Soldier in the downfall. 1977, p. 54.
5. ^ Norbert Conrads: Willy Cohn. No right nowhere. Diary of the fall of Wroclaw Jewry, 1933–1941. 2006, p. 132.
6. ↑ Ulrich Engelhardt: Social movement and political constitution. 1976, p. 822.
7. ^ Konrad Heiden: Adolf Hitler. The age of irresponsibility. 1936, p. 442.
8. ↑ Burkhard Jellonnek: homosexuals under the swastika. The persecution of homosexuals under National Socialism. 1990, p. 96.
9. ↑ Leader Order of the Supreme SA Leadership No. 18 of October 1, 1933, p. 5.
10. ↑ So z. B. at Christian Zentner : ... the dagger in the robe. Political murder over two millennia. Südwest Verlag, Munich 1968, p. 142; Charles Bewley: Memoirs of a wild Goose. Liliput Press, 1989, p. 147.
11. ^ White book on the shootings of June 30th. 1934, p. 96.
12. ^ Social Democratic Party of Germany: Germany report by Sopade. 1934, p. 196.
13. ↑ Military history reports. 1968, Vol. 1-20, p. 144.
14. ↑ Reichstag protocols in 1933 / 1936.1. 3rd session, Friday, July 13, 1934, p. 27.
15. ↑ Fuehrer order of the Supreme SA Leadership No. 26 of October 31, 1934, p. 13f. ("Westmark Group").