Heinz Hauenstein

Karl Guido Oskar Hauenstein , also Heinz Oskar Hauenstein (born September 22, 1899 in Dresden , † October 14, 1962 in Frankfurt am Main ), was a German free corps leader . Hauenstein led the " Organization Heinz " named after his first name , which was involved in 1921 as a special police of the Oberschlesischen Selbstschutz in Fememorden in Oberschlesien and in 1923 in the active resistance during the Ruhr occupation .

Life

Hauenstein enlisted in the First World War as a volunteer and was last Ensign . After the war he joined the Loewenfeld Navy Brigade . Mainly from this formation, but also from other volunteer corps, the "Organization Heinz" led by Hauenstein arose.

Upper Silesia

The tightly organized "Organization Heinz" was used in Upper Silesia. Its further affiliation to the German Reich or to the newly formed Poland was to be decided in accordance with the provisions of the Versailles Treaty in March 1921 by a referendum under an inter-allied control commission. The organization acted in the ensuing civil war conflict as "a kind of illegal secret police", the Polish insurgents under Wojciech Korfanty auskundschaftete and took action against its agents. Hauenstein's organization was supported by the “Organization Spiecker”, named after the central politician Carl Spiecker . Spiecker was the representative of the Reich Commissioner for the Supervision of Public Order in Breslau. On Spiecker's behalf, the Heinz organization procured evidence and participated in the liberation of like-minded people from prisons that were subordinate to the inter-allied control commission for Upper Silesia.

According to Hauenstein's own statements, no consideration was given to international law or traditional war customs in Upper Silesia . The "Organization Heinz" was involved in Fememorden, to which Poles, French and, from the point of view of the Freikorps as traitors, Germans fell victim. Hauenstein later referred to the fact that the murders had been carried out with and in agreement with Spiecker and declared that he had received his orders from a lieutenant under Spiecker:

“I discussed all terrorist acts and countermeasures with him. […] He said to me: 'Here and there is this and that, he has done this and that. We determined that exactly. He must be eliminated! ' Then I hired one of my raiders to get rid of this man, and he was got rid of by any means, either with poison or bombs or grenades. "

Spiecker always contradicted these claims. Hauenstein was asked about the number of people killed by his organization in Upper Silesia in the Stettin fememicide trial against Edmund Heines in 1928 : “I cannot give the exact number. But I made a small estimate and came up with the number 200. ”As a result of an amnesty issued on June 21, 1922, there was no criminal prosecution for the murders committed in Upper Silesia .

During the Third Upper Silesian Uprising in May 1921, Hauenstein set up a storm battalion of around 2500 men, which participated in the second wave of attacks in the conquest of the Annaberg on May 21. Hauenstein's unit belonged to that part of the "self-protection associations" that refused to follow orders from the German government to stop the offensive.

Organizer of the NSDAP

Hauenstein went from Upper Silesia to Berlin, where he was arrested on June 24, 1922 in connection with the murder of German Foreign Minister Walter Rathenau . Since it could not be proven that he was directly involved in the crime, he was released after seven weeks of pre-trial detention in the Berlin-Alexanderplatz police prison.

In August 1922, Hauenstein met Adolf Hitler together with the Freikorpsführer Gerhard Roßbach and Albert Leo Schlageter in Munich . The topic of the conversation was the expansion of the NSDAP into northern Germany. In the period that followed, numerous local NSDAP groups emerged there . Hauenstein stated in 1932 that he had been commissioned by Hitler to organize the NSDAP in Berlin, Brandenburg and Silesia. The establishment of a local NSDAP group in Berlin, planned for November 19, 1922, did not materialize because the Prussian Interior Minister Carl Severing had banned the NSDAP shortly before. Instead, the Greater German Workers' Party (GAP) was founded under the leadership of Gerhard Roßbach . Hauenstein was one of the 194 signatories of the founding appeal. The GAP was banned in January 1923 as a substitute organization for the NSDAP.

Ruhr occupation

Because of the delayed fulfillment of German reparations obligations , French and Belgian troops occupied the Ruhr area from January 11, 1923. Two days later Chancellor Wilhelm Cuno called on the population to passive resistance . In addition to the passive, there was an active resistance with the participation of the "Organization Heinz", which was organized by representatives of the Ruhr industry and the Reich government, especially the Reichswehr Ministry. According to Hauenstein, the French military was observed and the French espionage service monitored. Furthermore, the French attempts to drive away confiscated coals were to be disrupted by bomb attacks on railway lines. Hauenstein stayed largely in the unoccupied Elberfeld and temporarily adopted the code name Heinz Hochberg . At the end of January 1923, he said he met officers in the Reichswehr Ministry in Berlin, who assured him of support for the active resistance in the Ruhr area. The later NSDAP Gauleiter Karl Kaufmann and Erich Koch as well as Viktor Lutze , SA Chief of Staff from 1934 onwards, were among the three sabotage groups of the "Organization Heinz" in the Ruhr area .

