Hermann Bickler

Christian Hermann Bickler (also Armand Bickler , born December 28, 1904 in Hottweiler , Reichsland Alsace-Lorraine ; † March 8, 1984 in San Martino , Italy ) was a lawyer and autonomist politician in Alsace in the interwar period , who had a career as a National Socialist after the occupation of France made.

Youth in Lorraine

Born on the Welschhof, a remote farm near Hottweiler ( municipality of Wollmünster ), Bickler was the only son of a Mennonite family.

Until 1939: the Alsatian autonomist

Bickler studied law in Strasbourg between 1923 and 1927 and eventually became a lawyer . During his studies he became a member of the Wingolf Association Argentina to Strasbourg. During his studies in 1924 he founded the association “ Studentischer Heimatbund ”, which campaigned for the preservation of the German language and culture in Alsace-Lorraine. According to his own statements, Bickler came into contact with National Socialism for the first time on September 27, 1925 while visiting Fürth at a large rally . During his studies he also came into contact with Friedrich Spieser , in whose autobiographical story “A Thousand Bridges” (1952) he appears under the name of Faust .

As one of the leading autonomist politicians in Alsace and leader of the young team , Bickler and Paul Schall took part in the founding congress of the Parti autonomiste breton (PAB) in Rosporden in September 1927 . In addition to Bickler and Schall, Corsican and Flemish autonomists also took part in this congress. On September 12, 1927 in Quimper , Bickler was one of the co-signers of the founding document of the Comité des minorités nationales de France (Committee of the Minority Peoples of France), which called on Alsatian, Catalan, Breton, Flemish and Corsican autonomists in France to become "separatists" and to break away from France. In the following years he became one of the most important correspondents of the Breton autonomist magazines Breiz Atao (1919-1939) and Peuples et Frontières (1937-1939).

In 1927 Bickler joined the Independent State Party led by Karl Roos . In 1934, he and his fellow student Pierre Bieber opened a law firm in Strasbourg . On June 18, 1936, for tactical reasons, he founded the Alsace-Lorraine Party ( ELP ), which was closely linked to the young team in terms of personnel and organization, but never ran for elections. With the support of Robert Ernst and functionaries of the " Association for Germans Abroad ", Bickler succeeded at the same time in suppressing the influence of Karl Roos in the "Independent State Party". During this time, Bickler also had contacts to the brothers Ernst and Alfred Toepfer through the mediation of Friedrich Spieser . He also worked as an informant for the German "security service" . Bickler's political goal at that time was an autonomist united front with the young team as the leading group and himself as the supreme leader. A few days after a meeting in Strasbourg, at which Bickler had repeatedly represented separatist and anti-French positions, on October 3, 1938 the police searched the headquarters of the young team. On April 21, 1939, this organization and its press organ “Frei Volk” were banned by the French government in view of the increasing tensions with National Socialist Germany .

After the outbreak of World War II , Hermann Bickler was drafted into the French army, arrested there on September 4, 1939, and interned in Nancy on October 31, along with other leading Alsatian autonomists , later relocated to the interior of the country - the group was later named “ The Nanziger "known. On July 15, 1940, the French authorities transferred Bickler to a Wehrmacht special unit .

1940–1945: The collaborator and National Socialist

Hermann Bickler

Returning to Alsace, Bickler was one of the signatories of the Manifesto of Three Ears (Manifeste des Trois-Épis) addressed to Adolf Hitler , which asked for Alsace to be incorporated into the Greater German Reich . On September 6, 1940 he was the Reich Leader SS Heinrich Himmler in the numbered 367,776 SS added. On September 10, 1940 he was appointed district leader of Strasbourg and on July 5, 1941 in addition to the district leader of Kehl . He kept up his contacts with the Security Service (SD) and urged the extradition of the French police commissioners Antoine Becker and Léonard, who were responsible for his arrest in 1939, and the punishment of the chief prison warden in Nancy.

