Herbert Hagen

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Herbert Hagen (Paris, 1943)

Herbert Martin Hagen (born September 20, 1913 in Neumünster ; † August 7, 1999 in Rüthen ) was a German SS-Sturmbannführer and in 1937 as head of Department II / 112: Jews in the SD main office, the superior of Adolf Eichmann , and from 1939 active in the RSHA-Office VI (foreign intelligence service). Because of his involvement in the deportation of Jews from France, Hagen was sentenced to life in a labor camp in absentia by a Paris military court in 1955.

Career start in the SS

Hagen joined the SS in Kiel in October 1933. There, Franz Six advertised the newly established SD employee.

In May 1934, Hagen was employed by the security service of the Reichsführer SS (SD), who was subordinate to Heinrich Himmler . From June 30 to July 2, 1934, the so-called Röhm Putsch was used in Munich and in various other places in Germany as a pretext for the murder of unpopular Germans and the disempowerment of the SA. This was the basis for the subsequent development of the SS into a "state within the state". In September 1934 the SD main office moved from Munich to Berlin to the Prinz-Albrecht-Palais. From 1934, Hagen worked there in the central department I.3 (press and museum). From the summer semester of 1936, Hagen took courses in newspaper science at the German University of Politics in Berlin. on April 1, 1937, he joined the NSDAP (membership number 4,583,139).

Head of "Department II / 112: Jews"

With the reform of Department II.1 of the SD Main Office headed by Six in the spring / summer of 1937, Hagen succeeded Leopold von Mildenstein as head of Department II / 112: Jews and so the superior of Theodor Dannecker and Adolf Eichmann , before he succeeded others Stations in the Jewish Department in the Reich Security Main Office , which became known as the Eichmann Department .

Travel with Eichmann to Haifa and Cairo

The Ha'avara Agreement made the forced emigration of Jews from Germany to Palestine a lucrative business for the German Reich. The Arab uprising began in April 1936 and the British Mandate Administration barely issued entry visas for Jews. The British government's 1939 White Paper stated that further Jewish immigration should not increase the Jewish population by more than about a third of the country's total population over the next five years, if the economic situation permitted. This meant an immigration of around 75,000 people in the years up to 1944. A quota of 10,000 Jewish immigrants was set for each of the five years and an additional 25,000 refugees were admitted as soon as the High Commissioner considered the necessary economic preconditions to be met. After the five years, new Jewish immigration should initially not be permitted unless the Arabs gave their consent.

Feivel Polkes, a representative of the Hagana , met Eichmann in February 1937 in Berlin, in the wine restaurant "Traube" at the zoo, and asked him to come to Palestine. Reinhard Heydrich , head of the SD Main Office, approved Six's proposal on June 17, 1937 to contact the Hagana. An editor of the Berliner Tageblatt , SS-Standartenführer Schwarz, gave Hagen and Eichmann 100 British pounds each, which had previously been transferred to the Berliner Tageblatt . Eichmann got a press card and drove as a correspondent and Hagen as a student. In an interview with Willem Sassen , Eichmann explained that the route crossed the Black Sea: “The journey went via Poland, Romania to Constanța . From there with the Romanian steamer Romania via Piraeus to Haifa. The steamer stayed here for a few hours and I took the opportunity to go up Mount Carmel in a taxi. I feel like Dr. Reichert came to Haifa from Jerusalem to greet us, but it may also be that after a long time I can't remember and just imagine it ”.

Eichmann and Hagen arrived in Haifa with the ship Romania on October 2nd , but the British Mandate Administration initially refused to let them off board, like many Jews. The British mandate administration would not have accepted Eichmann's goal (if that was it) of “ getting to know the Zionist work in Palestine personally through visits”. They made an appointment with the representative of the German News Office (DNB) in Jerusalem, Dr. Reichert and Polkes in Cairo. The meetings between Hagen, Eichmann, Gentz, Reichert and Polkes took place on October 10th and 11th, 1937 in the Mena Hotel near the pyramids of Giza and in the coffee house “Groppi” in Cairo. Polkes explained: "The Pan-Islamic World Congress eV, based in Berlin, is in direct contact with the two Soviet-friendly Arab leaders, Emir Shakib Arslan and Amir Adil Arslan ".

Herbert Hagen (center) during a raid in the Jewish community of Vienna, Adolf Eichmann on the right , Josef Löwenherz on the left , March 1938

Organizational structure in Vienna and Prague

After the “ Anschluss ” of Austria, Hagen and Eichmann appeared in the Jewish community in Vienna . The SD was initially interested in the data of the Jews. A branch of the Berlin SD department was set up in Vienna, from which the central office for Jewish emigration emerged in autumn .

