Heinrich Niehoff

Heinrich Niehoff as colonel in the protection police, 1929

Heinrich Julius Niehoff (born November 20, 1882 in Bochum , † February 19, 1946 in Berlin-Köpenick ) was a German police, air force and army officer. Niehoff was most recently in the rank of general of the state police as well as a lieutenant general of the air force and a lieutenant general of the army.

Life and activity

Early life and military career

Niehoff was the son of the factory director Heinrich Niehoff and his wife Mathilde geb. Hellbeck. After attending school, which he completed in Bochum with the Abitur in 1902, Niehoff joined the Prussian army , to which he then belonged until 1919.

On February 18, 1902, Niehoff joined the infantry regiment "Prince Friedrich of the Netherlands" (2nd Westphalian) No. 15 in Minden as a flag junior. On November 22, 1902 Niehoff was promoted to lieutenant (with patent from August 19, 1902). On October 1, 1911, Niehoff was assigned to the War Academy in Berlin, where he remained until the beginning of the First World War in the summer of 1914. On August 18, 1911 he was promoted to first lieutenant.

In the initial phase of the First World War, Niehoff was deployed from August 1914 to August 1915 as a company and battalion leader in Infantry Regiment No. 15. On November 8, 1914, he was promoted to captain. From August to October 1915 Niehoff was then Ia with the staff of the Grodno stage inspection. He was then used as an adjutant of Infantry Brigade No. 17 until 1916. From 1916 to September 1918 he was then a member of the staff of the 16th Infantry Division. From September 1918 to September 1919, Niehoff was finally active in the staff of the Minsk and Grodno headquarters.

Police service career

After the World War, Niehoff left the army on September 30, 1919, where he was given the character of a major. Instead, he switched to the police service on October 1, 1919. In 1919 he received the rank of police major.

From 1920 to 1928 Niehoff was commander of the Kiel police administration. He then served as police commander in Berlin from April 1928 to April 1933. During this time he was promoted to police colonel in 1929. Since April 1930 he was commander of the center police force.

In March 1933, Niehoff was promoted to police general by the new Prussian Prime Minister Hermann Göring and appointed commander of the Southeast State Police Inspection in Breslau. In this position he was from April 1, 1933 to January 31, 1936 of the state police in Breslau, a barracked and militarily organized police association, which was only used in closed formations.

In the course of the Nazi government's political cleansing campaign in the summer of 1934 ( Röhm Putsch ), Hermann Göring, as Prussian Prime Minister and Head of the Prussian State Police, transferred executive power for the province of Silesia to Niehoff on June 30, 1934. As a result, the state police units in Breslau led by Niehoff took part in the measures carried out on June 30, 1934 and July 1, 1934 in the area of ​​the Silesian provincial capital to disempower the SA, the National Socialist party army, the SA being closely linked to that of Udo von Woyrsch led Silesian SS worked together: So Niehoff u. a. Occupy the SA aid camps in the vicinity of Breslau by his troops and intern the inmates, police various SA command posts, airfields and radio transmitters and arrest various SA members.

In 1936, at Göring's request, Niehoff left the police service and instead switched to the Luftwaffe led by the latter: From February 1, 1936 to March 31, 1938, he was Chief of Staff of the Air Force and Vice President of the Reich Air Protection Association . On February 1, 1936 he was promoted to major general in the Luftwaffe and on October 1, 1937 he was promoted to the character of Lieutenant General of the Luftwaffe. In 1938 Niehoff finally retired.

Second World War

Heinrich Niehoff as Major General in the Air Force, 1940

At the beginning of the Second World War , Niehoff was reactivated as an officer. From February 1940 to November 1942 Niehoff served as commander of the Oberfeldkommandantur in Lille.

From November 15, 1942 to August 10, 1944, Niehoff finally held the post of commander of the "Army Territory of Southern France" based in Lyon. In this position he was the commander of the German occupation forces in the territory of France, which remained unoccupied after the German victory over France in 1940 and was administered by the Vichy government before it was also occupied by German troops in autumn 1942 due to the further development of the war . In his position as commander of the German occupation forces in southern France, Niehoff was particularly involved in fighting the Resistance from 1942 to 1944.

The sources on Niehoff's person are very thin, as only a few documents have been preserved, and paints a contradicting picture: On the one hand, he gives the impression of a very brutal officer who sympathized with the Nazi ideology (as he once called the resistance fighters in 1944 “band-like Untermenschen ”) on the other hand, in July 1944 he successfully campaigned for the release of 1,300 imprisoned citizens of the municipality of Bourg-en-Bresse who had been arrested in the course of the large-scale partisan campaign“ Treffenfeld ”.

After the end of the German occupation of France, Niehoff retired in August 1944.

On December 7, 1945, Niehoff was arrested by the Soviet occupation authorities. He died in captivity.

family

On June 4, 1908, Niehoff married Maria von Drygalski.

Promotions

army

• February 18, 1902 flagjunker
• February 27, 1902 Ensign
• August 19, 1903 Lieutenant (patent from August 19, 1902)
• August 18, 1911: First Lieutenant
• November 8, 1914: Captain
• February 1, 1941: Lieutenant General zV

Promotions in the police service :

• October 1, 1919: Police major
• December 22, 1921: Police sergeant major
• October 1, 1927: Lieutenant Colonel Police (by renaming the previous Police Oberwachtmeister rank)
• November 26, 1929: Police colonel
• April 1, 1933: Police commander (rank was renamed Police General on May 5, 1933)
• January 1, 1936: Major General of the National Police

Promotions in the Air Force :

• February 1, 1936: Major General in the Air Force
• October 1, 1937: Character of a Lieutenant General in the Luftwaffe
• January 30, 1938: Lieutenant General

Archival tradition

A personal file on Niehoff has been preserved in the Federal Archives-Military Archives in Freiburg (Pers 6/300295).

literature

• Peter Lieb: Vercors 1944: Resistance in the French Alps. Osprey, Oxford 2012, p. 11.
• Andreas Schulz: Die Generale der Waffen-SS and the Police , 2008, vol. (Lammerding-Plesch), pp. 340–343.