In the next few years, Bickler emerged as an ardent advocate of the "de-animaling" of public life in Alsace. In public speeches he repeatedly campaigned for the voluntary entry of Alsatians into the German Wehrmacht or Waffen-SS and tried to swear in the national socialist warfare after the introduction of compulsory military service ( Malgré-Nous ) . As a self-confessed Protestant, Bickler also repeatedly came into conflict with the politics of Gauleiter Robert Wagner , who also tried to push back the influence of the Christian churches in Alsace. He also intervened against Wagner's purge, in which from July 1940 to March 1943 a total of 17,000 Alsatians were forcibly deported to the territories conquered in the east.

In 1942, Bickler resigned from the post of Strasbourg district leader and publicly announced his deployment on the Eastern Front. However, probably on behalf of Gottlob Berger , after training at the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) in Berlin, he was appointed as the successor of Herbert Hagen to one of the heads of Office VI of the Security Service (SD) in Paris , apparently much to the displeasure of the officials there, especially from Helmut Bone . In this function, Bickler controlled the intelligence services of right-wing and collaborating French organizations (e.g. the Parti populaire français under Jacques Doriot , Mouvement Franciste under Marcel Bucard and the Milice française under Joseph Darnand ) from January 1943 . In view of the expected invasion of the Allies, he was also charged with setting up a self-protection police (SSP) , a special unit made up of French to deploy against resistance fighters. Bickler soon gained great influence on the collaboration in France , on the personnel policy of the Pierre Laval government and on German policy towards the Vichy regime . He was promoted to "Standartenführer" (corresponding to the rank of colonel ) and appointed "Fachführer". Bickler was temporarily in contact with the resistance group around Friedrich Hielscher and played a role in its overturning plans, but then withdrew. On the occasion of the assassination attempt on Hitler on July 20, 1944 , Bickler was arrested as part of the Walküre company , but was quickly released again after the failure of the operation.

As head of the security service (SD) in Alsace, Bickler returned to Strasbourg on August 11, 1944. In September 1944 he was appointed head of the "Southwest Control Center" (also known as "Sonderstab West" or "Control Center Walter") of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA). He should try from Baden-Baden and Hornberg to infiltrate the newly established French administration in Alsace . At the beginning of 1945 Bickler used his influence on the local authorities in Sigmaringen to get the writer Louis-Ferdinand Céline ID papers for his onward flight to Denmark. In the last months of the war, he helped employees of the collaborationist and anti-Semitic French magazine Je suis partout to flee to Spain . In the last few weeks before the end of the war, he is said to have been in Heiligenberg near Lake Constance.

After 1945: on the run and in exile

On September 4, 1947 a French court found Bickler a. a. Sentenced to death and confiscated his property in absentia for cooperation with the enemy, crimes against persons and participation in criminal organizations. His secret service contacts allowed him to go into hiding after the end of the Third Reich and evade prosecution . The Strasbourg bar also appears to have protected him as a former member. Despite an intensive search by the French secret services, Bickler could not be located. The industrialist and patron Alfred Toepfer is said to have supported him temporarily. Subsequently determined whereabouts in the 1950s were Tübingen , Gera and Zweibrücken . For a time he allegedly stayed in South Tyrol . American secret service documents from August 1959 that have been accessible since 2006 identify Bickler as an employee of Heinz Pannwitz at the Control Center West of the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA) in Paris. He is assigned three aliases , a businessman is given as his profession and Milan is given as his current whereabouts . Bickler is classified as a suspected foreign agent of the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) in Italy. At that time he was in correspondence with Celine through Karl Epting , with whom he had been friends since his time in Paris. Around 1964, Bickler finally settled near Lake Maggiore and worked there as a textile dealer. Lothar Kettenacker states that he interviewed Bickler orally while researching his 1973 book. In Cardana di Besozzo, not far from Lake Maggiore, Bickler owned a house, where he also wrote his 1978 memoirs A special land: Memories and reflections from a Lorraine .

1978: The Autobiography

In “A Special Land”, Bickler described his view of the political situation in Alsace in the interwar period and his own activities up to 1942. He reported on contacts with high -ranking Nazi officials such as Robert Wagner or Robert Ernst and leading SS officers such as Gustav Adolf Scheel . Bickler portrayed himself as an upright Alsatian and Christian who, with his limited possibilities, campaigns against the arbitrary measures of non-national NS functionaries for the interests of his Alsatian compatriots. As the reason for his resignation from the office of Strasbourg district leader, he gave the demand of Gauleiter Robert Wagner to resign from the church. However, this was "not opportune for political reasons" and he therefore followed the call to the "troops" that had already been established . Bickler does not mention his own SS membership or his secret service activities in France between 1942 and 1944.