In March 1939 the invasion of the Czech Republic took place, referred to in Nazi parlance as " smashing the rest of the Czech Republic ", which was followed by the formation of the Reich Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia . In Prague in June 1939, Hagen submitted that the Jews had a dominant influence on Czech culture and economy, so the aim of his trip was to explain this to national leaders as an unacceptable tolerance. He made it clear that the National Socialist government would use every opportunity to eliminate the Czech politicians. He announced that he wanted to converse with Jews, although they would basically remain intact, but he insisted on encouraging his listeners to be extremely careful.

With the beginning of the Second World War , the method of squeezing out and deporting the Jews was exhausted and Hagen's Department II / 112 was done with.

Establishment of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA)

On September 27, 1939, the SD, Gestapo and criminal police were merged under the roof of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA). The previous factual impunity for the crimes of the SS was to receive the ordination of the state police, and the German police were from now on even more actively involved in the Nazi crimes, a merger that was never resolved in the Hagen case. Hagen advanced to the RSHA Office VI (Foreign Intelligence Service) and was in charge of the Office VI H 2 (Jewish issues and anti-Semitism). Hagen's successor as SD Jewish clerk was Karl Döscher from Kiel (1970, chief inspector of the Göttingen traffic police station). Hagen also headed the Turkey Section (VI D 5), which was dissolved on May 20, 1940 and Turkey was added to Section VI D 4.

Stay in France

The well-trained French-speaking journalist Hagen first came to Paris to join a unit of Helmut Bone . On August 1, 1940, Hagen was appointed head of one of the eleven field offices set up in France for the commissioner of the chief of the security police and the SD in Bordeaux. His area of ​​responsibility was the Atlantic coast with hinterland between Hendaye and the Loire. Hagen settled down on the King of Belgium's yacht, which he found abandoned in the port of Bordeaux. In 1941, Brittany was added to his territory, where SIPO and SD branches were also established. Hagen organized the raids in Bordeaux to deport Jews to their death. Few people escaped the raids organized by Hagen. Hagen worked again with Eichmann, who was meanwhile head of Section IV B 4 "Jews and eviction matters" .

October 1941: Hostages are shot in the Souge camp

When 50 hostages were shot on October 24, 1941 in the Souge camp in the Gironde department , he compiled the death list. In December 1941, Hagen proposed the establishment of a concentration camp for the Jews of the Mérignac region. On May 5, 1942, Hagen became the personal assistant to SS and Police Leader Carl Oberg in Paris . Organizationally, Hagen was active in the RSHA, Office VI E (exploration of ideological opponents abroad with six lectures), under the direction of SS-Obersturmbannführer Helmut Bone , from June 1942 SS-Obersturmbannführer Walter Hammer . Hagen organized raids in Paris to deport Jews to their death. The general secretary of the Vichy government at the German authorities in Paris, Fernand de Brinon , wrote in his memoirs that Hagen had - over Oberg - the advantage of being able to express himself in the French language, but the unfortunate disadvantage of loathing the French and to feed his prejudices. Hagen led French officials and held the informal position of a powerful chief of staff at Oberg. Both in combating political resistance and in deporting workers and Jews from France, Hagen preferred a policy of collaboration with the French police and the Vichy regime .

Activities to exterminate the Jews in France

Headquarters of the German fascists in Paris on May 1, 1943. The French Prime Minister Pierre Laval (left) in conversation with the top chief of the SS in France, SS-Gruppenführer Carl Oberg (center) and SS-Sturmbannführer Herbert Martin Hagen (right) .

On July 2, 1942, Hagen took part in a meeting between the leadership of the SS, the Wehrmacht in France and the General Secretary of the French Police, René Bousquet , at which Bousquet agreed to arrest 40,000 foreign Jews living in France and the German occupying forces for deportation to hand over.

Hagen knew what happened to the Jews who were deported as a result of his actions, so he agreed with Prime Minister Pierre Laval on a language regulation as to what to answer if he was asked what would happen to the Jews who were handed over to the German occupation authorities. Hagen: "It was agreed that in the future, President Laval would notify such inquiries that the Jews handed over to the occupation authorities from the unoccupied area would be transported to the Government General for work." In 1942 and 1943, on behalf of Oberg, Hagen repeatedly negotiated with Bousquet in Jewish matters. In November 1942, with reference to Hitler, who had previously publicly called for the “extermination of Judaism in Europe”, Hagen urged Bousquet for an “immediate solution to the Jewish question” in France.