According to Hauenstein, the "Organization Heinz" was involved in 18 of a total of 180 acts of sabotage during the occupation of the Ruhr. At least one attack claimed by Hauenstein was carried out by members of the Freikorps Oberland together with communist miners. Eight French informers were also killed. It is known that a French agent was shot dead in Essen. A group of seven to ten men under the direction of Albert Leo Schlageter was used to monitor the French espionage service . Schlageter, who had already belonged to the "Organization Heinz" in Upper Silesia, was arrested by French officials on April 7, 1923, sentenced to death for acts of sabotage he had committed and shot on May 26, 1923. During the Weimar Republic and especially after the National Socialist “ seizure of power ”, Schlageter developed into a martyr figure .

At the end of May, Hauenstein was arrested by the Prussian police in Elberfeld for possession of weapons and explosives. Hauenstein later claimed that his arrest prevented him from freeing Schlageter from French custody. It remains uncertain whether Schlageter's liberation was actually planned; the prisoner himself is said to have refused an attempt at liberation. Hauenstein's statements later led to allegations against the Prussian Minister of the Interior, Carl Severing, of being jointly responsible for Schlageter's death. Hauenstein blamed Gerhard Roßbach for the arrest of Schlageter , who tried to break up the "Organization Heinz". Two members of Roßbach's organization, who accused Hauenstein by name, sued Hauenstein in 1928 for defamation. According to the verdict, there was no evidence to support Hauenstein's claims, albeit with certain suspicions. At the same time, the court saw it as proven that Roßbach's people had tried to betray Hauenstein.

Frontbann and SA in Berlin

Hauenstein joined the Frontbann in Berlin, an SA rescue organization founded in 1924, which, like the NSDAP, was banned after the 1923 Hitler coup . The Berlin front ban was organized according to districts; Hauenstein led the "Schlageter-Kompagnie" based on Alexanderplatz with a strength of 30 to 40 men.

On March 22, 1926, the Berlin SA was founded by Kurt Daluege , among others . Numerous Frontbann members joined the SA, which became the dominant group within the Berlin NSDAP. Contrary to Hitler's course of legally conquering power, the majority of the SA continued to follow the Freikorps idea and the putschist line connected with it. Hitler's course was represented in Berlin by Gauleiter Ernst Schlange and the brothers Gregor and Otto Strasser .

The disputes escalated at a leadership meeting of the Berlin NSDAP and SA on August 25, 1926, at which Daluege Hauenstein presented as the new Berlin Gauleiter. Otto Strasser applied to Hitler for exclusion proceedings against Hauenstein, which invalidated his candidacy. The leadership meeting ended in a fight between the two wings of the party, which had been initiated by the exchange of slaps between Hauenstein and Otto Strasser. In November 1926 Joseph Goebbels became the new Berlin Gauleiter; In his first circular, Goebbels forbade any further debate on the "Hauenstein case" on punishment for expulsion from the party. Hauenstein had apparently been expelled from the NSDAP by Hitler on September 15 at Strasser's instigation; on November 7th he was suspected of being a police spy in the Berlin NSDAP newspaper Nationaler Sozialist with a kind of profile.

Independent National Socialist Party

Hauenstein took over the chairmanship of the Independent National Socialist Party (UNS) founded on November 24, 1926. The party remained a splinter group with around 1,500 members; which was represented in Berlin, Leipzig, Dresden and Halle (Saale), among others. Affiliated with the party was an association of the unemployed who were believed to be quick to radicalize. The party newspaper appeared Deutsche Freiheit, Kampfblatt für National Socialistpolitik , which also contained appeals to members of the communist Red Front Fighter League. Programmatically, Hauenstein's party represented an economically justified anti-Semitism , was strongly anti-parliamentary and directed against Hitler's departure from putschism:

“Many a German party comrade today asks himself anxiously and doubtfully: What about Hitler? He is no longer the old one from 23 [...] His person fades more and more into the background. Several men appear next to him, other men and a different spirit […] With new men came the new slogan: Approach the state! Into the parliaments! The fight for the manger, for the prospect of post and pensions began. "

The UNS did not succeed in gaining any significant number of SA members; In 1927 the party disbanded. Hauenstein, who had moved from Berlin to Dresden, joined the NSDAP again, as did most of the US members.

