Hellmut Willich

Hellmut Otto Albrecht Willich (born May 2, 1895 in Schönberg , Konitz district , † November 15, 1968 in Bonn ) was a German SS leader and police general , most recently an SS brigade leader and major general of the police in World War II .

Life

Willich grew up on the manor of his parents Justus Willich (1848–1918) and Gabriele, née Lohde (1868–?). After the end of his school career or a visit to a cadet school, he worked in Pomerania as an agricultural student on an estate in Karnitz ( Regenwalde district ). After the outbreak of World War I he volunteered for the army and received several weeks of military training. He then took part in the First World War as an infantryman and later with the air force. After a war wound in May 1918, a hospital stay followed. After his recovery he was employed as a teacher at the observer school of the Aviation Replacement Department 14 in Halle / Saale. During the war he was awarded the Iron Cross 1st and 2nd class and the Prussian badge for military aviators.

After the end of the war he was a member of the Eastern Border Guard from December 1918 , where he was employed from January 1919 to March 1920 as an adjutant in an infantry division located in the Schneidemühl section. 60% war-damaged, he was discharged from the army at the end of March 1920 with the rank of first lieutenant . He then worked in agriculture for several years and volunteered at the Salzwedel private bank in Berlin in 1923/24 . From spring 1924 to 1929 he was managing director of a branch grain operation Sautarel & Co . In Stolp and then worked as a traveler in the grain and oil industry.

He joined the SS in June 1931 (SS No. 36.783) and became a member of the NSDAP in December 1931 (Member No. 733.220). After the seizure of power by the Nazis , he made rapid career in the SS and was in the realm leader SS Security Service (SD) set-time basis. From the beginning of May 1934 to July 1936 he held managerial positions in the SD Upper Section North and was then assigned to the SD subsection Bavarian East Marks. In 1938/39 he headed the SD sub-section Main Franconia and was also staff leader in the SD upper section south from June to early December 1939 .

After the beginning of the Second World War and the German occupation of Poland , Willich tried to regain the former parental estate. In December 1939 he was transferred to the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) and became inspector of the Security Police and the SD (IdS) in the Wehrkreis V area . From the beginning of February to at least the end of September 1940, Willich was group leader of the IF (education) and IC (b) (SD personal details) department in Office I of the RSHA (administration and law). He was also deputy head of office.

On instructions from Reinhard Heydrich , Willich was ordered to Danzig , where he was assigned to the Higher SS and Police Leader (HSSPF) in Danzig-West Prussia ( military district XX ) from mid-October 1940 . In this function he represented the HSSPF, who was in charge of him, even during his absence and later also as a representative for the consolidation of the German nationality . The IdS was the coordinator of the local Gestapo , Kripo and SD management and, in addition to personnel matters, was also responsible for technical supervision. In this context, he also coordinated joint operations with these police units and directed them. His office was in the Danzig Gestapo building.

In the autumn of 1942 he rose to the position of SS Brigadefuhrer and Major General of the Police, his highest ranks within the SS and police. In the same year he was awarded the War Merit Cross First Class with Swords. In the years 1942 and 1943, two SS disciplinary proceedings were carried out against Willich: First it was about “money debts from inheritance proceedings” and later about a violation of hospitality regulations. While the first trial did not result in any disciplinary action, Willich was suspended from duty for several weeks as a result of the second trial in 1944.

Willich was responsible for a number of violent Nazi crimes in his catchment area. Among other things, he was told "the shooting of 34 Polish post, customs and railway officials in early March 1941 on the Saspe parade ground and executions in the Leberechtsdorf camp, which he personally" looked after, in which Willich's family lived (with its own swimming pool) ", accused. As a representative of the then HSSPF Richard Hildebrandt , under whose authority the Stutthof camp was from March 1941 to February 1942, he was also jointly responsible for the murders committed in Stutthof. From January 1942, he was also responsible for the immigration centers in Potulitz , Thorn and Mühltal , from which Poland was forcibly deported or forced to work .

In the final phase of World War II, Willich was appointed commander of the Security Police and SD in Danzig-West Prussia in mid-February 1945 . From that point on he was also responsible for building the local werewolf . At the end of March 1945 Willich was on the Hela peninsula and, after the capture of Danzig by the Red Army in April 1945, moved to Denmark , where he was housed in a refugee camp in Copenhagen under a false name .

After the end of the war he finally came to the British occupation zone in Braunschweig , where he initially earned his living as a representative under the pseudonym Kurt Krause and later worked for the Braunschweiger Lebensversicherung . Due to a tip from an informant, Willich was finally exposed. He was arrested and interrogated by German police officers in Braunschweig on June 23, 1949. The statements he made at this point about his school days and occupation differ from his statements in the SS files. The SS documents indicate that he attended a cadet institute from 1905 to 1914. He later stated that he had spent his school days at the grammar school in Züllichau from 1907 to 1913 . Furthermore, he stated in 1949 that he had been unemployed from 1920 to 1933 and that he had earned his living from an officer's pension from 1920 to 1933.