In August 1943, Hagen asked for the French citizenship to be revoked from the Jews in order to be able to deport them from the area of ​​the Vichy regime. There was a dispute about this wish with the Prime Minister Pierre Laval of the Vichy regime. SS Brigadefuehrer Oberg expressed his surprise that the French government had not yet given up "its sentimental view on the Jewish question". Oberg later told a diplomat that the differences of opinion had led to "most deplorable results". Because of this “mistake” it was not possible to “solve the Jewish question in France”.

Special tasks in Carinthia

In September 1944, Hagen was transferred to the Higher SS and Police Leader of the Alpenland, Erwin Rösener, in Carinthia, where he was entrusted with the management of the task force active in the fight against Yugoslav partisans, e.g. V. Einsatzgruppe Iltis Sonderaktion 1005 . Towards the end of the fighting he was active in the liaison staff of Army Group South.

After the end of the war

On May 13, 1945, Hagen was taken prisoner by the British in Klagenfurt, initially in various camps in Italy, then from May 1946 in the British internment camps Munster and Sandbostel, south of Hamburg. In November 1946 he was "loaned" by the British army to the Mission militaire de coopération in Bad Wildbad in the French occupation zone and transferred back to Sandbostel a year later. In the interrogations at the public prosecutor in saying court Stade Hagen admitted his employment with the SD, he was employed by the Reich Security Main Office in the Department "Middle East" of the Office VI. Hagen was sentenced to life in absentia by a military court in Paris on March 18, 1955. The court found him guilty of having been instrumental in the deportation of the Jews from France. The transfer agreement , which misinterpreted the legal principle ne bis in idem , also gave Hagen a de facto amnesty. Hagen went on trips to France. In similar cases, the tracing service had determined the addresses of Nazi criminals on behalf of the Federal Government, and in all parts of the FRG shop stewards from the DRK district associations verbally warned - against receipt - those charged with France before traveling to France, where they were threatened with imprisonment. In 1964, Hagen managed IND-APP Industrieapparatebau GmbH in Anröchte .

Indictment and release in Germany

In July 1978 the public prosecutor brought charges against Hagen, Kurt Lischka and Ernst Heinrichsohn at the Cologne Regional Court . After 15 months of trial, the 15th Large Criminal Chamber of the Cologne Regional Court pronounced the verdict on February 11, 1980. Hagen was sentenced to 12 years' imprisonment for aiding and abetting the murder of 73,000 people. In the opinion of the court, Hagen was not only informed about the program of the “Final Solution”, but was also at the center of Jewish policy in the Third Reich. Of the three defendants, Hagen - acting out of low motives - had been involved in the deportation measures from France for the longest time. For the Cologne regional court there was no doubt that Hagen had “unanimously” participated in the deportation measures, “because he had made the anti-Jewish racial hatred of the Nazi leadership his own and shared it. In addition, he endeavored to fulfill the role assigned to him within these [...] measures to the best of his ability. For these reasons, he accepted the killing of at least some of the Jewish people with approval. During the period in which he was the HSSPF's personal advisor for the "Jewish questions" of this department, 70 transports with 70,790 Jewish people went to the concentration camps in the east, of whom at least 35,000 were killed in the gas chambers ”.

According to the working group for research into National Socialism in Schleswig-Holstein eV (Akens), Hagen was released after four years in prison. In 1997 he lived in a retirement home near Warstein.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Christian Faludi: The "June Action" 1938. A documentation on the radicalization of the persecution of the Jews. Campus, Frankfurt a. M./New York 2013, ISBN 978-3-593-39823-5 , pp. 27 ff .
  2. ↑ Dr. Mahmud Abbas : The Other Side: the Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism , doctoral thesis, Moscow 1984
  3. ↑ RSHA I HB, signed Trinkl May 20, 1940. Bundesarchiv Koblenz, R 58/240, p. 50.
  4. ↑ Peter Witte: The Jewish underground had contact with Eichmann, archive sources show the little-known episode. In: Die Welt from August 20, 1999.
  5. ^ From information on Schleswig-Holstein contemporary history , issue 33/34 text contribution by Gerhard Paul
personal data
SURNAME Hagen, Herbert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hagen, Herbert Martin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German SS-Sturmbannführer, head of the Jewish department in the SD main office
DATE OF BIRTH September 20, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Neumunster
DATE OF DEATH August 7, 1999
Place of death Rüthen