Heinrich Richter-Brohm

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Wilhelm Heinrich "Heinz" Friedrich Max Richter-Brohm (born January 9, 1904 in Kehl ; † April 12, 1994 in Friedrichsdorf ) was a German lawyer, administrative officer and manager of the automotive industry . Richter-Brohm was among other things in a leading position at the Secret State Police Office (Gestapa) in Berlin from 1933 to 1934 and chairman of the board of BMW from 1957 to 1960 .

Life

Youth and education

Richter-Brohm was the son of the Prussian major Richter. By the second marriage of his mother he became the adoptive son of Major General Adolf Brohm (1854-1922). After attending preschools in Metz and Kiel as well as the Ernestinum high school in Gotha , which he left at Easter 1922 with the school leaving certificate, he studied political science and law at the universities of Göttingen , Marburg and Lausanne until the summer semester of 1925 . During his studies in Marburg, Richter-Brohm became a member of the Corps Rhenania in Strasbourg in 1923 . His corps brothers included Rudolf Diels , who was also studying in Marburg at the time and who later became the first chief of the Secret State Police (Gestapo). As a student, according to his personal file at the Ministry of Justice, he was also a member of the German National Freedom Party .

On March 17 and 20, 1926, Richter-Brohm passed the first state legal examination in Kassel with the rating “sufficient” in order to then begin the legal preparatory service in the district of the higher court . During this time he did his doctorate in Marburg under the later Reich Minister of Justice Johann Viktor Bredt on the subject of the civil servant's obligation to secrecy for Dr. jur. The doctoral diploma of November 10, 1927 bears the title "rite". After he had passed the Grand State Examination on July 2, 1932 - allegedly at the Technical University of Berlin - with the grade " fully satisfactory ", he was appointed court assessor with assessor and candidate seniority from June 29, 1932.

time of the nationalsocialism

After passing the Great State Examination, Richter-Brohm was made available to the President of the Higher Regional Court for employment at a local court in the summer of 1932. In later résumés it is said that he started his professional career this year as a department head in the Prussian Building and Finance Directorate in Berlin: nothing specific can be found in his personnel files. There it is only noted that Richter-Brohm applied for employment in the Prussian administrative service at the end of 1932 and that in December 1932 a leave of absence to work with the Commissioner for Osthilfe was granted until February 14, 1933.

When the Secret State Police Office (Gestapa) was founded shortly after the National Socialist “ seizure of power ” in spring 1933, Richter-Brohm was one of the first officials to be transferred to the new authority, headed by Rudolf Diels . For this purpose, as evidenced by his personal file at the Reich Ministry of Justice, in accordance with a ruling of April 26, 1933, he was initially on leave from the judicial service from May 1 to July 31, 1933 for trial employment in the Prussian administration and transferred to the Berlin police headquarters. The leave of absence was subsequently extended twice: on November 17, 1933 to December 31, 1933 and on January 12, 1934 to March 21, 1934.

According to the business distribution plan of the Secret State Police Office of June 19, 1933 , Richter-Brohm was in charge of Department VI ("Agricultural Policy, Social Policy, Radio Matters; Political Movements Hanover, Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein, National Minorities, Saar Area, Memelland, Danzig and Austria" ). As one of ten heads of department, he was one of the twelve highest-ranking officials who belonged to the authority at the time, along with the head of office Diels and his deputy Hans Volk .

Richter-Brohm was involved in the confiscation and expropriation of the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research . On July 14, 1933, the following was sent to the institute headed by Max Horkheimer with “Dr. Richter-Brohm "signed letter from the Gestapo:

"On the basis of §§ 1 and 3 of the law on the confiscation of communist property of May 26, 1933 - RGBl.I p. 293 - the in Frankfurt a. M. located institute for social research confiscated and confiscated in favor of the Free State of Prussia , as the institute mentioned promoted anti-state efforts. "

According to the post-war statements of Rudolf Diels and Heinrich Schnitzler , Richter-Brohm was also involved in the intrigues of SD chief Reinhard Heydrich against Diels and his employees during his time in the Secret State Police Office , which ultimately led to the overthrow of Diels as head of the Gestapo and the takeover of the Gestapa by Heydrich and the SS .

Richter-Brohm resigned from the Gestapa at the latest after Heydrich was appointed Gestapo chief in April 1934, but probably as early as March 21, 1934. On April 20, 1934, he was admitted to the State Police Administration by the Prussian Minister of the Interior under appointment as a government assessor and transferred to the Berlin Police Headquarters , which also included his resignation from the judicial service.

At the beginning of June 1934 he became director of the legal department of Mannesmann AG in Düsseldorf .

From 1939 Richter-Brohm held a managerial position at the Prague Iron Industry Company, which was part of Mannesmann. From 1942 he worked as the general director of the Bohemian-Moravian Machine Factory . According to Christoph Graf , he was a high SD leader during the war .

Richter-Brohm joined the NSDAP in 1933 ( membership number 1,773,284). According to a Spiegel article from 1960 - which is probably based on Richer-Brohm's self-statements - he returned his party book as early as 1933. His file at the Supreme Party Court of the NSDAP , which goes back to 1943, still describes him as a “party member” at that time. According to the file, a party court case against Richter-Brohm, initiated by the Gau Groß-Berlin, was pending in 1934 with the aim of expulsion: the reasons for the case cannot be found in the documents received. The most precise information in this matter can be found in a letter from the Gauleitung Greater Berlin dated May 2, 1934 to the Supreme Party Court, in which it says:

"After reviewing the accusations, the Gaugericht came to the conclusion in the preliminary investigation that the Vg. [= Volksgenosse] Richter-Brohm is intolerable for the movement."

