Hermann Giesler

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Hermann Giesler (1938)

Hermann Giesler (born August 2, 1898 in Siegen , † January 20, 1987 in Düsseldorf ) was an architect under National Socialism . He was the brother of Paul Giesler , a member of the National Socialist leadership.

Life

Empire and Weimar Republic

Hermann Giesler was born on August 2, 1898 in Siegen, the son of an architect . In the First World War he was a soldier from 1915 to 1918. He then worked as a bricklayer, carpenter and locksmith, but then attended the Munich School of Applied Arts from 1919 to 1923 and studied architecture at the Technical University of Munich , a. a. with Eduard Pfeiffer and Richard Riemerschmid . In 1931 he joined the NSDAP (membership no. 622.515), previously he had already been a party speaker. Giesler also joined the SA during the " fighting time ". From 1930 Giesler worked as a freelance architect and ceramist in the Allgäu. His brother Paul Giesler , who joined the party in 1928 as an “ old fighter ”, had leading positions in the SA during National Socialism, was a Gauleiter a . a. of Upper Bavaria and from 1942 to 1945 Bavarian Prime Minister .

National Socialism

In 1933 Giesler became a district master builder in Sonthofen . The Ordensburg Sonthofen ("Reichsschulungsburg Allgäu") planned by him , which was built in 1934 and was one of the Adolf Hitler schools from 1937 , the Gauforum Weimar (construction started in July 1936) and the Adolf Hitler Platz there (1937) were important National Socialist representative buildings. Further plans followed, for example for the Gau capital Augsburg or the high school of the NSDAP at Chiemsee. In addition, he was in charge of Gauführerschule Blaichach in NSDAP Gau Schwaben.

In 1938 Hitler appointed him professor and general building officer for the redesign of the “ capital of the movement ” Munich. Here he worked with Paul Bonatz on the planning of a new central station , with Alwin Seifert on the green spaces and with Rudolf Rogler on issues relating to housing and settlement . After Linz was declared one of the five Führer cities in March 1939 (along with Berlin, Munich, Hamburg and Nuremberg), Roderich Fick was initially appointed "Reich Building Councilor for the redesign of the city of Linz". Due to rivalries within the Nazi leadership groups, Hitler offered Giesler on April 28, 1942 to take over "the monumental construction on the left of the Danube".

In 1939 Weimar was included in the series of “ New Design Cities ”, and Gauleiter Fritz Sauckel commissioned Giesler as “Architects of the Gauforum” with the fundamental redesign of the city. Sauckel made Giesler an honorary citizen of the city of Weimar in the year the Villa Sauckel was completed.

v. l. To right: Adolf Hitler , Albert Speer , Martin Bormann , Hermann Giesler, Arno Breker (Paris 1940), photo from Albert Speer's estate in the Federal Archives

Giesler was chosen by Hitler to be the architect of his tomb (1940).

With the attack on the Soviet Union in 1941, all of his construction projects were stopped. With the exception of Weimar, the major urban development plans did not get beyond the planning stage. However , the buildings he actually built during the Nazi era have all been preserved.

Giesler had been working for the Organization Todt (OT) since 1941 : as head of the "Assembly Giesler" deployed for the Baltic states, as head of the OT Task Force North Russia (1942–1944) and as head of OT Task Force VI (Bavaria and Donaugaue). As such, he was in charge of construction management for the Mühldorfer Hart armaments production site to be built by concentration camp prisoners (1944–1945).

In August 1943 he became a member of the Reichstag . In August 1944, Hitler added him to the God-gifted list with the twelve most important visual artists, including four architects. Shortly before, Albert Speer had appointed him to the task force for the reconstruction of bombed-out cities .

Giesler held high positions in the SA. On April 20, 1945 - “ Führer's birthday ” - he was appointed Brigadefuhrer by Hitler.

After the end of National Socialism

In 1945 Giesler was arrested by the US military government and interned as a Nazi burden until 1946.

In 1947 he was indicted and convicted by a US military court of homicide crimes in the Mühldorf main trial in Dachau. Accused with him were Franz Auer , Karl Bachmann, Wilhelm Baya, Heinrich Engelhardt, Erika Flocken , Karl Gickeleiter, Daniel Gottschling, Wilhelm Griesinger, Wilhelm Jergas, Anton Ostermann, Jacob Schmidberger, Herbert Spaeth and Otto Sperling. Five death sentences were passed, but - with the exception of Franz Auer's on November 26, 1948 - they were not carried out, but instead converted into continuously reduced prison sentences. Usually the prisoners were released from the prison in Landsberg ( War Criminal Prison No. 1 ) in the early 1950s .