Schlageterbund

In December 1927, Hauenstein founded the “Association of Friends of Schlageters” as an association of former Ruhr fighters and successors to the “Organization Heinz”. The federation, registered in Dresden in the register of associations, held its first meeting in Berlin in February 1928 and worked with similar organizations such as the “Freischar Schill”, the “Grenzwehr West” and the “Reichsbund Völkischer Freiheitskampf”. The Schlageterbund was close to the NSDAP and awarded the Schlageterschild , for the award of which the written notification of one's own participation in the Freikorps or in the Ruhrkampf and the transfer of three RM were required. Since 1930 Hauenstein published a newsletter of the Schlageterbund, which appeared from 1931 under the title Der Reiter towards the east . In 1931, Hauenstein was involved in organizing the voluntary labor service on behalf of the Reichswehr .

After the " Röhm Putsch " he was removed from his position at the National Socialist Factory Cell Organization (NSBO) on August 23, 1934 by Robert Ley . Hauenstein, who within the NSBO ​​was one of the closest employees of Reinhold Muchow , who died in September 1933 , had been accused of being a “saboteur” of the German Labor Front , which was subordinate to the Ley, and had argued that the “NSBO was at the center of the reorganization of the entire social life of the nation ”. He was banned from publishing and formally handed over the editorship of the “Reiters gen Osten” to Ernst von Salomon . From then on, Hauenstein published his articles under the pseudonym Rolf Liemann until the magazine was discontinued in 1944 .

Between June 1934 and July 1935 the Gestapo conducted an investigation into the circumstances that led to Schlageter's arrest. In this investigation, Hauenstein was judged to be a not necessarily impeccable witness and he was accused of not paying enough attention to the members of the "Organization Heinz" during the occupation of the Ruhr and instead "passing his time in Elberfeld with drinking".

At the same time, the Schlageterbund came into conflict with the NSDAP and was dissolved in autumn 1935. The trigger was his intention to set up a Schlageter Memorial Museum; this was in contradiction to the party's claimed sole authority over recent history. Before that, there had been disputes between the Reichsarchiv and the NSDAP party archive over the collection of files, reports, diaries, photos and badges that the traditional Freikorps association had compiled. The dissolution of the federation took place at the instigation of Franz von Epp , who did not see his own merits and the Bavarian Freikorps sufficiently appreciated by the Schlageterbund. Hauenstein was arrested, but then released again on the intervention of Wilhelm Canaris , an acquaintance from Hauenstein's time in the Freikorps. Hauenstein then built up an existence as a mail-order antiquarian . In 1938 he appeared publicly as a pallbearer at the funeral of Schlageter's father. According to his own statements, Hauenstein took part in the Second World War "until the end in Berlin" and was interned by the British occupying forces for six months in the Fallingbostel camp as a result of automatic arrest after the end of the war. After that he lived first as a mail order dealer in Braunschweig , later as a book and art dealer in Frankfurt am Main . He died there at the beginning of October 1962 during an auction he directed.

Hauenstein is occasionally confused with Friedrich Wilhelm Heinz , a member of the Consul organization . Among other things, Hauenstein and Heinz were in touch during the occupation of the Ruhr; both are said to have consciously used the existence of a "doppelganger", for example during police interrogations.

Web links

• Heinz Hauenstein in the online version of the Reich Chancellery Edition Files. Weimar Republic

