Heinrich Alef
Heinrich "Heinz" Alef (born October 31, 1897 in Impekoven ; † September 29, 1966 near Unna ) was mayor of Bad Godesberg from 1933 to 1945 during the National Socialist era .
Life
Heinrich Alef was born the son of a farmer. He attended elementary school in Impekoven and high school in Bonn . He then became a soldier in 1916. After the end of the war, Alef worked for a building materials store in Bonn, 1921/22 as branch manager in Weißenthurm . He then started his own business in this branch as well as with an insurance agency and tax consultancy. In 1925, Alef married and had a daughter.
“Time of struggle” and the National Socialist dictatorship
Alef joined the NSDAP as one of the previous members on August 1, 1930 . His membership number was 283,186. Between 1932 and 1934 he was the local group leader in Witterschlick / Duisdorf and in Mehlem as well as the district office leader of the NSDAP for local politics and also had a seat on the district committee of the district council of Bonn-Land.
On March 14, 1933, Alef was elected as the successor to the deposed mayor Josef Zander ( center ) State Commissioner for Bad Godesberg and on April 21, in the absence of the city representatives of the SPD and KPD, he was elected mayor. After the Second World War , his administration was judged ambiguously - but as a result he consistently carried out the policies of the NSDAP in Bad Godesberg. He used a certain closeness to the citizens to show favors in individual cases. The Bad Godesberg denazification committee noted in 1949: “According to the reports submitted by Alef, he made an exception in individual cases for certain reasons; but the long-established Jewish families in Godesberg have all been completely exterminated and no alef has taken care of it. ” He took advantage of Adolf Hitler's well-known preference for Bad Godesberg to gain freedoms and advantages for himself and the city. When his “Führer” visited, he always ensured an appropriately applauding audience in the city and basked in the glamor of the celebrities who usually stayed at the Rheinhotel Dreesen . The higher authorities forgave him for occasional highs.
Alef held the mayor's office until March 6, 1945 when he fled to the right bank of the Rhine like his colleague Ludwig Rickert from Bonn before the invasion of American troops .
denazification
Alef was taken into American internment custody the day before the unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht came into force on May 8, 1945. After disputes between American and British prosecutors about the assessment of his Nazi past and intermediate stops in the Kornwestheim and Dachau camps, the proceedings before the Benefeld-Bomlitz Chamber in the British occupation zone because of membership in the district leadership of the NSDAP and knowledge of the Nazi crimes.
Aleph was sentenced to one year in prison after internment and was released. On the following inserted by him revision towards the Supreme saying Court overturned in Hamm in 1948 on the judgment of acquittal followed early 1949. A legal dispute with the city of Bad Godesberg about his pension entitlements from the time as mayor lost Alef letztinstanzlich 1956. The Supreme Administrative Court turned to determined that he became mayor primarily not because of his qualifications, but because he was a National Socialist. The former rector of the Bad Godesberger Burgschule, Schieffer, was responsible for the Bonn district as head of the denazification committee after the war and wrote in his report of October 23, 1948:
“In summary, one can say: Alef was a real National Socialist, selfish and terrorist. True, he was smart enough to avoid extreme steps, and it is true that he was not the worst of the mayor. It would therefore be wrong to group him as the main culprit. Even in the two fatal cases (Levi and Roth ), Aleph certainly did not want this end; but he is complicit in his initial involvement ... Alef is not allowed to claim a pension and no longer hold any public office. "
In civil life after 1950
In the 1950s, Alef was economically successful again with the recycling of old train tracks. He became known politically and in public as a member of the Association of Displaced Persons. In 1953 he ran for the GB / BHE to the German Bundestag, but his place on the list was not enough to move into parliament. Later he was active in the FDP in the Altena district and a member of the district council in Meinerzhagen . Heinrich Alef died on September 29, 1966 in a car accident near Unna.
swell
- Horst-Pierre Bothien: The brown Bonn. People and Events (1925–1939). With two contributions by Ansgar Sebastian Klein (= Forum Geschichte. Volume 5). Klartext, Essen 2005, ISBN 3-89861-419-0 .
-
Bonner Geschichtswerkstatt eV (Ed.) / Red. Sabine Harling, Andrea Lummert, Erhard Stang: How wonderful it smells of Eau de Cologne! Bad Godesberg - a historical reading book. Bonn 2008, ISBN 978-3-9806609-3-8 , evaluating and citing:
- Federal Archives Berlin: Personnel file Alef
- Federal Archives Koblenz: Z 42 IV 6888
- City Archives Bonn: Go PA 2736
- Archive of the Rhein-Sieg-Kreis Siegburg: Personnel file Alef
- Dietrich Jung: March 8, 1945 - End of the war for Bad Godesberg . In: Godesberger Heimatblätter 23, 1985, pp. 13-23.
- culture-in-bonn.de
- ( Page no longer available , search in web archives: 3kmodels.com )
- taz.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Alef, Heinz . In: Martin Schumacher (Ed.): MdB - The People's Representation 1946–1972. - [Abatz bis Azzola] (= KGParl online publications ). Commission for the History of Parliamentarism and Political Parties e. V., Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-00-020703-7 , pp. 14 , urn : nbn: de: 101: 1-2014070812574 ( kgparl.de [PDF; 187 kB ; accessed on June 19, 2017]).
- ↑ Bonner Geschichtswerkstatt eV (Ed.): How wonderful it smells of Eau de Cologne! Bonn 2008, ISBN 978-3-9806609-3-8 , p. 156.
- ↑ So Alef ordered in 1937: “I have found that the honor due is not given in front of the bust of the Führer in the town hall. When entering the portal, greet this bust with the German greeting . ” This instruction lasted two months. (Archive of the Rhein-Sieg-Kreis, PA Alef)
- ↑ Bonn City Archives, Denazification Committee, District Bonn: Personnel file H. Hopmann No. 78.
- ↑ Bonner Geschichtswerkstatt eV: How wonderful it smells of Eau de Cologne! Bad Godesberg - a historical reading book.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Alef, Heinrich |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Alef, Heinz |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Mayor of Bad Godesberg |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 31, 1897 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Impekoven |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 29, 1966 |
| Place of death | Unna |