However, this procedure cannot have led to Richter-Brohm being expelled from the party: this is already proven by the fact that the OPG files contain documents from later years - 1938 to 1943 - which still refer to him as a party member and under the old one Lead membership number.

Post war career

In 1947 Richter-Brohm received the post of General Director at the United Austrian Iron and Steel Works (VÖEST) in Linz on the Danube. As the public administrator of the state enterprise, he was involved in the implementation of the newly developed Linz-Donawitz process for steel production. After he was accused of irregularities by the SPÖ involved in the grand coalition , Walter Hitzinger replaced him on July 1, 1952 as VÖEST administrator.

Richter-Brohm has been advising the Bayerische Staatsbank in Munich on industrial issues since 1952 . In 1955 he took over the chairmanship of the board of the Pintsch-Bamag AG in Butzbach .

In the 1950s, Richter-Brohm gained a reputation as an effective company restructuring company. In 1957 he was elected Chairman of the Board of Management of the financially troubled BMW AG . He was commissioned by major shareholder Deutsche Bank to reorganize BMW AG. He should work out a long-term production program for the company. After the worsening financial distress of BMW AG and the failure of a takeover offer by Daimler-Benz AG after the annual general meeting in 1959, he resigned his mandate on February 26, 1960 and left the management of the company on March 1, 1960. He spent his old age in Bad Homburg vor der Höhe .

Fonts

  • The civil servant's duty of confidentiality . Greifswald 1927 (also dissertation, University of Marburg 1927).

Archival material

  • Federal Archives Berlin: Files of the Supreme Party Court on Heinrich Richter-Brohm (OPG inventory: microfilm H 92 "Richter, Felix - Richter, Kurt", pictures 1755–1790).
  • Federal Archives Berlin: Personal file Heinrich Richter-Brohm at the Reich Ministry of Justice (R 3001/72227)

literature

  • Wigbert Benz : The BMW boss who was with the Gestapo . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , May 17, 2011, p. 24 ( online ).
  • Florian Triebel: Heinrich Richter-Brohm - the renovator . In: Mobile Tradition Vol. 3, Issue 2, July 2005, pp. 38–43 (published by the BMW Group, online in bmw-veteranenclub.at , PDF, 2 MB). (Florian Triebl is a historian and, according to the history portal Clio Online 2016, is employed in the communication history department of the BMW Group.) [1]
  • German Biographical Encyclopedia . Vol. 13: Supplement , Munich 2003, p. 314.
  • Christoph Graf: Political police between democracy and dictatorship . Berlin 1983, p. 377.
  • Who is who? Vol. 14, 1962, p. 1247.
  • Heinrich Richter-Brohm. Industrial manager . In: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 32/1960, August 1, 1960 ( online in Munzinger Online ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ CV in his dissertation.
  2. ↑ Who is who? , Vol. 14, 1962, p. 1247.
  3. ↑ Kösener Corpslisten 1960, 100 , 196.
  4. ↑ Christoph Graf: Politische Polizei , p. 377, citing information from Diel's employee Heinrich Schnitzler.
  5. ^ Munzinger archive
  6. ^ The business distribution plan with Christoph Graf: Political police between democracy and dictatorship , 1983, p. 415 f. Heinrich Richter-Brohm's identity with the head of the department is clearly confirmed by his personal file at the Reich Ministry of Justice (which can be clearly assigned to him on the basis of the information on the place and date of birth in the personal sheet): In a letter dated October 10, 1933 contained therein, he informs him District Court President in Berlin with: “that the formal application for an extension of my leave of absence from the judicial service for the purpose of employment in the Prussian administration is usually made by the Prussian Minister of the Interior or the head of the Secret State Police Office, where I am employed as a department head. "(Personal file of the Reich Ministry of Justice, fol. 11)
  7. ^ Rolf Wiggershaus : The Frankfurt School. History, Theoretical Development, Political Significance . Munich 1986, p. 148.
  8. ↑ a b Industry - BMW - Bavaria's Gloria . In: Der Spiegel , Issue 3/1960, January 13, 1960, p. 24f.
  9. ↑ Christoph Graf: Political Police Between Democracy and Dictatorship , 1983, p. 377
  10. ↑ Herbert Hiebler, Wilfried Krieger: Prof. Dr. mont. Herbert Trenkler on his 100th birthday . In: Berg- und Hüttenmännische monthly books (BHM), Vol. 152, 2007, Issue 11, pp. 378-380, here p. 378 ( doi : 10.1007 / s00501-007-0332-7 ).
  11. ↑ From Pittermann to Flick . In: Die Zeit No. 8, February 17, 1961.
personal data
SURNAME Richter-Brohm, Heinrich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Richter-Brohm, Wilhelm Heinrich Friedrich Max; Richter-Brohm, Heinz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German manager
DATE OF BIRTH January 9, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Throat
DATE OF DEATH April 12, 1994
Place of death Friedrichsdorf