Hermann Wicklein

Hermann Bernhard Markus Wicklein (born February 14, 1911 in Essen ; † unknown) was a German SS-Obersturmführer and adjutant to the camp commandant in the Herzogenbusch , Ravensbrück and Flossenbürg concentration camps .

Life

Wicklein first attended elementary school and then the state commercial school. He broke off the latter and began commercial training at the beginning of April 1927. After completing this, he worked as a commercial assistant until his release at the end of September 1930. In the late summer of 1932 he worked as a typist at the district court in Bad Salzungen and then carried out various activities interrupted by periods of unemployment.

In March 1933, Wicklein joined the SS (SS number 114.870) and in May 1935 the NSDAP ( membership number 3.670.324). In the spring of 1934 he completed a course at the SS sports school in Fürth . From May he was a member of the guard team at the Dachau concentration camp and moved to the commandant's office there in early February 1935. In April, on intervention by Günther Tamaschke, he was transferred to inspect the concentration camps . From the end of 1937, Wicklein Spieß was in Lichtenburg concentration camp . In May 1939, Wicklein was transferred from Lichtenburg to the newly established Ravensbrück concentration camp and from the beginning of August 1941 he was an adjutant under camp commandant Max Koegel . Between August and October 1942, Wicklein completed a leadership course at the SS sub-leader school in Radolfzell . In November he switched to SS Division Prinz Eugen , where he did not take part in combat missions due to a motorcycle accident.

In April 1943, Wicklein was transferred to the Flossenbürg concentration camp , again under Koegel, as an adjutant . From October he acted as adjutant in the Herzogenbusch concentration camp under Adam Grünewald . He was released from this position in February 1944. Wicklein's release from this post was caused by the so-called "bunker drama" in which ten inmates died in mid-January 1944. On January 15, 1944, SS men, including camp commandant Grünewald, his adjutant Wicklein and protective custody camp leader Arnold Strippel, pressed 74 inmates into a 9.5 m² cell in the Herzogenbusch concentration camp. Another 17 were locked in the neighboring cell of the same size. By the morning the cell door was opened, ten had suffocated. As this incident led to a considerable uproar in the Dutch public, Grünewald and Wicklein were brought before the SS and Police Court in The Hague . At the beginning of March Grünewald was sentenced to three and a half years in prison for mistreating subordinates and Wicklein was sentenced to six months in prison for favoring his superior in the act of negligent homicide of ten women. By Heinrich Himmler , the two were convicted but pardoned. Wicklein was transferred to Barkhausen (Porta Westfalica) , probably on probation, as the camp manager of a satellite camp of the Neuengamme concentration camp . From October 1944, after some Neuengammer satellite camps were combined into bases, he acted as head of the Porta base and headed the Barkhausen, Hausberge and Lerbeck / Neesen satellite camps until April 1945.

After the end of the war he was taken prisoner by the English, from which he managed to escape in September 1945. After 1945 he is said to have had his residence in Oberhausen . Wicklein was married and had at least one child. Nothing is known about his further life.

literature

Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich: Who was what before and after 1945. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 .
Silke Schäfer: On the self-image of women in the concentration camp. The Ravensbrück camp. Berlin 2002 (Dissertation TU Berlin), urn : nbn: de: kobv: 83-opus-4303 , doi : 10.14279 / depositonce-528 .
Jan Erik Schulte (Ed.): Concentration camps in the Rhineland and Westphalia 1933–1945. Central control and regional initiative . Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh , Paderborn 2005, ISBN 3-506-71743-X ( Google Books ).
Johannes Tuchel : Concentration camps: organizational history and function of the inspection of the concentration camps 1934–1938. (= Writings of the Federal Archives, Volume 39). H. Boldt, 1991, ISBN 3-7646-1902-3 .

Web links

Course of the "bunker drama" in the Vught concentration camp ( memento from June 2, 2016 in the Internet Archive )

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Johannes Tuchel: Concentration camps: organizational history and function of the inspection of the concentration camps 1934-1938. 1991, p. 395.
↑ ^a ^b Ernst Klee: The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 675.
↑ ^a ^b Silke Schäfer: On the self-image of women in the concentration camp. The Ravensbrück camp. Berlin 2002, p. 174f.
^ Jan Erik Schulte : Concentration camps in the Rhineland and Westphalia 1933–1945 - Central control and regional initiative. Schöningh, 2005, p. 137f.

personal data
SURNAME	Wicklein, Hermann
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Wicklein, Hermann Bernhard Markus (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German SS-Obersturmführer and adjutant in concentration camps
DATE OF BIRTH	February 14, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH	eat
DATE OF DEATH	20th century or 21st century

[Tuchel395-1] Johannes Tuchel: Concentration camps: organizational history and function of the inspection of the concentration camps 1934-1938. 1991, p. 395.

[Klee675-2] Ernst Klee: The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 675.

[Schäfer174f-3] Silke Schäfer: On the self-image of women in the concentration camp. The Ravensbrück camp. Berlin 2002, p. 174f.

[4] Jan Erik Schulte : Concentration camps in the Rhineland and Westphalia 1933–1945 - Central control and regional initiative. Schöningh, 2005, p. 137f.