The book was still used in Baden-Württemberg in the 1980s as a source in state teacher training courses.

In 2011, the French magazine L'Express reported on a second volume of the autobiography ( Memories Part II ), a few copies of which were circulating in Germany and in which Bickler reported on his contacts with Louis-Ferdinand Céline in occupied Paris.

Publications

• Alsace-Lorraine youth team . Strasbourg, Knoblochgasse 15 (Alsace-Lorraine youth team) ([1932])
• Karl Roos - Alsace in the German construction . Contribution in: The Reich Organization Leader of the NSDAP and Hauptschulungsamt (ed.): The training letter, the central monthly newspaper of the NSDAP . VIII year, 9./10. Consequence: Structure and work of the party in the German west , 1st issue " German size ". Franz Eher Nachf. GmbH, Munich 1941.
• Resistance . Strasbourg, Hünenburg- Verlag [1943].
• A special country: Memories and reflections of a Lorraine native , Askania-Verlag, Lindhorst 1978.
• Un pays particulier: Souvenirs et considérations d'un Lorrain. NEL-Verlag, 2017, ISBN 978-0-244-01773-6 .

literature

• Lothar Kettenacker: National Socialist Volkstumsppolitik in Alsace. (= Studies on contemporary history ). Deutsche Verlagsanstalt , Stuttgart 1973, ISBN 3-421-01621-6 .
• Philippe Aziz: Histoire secrète de la Gestapo française en Bretagne. 2 volumes. Famot, Geneva 1975.
• Karl-Heinz Rothenberger: The Alsace-Lorraine home and autonomy movement between the two world wars. (= European university publications. 42). Peter Lang, Frankfurt 1976, ISBN 3-261-01485-7 .
• Philip Charles Farwell Bankwitz: Alsatian autonomist leaders 1919–1947. The Regents Press of Kansas, Lawrence 1978, ISBN 0-7006-0160-0 .
• Hermann Bickler, un autonomist alsacien au service de l'ennemi . Histoire pour tous, hors-série n ° 21, December 1980-January 1981. ISSN  0339-7335
• Kurt Hochstuhl: Between Peace and War: Alsace in the years 1938–1940. A contribution to the problems of a border region in times of crisis. (= European university publications. 250). Peter Lang, Frankfurt 1984, ISBN 3-8204-8254-7 .
• Francis Arzalier: Les perdants. La dérive fasciste des mouvements autonomistes et indépendantistes au XXe siècle. La Découverte, Paris 1990, ISBN 2-7071-1915-6 .
• Francis Arzalier: Les Régions du déshonneur. La dérive fasciste des mouvements identitaires au XXe siècle . Librairie Vuibert, Paris 2014, ISBN 978-2-311-10015-0 .
• Georges Cadiou: L'hermine et la croix gammée. Le mouvement breton et la collaboration. Apogée, Rennes 2006, ISBN 2-84398-239-1 .
• Françoise Morvan : Miliciens contre maquisards . Ouest-France , 2010, ISBN 978-2-7373-5063-4 .
• Olivier Pigoreau: Un espion nazi à Paris. Interrogatoire du SS Roland Nosek . Histoire & Collections, Paris 2014, ISBN 978-2-35250-357-6 .

