Hellmuth Becker (SS member)

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Hellmuth Becker,
here SS Standartenführer

Hellmuth Hermann Becker (born August 12, 1902 in Alt Ruppin , † February 28, 1953 in Yekaterinburg ) was a German SS brigade leader and major general of the Waffen SS and the last commander of the 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf .

Life

The son of a master painter grew up in Neuruppin , where he also graduated from secondary school. Later he began training in the town hall of Alt Ruppin.

On August 1, 1920, he joined the 5th Infantry Regiment of the Reichswehr in Neuruppin and was assigned to the 16th Company in Greifswald and later the 5th Company in Angermünde . After completing his training at the Army College, he was employed as a sergeant in the commandant's office in Stettin . From 1928 he was staff sergeant in the staff of the 2nd (Prussian) Artillery Regiment in Schwerin , where he also made up his Abitur . On August 1, 1932, he retired from active service in the Reichswehr.

Interwar period

On February 28, 1933, he joined the Schutzstaffel in Stettin (SS membership number 113.174) and worked there for a short time with Wilhelm Bittrich and Hermann Prieß . He was appointed adjutant of the III. Sturmbann of the 9th SS standard. He was also a member of the NSDAP (membership number 1,592,593). On July 1, 1935, he was transferred to the SS-Totenkopfverband Oberbayern in Dachau. Here he became head of the recruit training company and, from 1936, head of the Unterführer courses at the SS Unterführer School in Dachau, and in this function was appointed Sturmbannführer on November 9, 1936 . In Dachau he was also involved in matters relating to transport and security in the Dachau concentration camp . After the expansion of the 1st SS-Totenkopfstandarte Oberbayern , he was appointed commander of the I. Sturmbannes on November 9, 1937 and promoted to SS-Obersturmbannführer on January 30, 1938 .

He was involved in the Anschluss of Austria and the occupation of the Sudetenland , where he and his unit, the 1st SS Battalion, were placed under the Wehrmacht .

Second World War

At the beginning of the Second World War , the Totenkopf Standard Oberbayern was added to the new motorized Totenkopf Division as SS Totenkopf Infantry Regiment 1, and he took part in the western campaign with it. Promoted to SS-Standartenführer in May 1940 , he was appointed commander of the 1st Battalion of the 1st SS Totenkopf Infantry Regiment.

When the attack on the Soviet Union began , he took over command of the regiment on July 7, 1941, and continued this task after his wounding on July 10. Then on August 8th he was officially appointed commander of the regiment. On September 12, 1941 he became the commander of the motorcycle rifle battalion of the SS Totenkopfdivision. From October 25, 1941 he took over the leadership of the SS Totenkopf Infantry Regiment 3, whose commander he later became. With this was used in the Battle of Demyansk .

After his division had been reclassified to a tank division in autumn 1942, he was appointed commander of the SS Panzergrenadier Regiment 6. After Theodor Eicke's death, this was renamed SS Panzergrenadier Regiment 6 Theodor Eicke (originally the SS-Totenkopf 3rd Infantry Regiment). At the head of the regiment, Becker made a name for himself not only as a tough regimental commander, but also personally as an unpredictable SS leader. The following emerges from an internal correspondence between SS-Obergruppenführer Hans Jüttner, head of the SS Leadership Main Office and SS-Gruppenführer Maximilian von Herff, Head of the SS Personnel Main Office: "Becker raped Russian women in public and was at the fore as regimental commander Becker had already held an orgy in the officers' mess of his regiment on Christmas 1942 in France. Drunk he smashed furniture and smashed window panes and then rode a horse to death in front of his fellow officers who were also drunk and fornication In the spring of 1943 his command post on the Ukrainian front kept prostitutes, and on April 20, 1943, in a state of intoxication - to celebrate Hitler's birthday - he ordered that all heavy artillery in his regiment should fire for ten minutes, thereby wasting valuable ammunition and the Men from neighboring units forced to take cover. " After various combat missions on the Eastern Front , he was transferred to the Führerreserve on January 12, 1944 , but took over command of the SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment 36 of the 16th SS Panzer Grenadier Division "Reichsführer SS" in Italy on March 13, 1944 and was promoted to SS-Oberführer .

After Hermann Prieß set up the SS Totenkopf Division in March 1943 , Becker was appointed commander of the 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf on July 13, 1944 . With this he was in the tank battle of Prokhorovka and then together with the 5th SS Panzer Division "Wiking" , under SS-Standartenführer Johannes Mühlenkamp and the IV. SS Panzer Corps , under SS-Obergruppenführer and General of the Waffen-SS Herbert Gille , in Radzymin and the suppression of the Warsaw uprising in the Central army group used.

In the following months he was deployed with his division east of Warsaw and later east of Modlin . In January 1945 he was transferred to Hungary with the 3rd and 5th SS Panzer Divisions in order to support the relief attacks in the battle for Budapest there and to stop the Soviet counter-offensive near Stuhlweissenburg . The battle ended in defeat, although most of the elite divisions of the Waffen SS were involved. After the battle for Hungary was lost, he withdrew with his division towards Vienna and fought there in the battle for Vienna . Shortly before the city surrendered, he was ordered to go west and surrender to the Americans there. The commander of the American unit refused to accept the division's surrender . Thereupon he attempted the honorable surrender to the Soviet troops, but was captured by them.

In November 1947 he was sentenced to three times 25 years of forced labor by a Soviet military court in Poltava for war crimes and was sent to the 377 Sverdlovsk POW camp . On September 9, 1952, Becker was sentenced to death in a second trial in Rostov for sabotage at work. On February 28, 1953, the sentence was carried out.

Awards

See also

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b List of seniority of the NSDAP Schutzstaffel. As of December 1, 1936, p. 66 f., No. 1440. (JPG; 1.05 MB) In: http://www.dws-xip.pl/reich/biografie/1936/1936.html . Retrieved November 6, 2019 .
  2. ^ Charles W. Sydnor Jr .: Soldiers of Death . Ed .: Schöningh. ISBN 978-3-506-79084-2 , pp. 260 .
  3. ↑ a b Veit Scherzer : Knight's Cross bearer 1939–1945. The holders of the Iron Cross of the Army, Air Force, Navy, Waffen-SS, Volkssturm and armed forces allied with Germany according to the documents of the Federal Archives. 2nd Edition. Scherzers Militaer-Verlag, Ranis / Jena 2007, ISBN 978-3-938845-17-2 , p. 209.
personal data
SURNAME Becker, Hellmuth
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Becker, Hellmuth Hermann (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer, SS brigade leader and major general of the Waffen SS
DATE OF BIRTH August 12, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Old Ruppin
DATE OF DEATH February 28, 1953
Place of death Ekaterinburg