Individual evidence

1. ^ Otto-Ernst Schüddekopf : Left people from the right. The national revolutionary minorities and communism in the Weimar Republic. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1960, p. 460. Susanne Meinl: National Socialists against Hitler. The national revolutionary opposition around Friedrich Wilhelm Heinz. Siedler, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-88680-613-8 , p. 378.
2. ↑ Birth register StA Dresden I, No. 3495/1899
3. ^ Manfred Franke : Albert Leo Schlageter. The first soldier of the 3rd Reich. The demythologization of a hero. Prometh Verlag, Cologne 1980, ISBN 3-922009-38-7 , p. 37; also Meinl, National Socialists , p. 378. According to the information from Bernhard Sauer: Goebbels “Rabauken”. On the history of the SA in Berlin-Brandenburg (PDF; 1.7 MB). In: Berlin in the past and present. Yearbook of the Landesarchiv Berlin 2006. Gebr. Mann, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-7861-2537-2 , pp. 107–164, here p. 147, Hauenstein was born in 1898 in Elberfeld .
4. ↑ Death register StA Frankfurt am Main, No. 6134/1962
5. ↑ Zwicker, "Märtyrer" , p. 47f.
6. ↑ ^{a b} Stefan Zwicker: "National Martyrs": Albert Leo Schlageter and Julius Fučík. Hero cult, propaganda and culture of remembrance. Schöningh, Paderborn 2006, ISBN 978-3-506-72936-1 , p. 48.
7. ↑ Bernhard Sauer: " Traitors had been shot in large numbers here." The Fememorde in Upper Silesia in 1921. (PDF; 110 kB) In: Zeitschrift für Geschichtswwissenschaft , vol. 54, 2006, ISSN  0044-2828 , pp. 644-662, here p. 656.
8. ↑ Hauenstein in the Berliner Tageblatt of April 25, 1928, quoted in Sauer, " Verräter (PDF; 110 kB)", p. 657.
9. ↑ quoted in Sauer: " Verräter (PDF; 110 kB)" , p. 657.
10. ^ Bernhard Sauer: Black Reichswehr and Fememorde. A milieu study on right-wing radicalism in the Weimar Republic. Metropol-Verlag, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-936411-06-9 , p. 37; Sauer, »Rabauken« (PDF; 1.7 MB) , p. 147.
11. ^ Sauer, "Rabauken" (PDF; 1.7 MB) , p. 147; Martin Schuster: The SA in the National Socialist "seizure of power" in Berlin and Brandenburg 1926–1934 (PDF; 4 MB) . Dissertation, TU Berlin 2005, p. 22.
12. ^ In a letter to Hermann Hagen from the Cartell Association of German Catholic Student Associations (CV) dated November 8, 1932; see Zwicker, "Märtyrer" , pp. 50f.
13. ↑ Sauer: "Rabauken" (PDF; 1.7 MB) , p. 108.
14. ^ Statements by Hauenstein in German custody on May 26, 1923; see Zwicker, "Märtyrer" , p. 54; Franke, Schlageter , p. 38f.
15. ↑ ^{a b} Zwicker, "Märtyrer" , p. 55.
16. ^ Sauer, Reichswehr , pp. 46, 211.
17. ^ Zwicker, "Märtyrer" , p. 56.
18. ^ Zwicker, "Märtyrer" , pp. 54, 67.
19. ↑ Zwicker, "Märtyrer" , pp. 58, 60.
20. ^ Franke, Schlageter , p. 117.
21. ↑ Sauer, »Rabauken« (PDF; 1.7 MB) , p. 110.
22. ^ Sauer, Reichswehr , p. 44; Sauer, »Rabauken« (PDF; 1.7 MB) , p. 112.
23. ↑ Martin Broszat : The Beginnings of the Berlin NSDAP 1926/27 (PDF; 5.6 MB). In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte . Volume 8, 1960, pp. 85-118, here p. 90; Sauer, »Rabauken« (PDF; 1.7 MB), p. 112f.
24. ↑ Schüddekopf, People , p. 210; according to Bernd Kruppa: Right-wing radicalism in Berlin 1918-1928. Overall-Verlag, Berlin 1988, ISBN 3-925961-00-3 , p. 410f, Hauenstein resigned from the NSDAP.
25. ↑ Zwicker, "Märtyrer" , p. 43.
26. ↑ For US see
    • Manfred Weißbecker: Independent National Socialist Party (UNS) 1926-1927. In: Dieter Fricke (Hrsg.): Lexicon for the history of parties. The bourgeois and petty-bourgeois parties and associations in Germany (1789-1945). Volume 4, VEB Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig 1986, pp. 201f.
    • Schüddekopf, People , pp. 210, 460
    • Schuster, SA (PDF; 4 MB) , p. 126.
    • Wolfgang Horn: Leader ideology and party organization in the NSDAP (1919-1933). Droste-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, ISBN 3-7700-0280-6 , p. 306.
27. ^ Archives of the Reich Commissioner for the Monitoring of Public Order, quoted in Weißbecker, UNS , p. 201.
28. ↑ Schüddekopf, People , p. 460.
29. ↑ Zwicker, "Märtyrer" , p. 116.
30. ↑ Kruppa, right-wing radicalism , p. 410f.
31. ^ Hans-Gerd Schumann: National Socialism and the Trade Union Movement. The destruction of the German trade unions and the establishment of the “German Labor Front”. Norddeutsche Verlagsanstalt O. Goedel, Hanover 1958, p. 104 f.
32. ^ Oskar Krüger: May 2, 1933. The Liberation of the German Worker. An NSBO ​​statement of accounts. Munich 1934, p. 206f; quoted in Schumann, National Socialism , p. 105.
33. ^ Markus Josef Klein: Ernst von Salomon. A political biography. With a complete bibliography. Limburg ad Lahn 1994, ISBN 3-928906-03-8 , pp. 213f.
34. ↑ Report of the Gestapo of July 27, 1935, p. 37; quoted in Franke Schlageter p. 118.See also p. 41, 117.
35. ↑ Zwicker, "Märtyrer" , pp. 116f.
36. ↑ Meinl, National Socialists , p. 233.
37. ↑ Zwicker, "Märtyrer" , p. 43.
38. ^ Markus Josef Klein: Ernst von Salomon. A political biography. With a complete bibliography. Limburg ad Lahn 1994, p. 212, footnote 547.
39. ↑ The second-hand bookshop. Half-monthly publication for all subject areas of the book u. Kunstantiquariats 17 (1962), p. 20.
40. ↑ Meinl, National Socialists , p. 12; Zwicker, "Märtyrer" , p. 43.