In the summer of 1949, Willich's former employees gave negative assessments of their superiors at the time: According to Kriminalrat Müssig, Willich had no “social feelings” or “personal gain” and “repeatedly took the position that Polishism in West Prussia should be ruthlessly eradicated must ". Erich Graes , the former Danzig criminal investigation officer, classified him as a “bad representative of National Socialism” and detective director Jacob Lölgen described Willich as “weak in character”, who also “strongly attributed alcohol and lived far beyond his means economically”.

In October 1949, following a trial in Bielefeld, he was sentenced to three and a half years imprisonment because of his membership in the SS, of which he only served three and a half months. He then lived as a sales representative in Bonn and also moved into a pension. According to his own statements, he was pardoned by the Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia at the end of January 1951.

The Bochum public prosecutor's office began investigating Willich and three other accused from 1955, but the proceedings were discontinued in March 1957. The subject of the negotiations was the execution of the Bydgoszcz police chief Karl Otto von Salisch at the end of January 1945, who at the time had been accused of cowardice and neglect of duty. In March 1957, Willich testified as a witness before the jury court in Stuttgart in the trial against Günther Venediger , the Gestapo leader who was subordinate to him at the time . He was last questioned by a public prosecutor in 1966. Willich was married twice and had several children.

literature

• Andreas Schulz, Günter Wegmann, Dieter Zinke: The generals of the Waffen-SS and the police 1933-1945. Volume 6: U-Z (Ullmann-Zottmann). Bissendorf 2012, ISBN 978-3-7648-3202-5 , pp. 355-364.
• Dieter Schenk : Hitler's husband in Danzig. Gauleiter Forster and the crimes in Danzig-West Prussia. Dietz, Bonn 2000, ISBN 3-8012-5029-6 , in particular p. 230 f.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Andreas Schulz, Günter Wegmann, Dieter Zinke: The Generals of the Waffen SS and the Police 1933-1945. Volume 6, Bissendorf 2012, p. 356.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Andreas Schulz, Günter Wegmann, Dieter Zinke: The Generals of the Waffen SS and the Police 1933-1945. Volume 6, Bissendorf 2012, p. 357.
3. ↑ Andreas Schulz, Günter Wegmann, Dieter Zinke: The generals of the Waffen-SS and the police 1933-1945. Volume 6, Bissendorf 2012, p. 357f.
4. ↑ Andreas Schulz, Günter Wegmann, Dieter Zinke: The generals of the Waffen-SS and the police 1933-1945. Volume 6, Bissendorf 2012, p. 358.
5. ↑ ^{a b} Andreas Schulz, Günter Wegmann, Dieter Zinke: The Generals of the Waffen SS and the Police 1933-1945. Volume 6, Bissendorf 2012, p. 359.
6. ↑ cf. Hans-Christian Harten: The ideological training of the police under National Socialism. Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2018, ISBN 978-3-657-78836-1 , pp. 98 and 106 as well as Michael Wildt : Generation des Unbedingten. The leadership corps of the Reich Security Main Office. Hamburger Edition, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-930908-75-1 (habilitation thesis, University of Hanover, 2001).
7. ↑ Andreas Schulz, Günter Wegmann, Dieter Zinke: The generals of the Waffen-SS and the police 1933-1945. Volume 6, Bissendorf 2012, pp. 359f.
8. ↑ Dieter Schenk: Hitler's husband in Danzig. Gauleiter Forster and the crimes in Danzig-West Prussia. Bonn 2000, p. 230f.
9. ↑ Andreas Schulz, Günter Wegmann, Dieter Zinke: The generals of the Waffen-SS and the police 1933-1945. Volume 6, Bissendorf 2012, p. 361.
10. ↑ ^{a b c} Dieter Schenk: Hitler's husband in Danzig. Gauleiter Forster and the crimes in Danzig-West Prussia. Bonn 2000, p. 230.
11. ↑ ^{a b c d} Dieter Schenk: Hitler's husband in Danzig. Gauleiter Forster and the crimes in Danzig-West Prussia. Bonn 2000, p. 231.
12. ↑ Dieter Schenk: Danzig 1930–1945. The end of a free city. Ch.links, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-86153-737-3 , p. 141.
13. ↑ Marek Orski: organization and organizing principles of the Stutthof camp. In: Ulrich Herbert , Karin Orth , Christoph Dieckmann (eds.): The National Socialist Concentration Camps: Development and Structure , Wallstein Verlag, 1998, ISBN 3-89244-289-4 , pp. 285–308.
14. ↑ Volker Koop : Himmler's last contingent. The Nazi organization "Werewolf" . Böhlau, Cologne et al. 2008, ISBN 978-3-412-20191-3 , p. 93.
15. ↑ ^{a b} Andreas Schulz, Günter Wegmann, Dieter Zinke: The Generals of the Waffen SS and the Police 1933-1945. Volume 6, Bissendorf 2012, p. 363.
16. ↑ Dieter Schenk: Hitler's husband in Danzig. Gauleiter Forster and the crimes in Danzig-West Prussia. Bonn 2000, p. 256f.
17. ↑ Andreas Schulz, Günter Wegmann, Dieter Zinke: The generals of the Waffen-SS and the police 1933-1945. Volume 6, Bissendorf 2012, p. 360f.