Web links

• BS Encyclopédie with a photo of Bickler next to the deputy Gauleiter Hermann Röhn on the occasion of a parade in Strasbourg in 1942 (last checked on August 22, 2010)
• Parisenimages : swearing-in of members of the Milice française, Paris July 1, 1944 ( memento of April 11, 2015 in the Internet Archive ): Bickler can be seen on the far left of the photograph (“un officier SS”); to the right Fernand de Brinon , Helmut Bone , Carl Oberg and Joseph Darnand (last checked on January 11, 2015)
• Eduard Haug: Hermann Bickler in memory . In: The West . Bulletin of the "Society of Friends and Patrons of the Erwin von Steinbach Foundation". Volume 31, March / April 1984, No. 2, p. 3.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Heinrich Barth (ed.): Chronicle of the Argentina Strasbourg student union 1907–1967. Oberhausen 1969, p. 301.
2. ^ Lothar Kettenacker: National Socialist Volkstumsppolitik in Alsace. (= Studies on contemporary history ). Deutsche Verlagsanstalt , Stuttgart 1973, ISBN 3-421-01621-6 , p. 23 and p. 288 (note 56).
3. ↑ Article Breiz Atao and Parti autonomiste breton in the French Wikipedia.
4. ^ Lothar Kettenacker: National Socialist Volkstumsppolitik in Alsace. (= Studies on contemporary history ). Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, Stuttgart 1973, ISBN 3-421-01621-6 , p. 289 (note 95); Karl-Heinz Rothenberger: The Alsace-Lorraine home and autonomy movement between the two world wars. (= European university publications. 42). Peter Lang, Frankfurt 1976, ISBN 3-261-01485-7 , p. 322 (note 698).
5. ^ Philip Charles Farwell Bankwitz: Alsatian autonomist leaders 1919-1947. The Regents Press of Kansas, Lawrence 1978, ISBN 0-7006-0160-0 , pp. 55-56.
6. ^ Karl-Heinz Rothenberger: The Alsace-Lorraine homeland and autonomy movement between the two world wars. (= European university publications. 42). Peter Lang, Frankfurt 1976, ISBN 3-261-01485-7 , pp. 242-243.
7. ^ Philip Charles Farwell Bankwitz: Alsatian autonomist leaders 1919-1947. The Regents Press of Kansas, Lawrence 1978, ISBN 0-7006-0160-0 , p. 90.
8. ^ Lothar Kettenacker: National Socialist Volkstumsppolitik in Alsace. (= Studies on contemporary history ). Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, Stuttgart 1973, ISBN 3-421-01621-6 , p. 350 (note 87), p. 352 (note 129), p. 354 (note 152) and p. 357 (note 194) ; Philip Charles Farwell Bankwitz: Alsatian autonomist leaders 1919–1947. The Regents Press of Kansas, Lawrence 1978, ISBN 0-7006-0160-0 , p. 91.
9. ^ Lothar Kettenacker: National Socialist Volkstumsppolitik in Alsace. (= Studies on contemporary history ). Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, Stuttgart 1973, ISBN 3-421-01621-6 , p. 289 (note 99).
10. ^ Lothar Kettenacker: National Socialist Volkstumsppolitik in Alsace (= studies on contemporary history ). Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, Stuttgart 1973, ISBN 3-421-01621-6 , p. 363 (note 81).
11. ↑ Olivier Pigoreau: Un espion nazi à Paris. Interrogatoire du SS Roland Nosek . Histoire & Collections, Paris 2014, ISBN 978-2-35250-357-6 , pp. 91-94.
12. ^ Lothar Kettenacker: National Socialist Volkstumsppolitik in Alsace. (= Studies on contemporary history ). Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, Stuttgart 1973, ISBN 3-421-01621-6 , p. 315 (note 68); Philip Charles Farwell Bankwitz: Alsatian autonomist leaders 1919–1947. The Regents Press of Kansas, Lawrence 1978, ISBN 0-7006-0160-0 , p. 92; also Rita Thalmann: Synchronization in France 1940–1944. Europäische Verlagsanstalt, Hamburg 1999, ISBN 3-434-50062-6 , pp. 228-229.
13. ↑ Georges Cadiou: L'hermine et la croix gammée. Le mouvement breton et la collaboration. Apogée, Rennes 2006, ISBN 2-84398-239-1 , pp. 280–284.
14. ↑ Under archive link ( Memento from April 11, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), image LAPI-27265 bis , Bickler (with glasses) is to the left of Fernand de Brinon , Helmut Bone , Carl Oberg and Joseph Darnand (from left to right) when swearing in Militiamen seen in the courtyard of the Hôtel des Invalides , Paris, on July 1, 1944 . (last checked June 8, 2014)
