Hellmut Peitsch

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Hellmut Peitsch

Hellmut Peitsch (born November 18, 1906 in Oberzetzscha , † November 4, 1950 in Waldheim ) was a German politician ( NSDAP ). Among other things, he was a city councilor in Leipzig and from March 29, 1936 until the end of the Nazi regime a member of the National Socialist Reichstag .

Working under National Socialism

After attending elementary school and business school , Peitsch completed a commercial apprenticeship and worked in various companies in the colonial goods industry. In April 1925 he joined the NSDAP (membership number 2488). From 1925 to 1929 he was a member of the SA . From the beginning of 1931 he worked for the Reichsbetriebszelleabteilung of the NSDAP ( NSBO ) - a union-like organization that competes with the free and Christian trade unions - initially as district chairman in Leipzig and later as regional chairman for Saxony until the NSBO ​​was dissolved in 1935.

After the establishment of the German Labor Front (DAF), the unified association of workers and employers, with which the German workers were integrated into the Third Reich and the trade union organizations were dissolved, Peitsch was initially an adjutant to the Gauleiter of the DAF from August 1933 to March 1934 Page and then took over from April 1934 until the end of the Second World War the function of Gauamtsleiter and Gauobmann of the DAF as well as the management of the Chamber of Labor in Saxony. As such, during the war years he was responsible, among other things, for supplying the workers recruited or forced to work in Saxon companies in other European countries.

Peitsch also took on other political offices, such as city councilor in Leipzig and from March 29, 1936 until the end of the Third Reich as a member of the Reichstag for constituency 30 (Chemnitz-Zwickau).

post war period

After the end of the war, Peitsch returned from his office in Dresden to his home in the Altenburger Land , where he was arrested on July 26, 1945. He was then interned in Soviet Special Camp II (Buchenwald) from autumn 1945 , apparently neither charged nor convicted there for lack of sufficient evidence of involvement in National Socialist crimes. After the camp was closed by the Soviet occupying forces, he and the other inmates were transferred to the GDR judiciary in February 1950 . The GDR criminal justice system organized the politically motivated and directed Waldheim trials against a large number of these transferred persons in the penitentiary and in the Waldheim town hall on the instructions of the state leadership . In this context, Peitsch was assigned a central role as a "perpetrator" as a functionary of the NSBO, which was competing with the trade unions, and as regional head of the DAF, which was incompatible with the socialist worldview, and at the same time the institution he represented was pilloried.

Since the investigations of the now responsible criminal prosecution authorities of the GDR against him did not initially uncover anything worthy of criminal offense , after the unsuccessful investigation, the investigative agency recommended "... write out Peitsch in the XXX investigation sheet, as there is only the possibility that witnesses will be found." Witnesses - who also provided appropriate "statements" in other trials - were found charged with Peitsch and sentenced to death on June 27, 1950 in one of the three " Hohnstein Trials " designed as show trials . The trial took place in front of a selected “public” and under the aegis of the later Justice Minister of the GDR Hilde Benjamin , who was also present . Elementary principles of a fair trial were violated in it. In particular, the counter-witnesses named by Peitsch were not heard. It is also doubtful whether - if the proceedings had been properly conducted - there would have been a sufficient legal basis for a conviction at all. The justification for the death sentence was essentially that Peitsch had supported the Nazi regime with his activities, contributed to the prolongation of the war and had failed to fulfill his duties in relation to the foreign workers to be looked after by the DAF.

The requests for clemency from the condemned's family to the Minister of Justice of the GDR Max Fechner and to the President of the GDR Wilhelm Pieck were rejected by the state-appointed defense attorney . Although the part of the prosecution of Peitschs family hope had been made, that the death sentence will not be enforced, Whip was on 4 November 1950 executed . On April 15, 1954, the High Court (then West Berlin ) declared the death sentence null and void.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cf. on the motives of the prosecutors, the procedure and the reasons for the judgment, the revised version of the dissertation “The death sentences of the Waldheim trials” by Bernd Withöft, Vienna 2008, status 2014, section 5.3 (The officials sentenced to death in Waldheim ) and 5.3.1.3 (The Hellmut Peitsch case)

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personal data
SURNAME Whip, Hellmut
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (NSDAP), MdR
DATE OF BIRTH November 18, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Oberzetzscha near Altenburg
DATE OF DEATH November 4th 1950
Place of death Waldheim