Hermann Giesler had been sentenced to life imprisonment, but on May 6, 1948, his imprisonment was reduced to 25 years and on July 7, 1951 to twelve years. Giesler was released on October 18, 1952, however. He settled in Düsseldorf, where he worked as a freelance architect and author from 1953 and died in 1987.

Giesler saw his autobiographical writings, both of which were published by right-wing publishers (see below), as a commitment to National Socialism and Adolf Hitler.

List of buildings and plans

  • 1933–1944: "Monument to the Movement" (together with Hermann Reinhard Alker and Albert Speer , not carried out)
  • 1936–1942: Gauforum in Weimar (now state administration office; the former "multi-purpose hall" was redesigned by the entrepreneur Josef Saller into a leisure, adventure and shopping center called "Atrium")
  • 1937/1938: Service villa of the Gauleitung Thuringia ( Villa Sauckel ) in Weimar (now a training center of the Federal Employment Agency)
  • 1937–1939: HJ -Heim Immenstadt (actually: architect Albert from the building office of the NS-Ordensburg Sonthofen)
  • 1937–1942: Reconstruction of Augsburg main station (not carried out)
  • 1938: Hotel Elephant in Weimar
  • 1938–1941: Gauforum in Augsburg (only partially executed)
  • 1938–1944: "High School of the NSDAP" at Chiemsee (not carried out)
  • 1939–1941: Police headquarters at "Runden Platz" in Augsburg
  • 1934–1942: Ordensburg Sonthofen (now Colonel General Beck barracks of the Bundeswehr)
  • 1941: Expansion of the Augsburg city theater
  • 1943: Renovations at Fürstenstein Castle

  • Villa Sauckel in Weimar, street side

  • Villa Sauckel in Weimar, garden side

  • Ordensburg Sonthofen in the Allgäu

  • Inner courtyard of the Ordensburg Sonthofen (1939)

  • Gauforum Weimar, as it is today, south side

  • Gauforum Weimar, detail

  • Gauforum Weimar, unfinished tower

  • Gauforum Weimar, as it is today, west side

  • "Hotel Elephant" in Weimar

Fonts

literature

  • Werner Durth : German Architects. Biographical entanglements 1900–1970 . Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 1992, ISBN 3-528-28705-5 , p. 507.
  • Michael Früchtel: The architect Hermann Giesler. Life and Work (1898–1987). Edition Altavilla, Tübingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-938671-04-7 (= studies from the Institute for Building History, Art History, Restoration with Architecture Museum. Technical University of Munich, Faculty of Architecture). (Also: Munich, Techn. Univ., Diss., 2007.)
  • Roberto Spazzali: Sotto la Todt. Affari, servizio obbligatorio del lavoro, deportazioni nella zona d'operazioni “Litorale adriatico” (1943–1945). Goriziana, Gorizia 1998, ISBN 88-86928-28-9 ( I leggeri. 9). (On the forced labor in the southern German area of ​​responsibility of the OT task force leader Hermann Giesler; Mühldorf.)

swell

  • Siegerländer National-Zeitung. October 29, November 8, December 14, 1938.
  • Central Office Ludwigsburg, “Excerpt from the list of war criminals”, 51, without signature.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ceramics workshops, brothers Hermann and Ernst Giesler, Sonthofen-Altstädten - The company was sold to Hans Rebstock in 1936 and is now known as Allgäuer Keramik - see [1]
  2. ↑ Giesler: Another Hitler. 1978, p. 479 f.
  3. ↑ Horizons Weimar. Awarding of the honorary citizenship letter to the architects Giesler and Sauckel in the “Great Hall” of the hotel “Haus Elephant” for the awarding of the Weimar honorary citizenship letter to Giesler, November 4, 1938. In: Flickr .
  4. ↑ Erich Stockhorst: Five thousand heads. Who was what in the Third Reich . VMA-Verlag, Wiesbaden 1967.
  5. ^ Ernst Klee : The culture lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5 , p. 183.

Web links

Commons : Hermann Giesler  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Giesler, Hermann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German architect and politician (NSDAP), MdR
DATE OF BIRTH August 2, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Wins
DATE OF DEATH January 20, 1987
Place of death Dusseldorf