15. ↑ Ina Schmidt: The Lord of Fire. Friedrich Hielscher and his circle between paganism, new nationalism and resistance against National Socialism. SH-Verlag, Cologne 2004, ISBN 3-89498-135-0 , p. 93, footnote 208.
16. ^ Philip Charles Farwell Bankwitz: Alsatian autonomist leaders 1919-1947. The Regents Press of Kansas, Lawrence 1978, ISBN 0-7006-0160-0 , p. 92.
17. ^ François Gibault: Celine. 3rd game. Cavalier de l'Apocalypse (1944-1961). Mercure de France, Paris 1985, ISBN 2-7152-1247-X , p. 64; Christine Sautermeister: Louis Ferdinand Celine à Sigmaringen November 1944 - Mars 1945. Chronique d´un séjour controversé. Édition Écriture, Paris 2013, ISBN 978-2-35905-095-0 , pp. 284-287.
18. ^ Philip Charles Farwell Bankwitz: Alsatian autonomist leaders 1919-1947. The Regents Press of Kansas, Lawrence 1978, ISBN 0-7006-0160-0 , pp. 92-93.
19. ↑ Olivier Pigoreau: Un espion nazi à Paris. Interrogatoire du SS Roland Nosek . Histoire & Collections, Paris 2014, ISBN 978-2-35250-357-6 , pp. 101-103.
20. ↑ "Bickler seems to have joined the American secret service." Louis-Ferdinand Céline: Lettres à Albert Paraz . 1947-1957 . Éditions Gallimard, Paris 2009, ISBN 978-2-07-012244-8 , p. 272 ​​(note 1).
21. ^ The National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD 20740-6001 : Records of the Central Intelligence Agency (Record Group 263). S. 14. Bickler is assigned several aliases of the Gehlen organization .
22. ↑ Michael Pinto-Duschinsky: The Prize Lies of a Nazi Tycoon ( Memento of the original from June 17, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in standpoint. April 2010 (last checked on January 9, 2011) 
23. ^ Philip Charles Farwell Bankwitz: Alsatian autonomist leaders 1919-1947. The Regents Press of Kansas, Lawrence 1978, ISBN 0-7006-0160-0 , pp. 111-112.
24. ↑ Internet Archive : BICKLER, Hermann Christian Sheet 1 , Sheet 2 and Sheet 3 (last checked October 1, 2017)
25. ^ François Gibault: Celine. 3rd game. Cavalier de l'Apocalypse (1944-1961). Mercure de France, Paris 1985, ISBN 2-7152-1247-X , pp. 324-326. Celine asked Bickler et al. a. scientific evidence of the non-existence of gas chambers .
26. ^ Lothar Kettenacker: National Socialist Volkstumsppolitik in Alsace. (= Studies on contemporary history ). Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, Stuttgart 1973, ISBN 3-421-01621-6 , p. 384.
27. ↑ His son, the sculptor Dietrich Bickler, still lives there today. The house made international headlines in 2005 when former SS captain Erich Priebke , who was convicted of war crimes in Italy , stayed there for a vacation despite house arrest . B. Nazi criminal Priebke is on vacation in proper style ( memento of the original from October 16, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
28. ↑ Bickler: A special country. P. 321 f.
29. ↑ Bickler: A special country. Pp. 376-377.
30. ↑ Spiritual connection. At the Alsace seminar of a state academy for teacher training in Baden-Württemberg, writings by former Nazi dignitaries served as a basis for information. In: Der Spiegel . 29/1981, July 13, 1981 (last checked on January 11, 2015).
31. ^ Celine vu par son ami SS Hermann Bickler. In: L'Express July 1, 2011. (last checked on January 11, 2015). A second volume of the “Memories” cannot be found in German library directories.
32. ↑ For the publishing program of Askania-Verlag s. the answer of the federal government to a small request from the PDS: The "Askania-Verlag" (1993; PDF; 289 kB) and the renewed request from the PDS: The "Askania-Verlag" and right-wing extremism (II) (1994; both last checked on August 27, 2010)
33. ↑ Rothenberger names oral and written surveys and the like as sources for his work. a. Paul Schalls , Robert Ernsts and Friedrich Spiesers and gives their points of view in several places without comment.
34. ↑ Bickler is portrayed as an upright Alsatian autonomist and devout Christian who suffered from the harassment and persecution of the French authorities until 1940 and again after 1945 and from the forced ideology of the Nazi rulers between 1940 and 1945. His activities between 1942 and 1945 are not discussed.