Hermann von Hanneken (General of the Infantry)

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Hermann Konstantin Albert Julius von Hanneken (born January 5, 1890 in Gotha , † July 22, 1981 in Herford ) was a German officer , general of the infantry and Wehrmacht commander in Denmark during World War II , most recently major on probation at XXXXVIII. Panzer Corps .

Life

origin

He was the son of the Prussian Colonel Hermann von Hanneken (1847–1899) and his wife Hertha, born von der Lancken (1856–1914) from the House of Plüggentin on Rügen .

Career

Training and First World War

After training at the main cadet school , he joined the Queen Augusta Guard Grenadier Regiment No. 4 on March 19, 1908 as an ensign . A year later he was promoted to lieutenant . With his main regiment he came to the front when the First World War broke out . In April 1917 he was transferred to the General Staff and promoted to captain in 1918 . After the war, in 1919, he was one of the officers who were accepted into the Reichswehr .

Reichswehr

He then took on a job in the Reichswehr Ministry, where he served until 1920. He was then transferred to the Reich Weapons Office from 1924 to 1927. From 1927 he headed a troop command as a company commander in the 6th Infantry Regiment for three years and was promoted to major there on December 1, 1928 . Three years later he served with the rank of lieutenant colonel . From 1935 he was in command of a regiment and was promoted to colonel .

Reich Ministry of Economics

A year later in 1936 he was transferred to the Army Weapons Office , where he served as Chief of Staff. On July 3, 1937, he was appointed by Hermann Göring as an agent for iron and steel procurement ; on February 1, 1938, he was promoted to major general and transferred to the Reich Ministry of Economics . From February 1, 1938, he was head of Department II (mining, iron and steel production, energy industry). After the dismissal of the previous head of Department I, Fritz Löb , von Hanneken was additionally entrusted with the management of Department I (petroleum industry, chemistry, other industries, textiles, pulp, paper) at the end of October 1938. On June 10, 1938, he gave the keynote lecture at the annual general meeting of the Iron Industry Business Group in the Berlin Hotel Esplanade , which was organized by Friedrich Flick , Ernst Poensgen , Wilhelm Kleinmann , Wilhelm Zangen , Karl Blessing , Hermann Röchling , Otto Steinbrinck and Herbert Göring , among others was visited. In mid-1938, von Hanneken was promoted to major general. In 1940 he was appointed Undersecretary of State in the Reich Ministry of Economics. In the same year he was promoted to lieutenant general and in 1941 he was appointed general of the infantry .

In the Reich Ministry of Economics, von Hanneken worked hard to secure the German supply of raw materials in the event of war. Together with the heavy industrialists Otto Wolff and Hermann Röchling , he founded Doggererz AG in August 1939 , a semi-state mining and ironworking company with up to 1,800 employees, which dealt with the endangered iron ore supply , following the example of the Reichswerke Hermann Göring initiated by Paul Pleiger from Scandinavia should partially replace. According to the assessment of steel industrialists, von Hanneken had “a very close relationship” with Paul Pleiger and had adopted his view “to a very large extent. […] His attitude is very strongly directed against [private] heavy industry. ”Despite all efforts, after the start of the war there was a serious supply crisis in relation to iron and steel quotas. The delivery times had increased dramatically because von Hanneken had issued more coupons than iron and steel were available for over two years. Only Hans Kehrl was able to save him from this messy situation with a new system. Kehrl was silent about this in his published notes, but his referee Arnold Köster disclosed this process. Kehrl wrote in his memoirs that von Hanneken was weak in making decisions and fearfully avoided arguments.

Hunger Policy 1941

Von Hanneken was involved in planning the hunger policy at the Barbarossa company in 1941 as a member of Hermann Göring's management staff east . On May 2, 1941, seven weeks before the German invasion of the USSR, he was a participant in a meeting between state secretaries and high Wehrmacht officers “about Barbarossa”, whose protocol states that “the war can only be continued if the whole thing Wehrmacht is fed from Russia in the 3rd year of the war. Without a doubt, tens of millions of people will starve to death if we get what we need out of the country. "

Coal shortage in 1941

As an authorized representative, he also dealt with issues of coal supply for the iron and steel industry. On June 6, 1941, at the 11th meeting of the General Council of the Economy, which had existed since December 1939, he commented on the problem that in the last four years the demand for coal had risen faster than the production. The European states dependent on German coal would only receive 60 percent of the required amount. Since April 1941, domestic coal buyers have had to accept a reduction in their purchases by an average of almost ten percent. This would have led to numerous closures of companies or the restriction of their operations. Even the domestic energy supply companies would have had to accept a 20 percent reduction in coal consumption. In March / April 1942, Hanneken withdrew its competence in the distribution of iron and steel and transferred it to so-called central planning . In the course of further restructuring in the RWM, the tasks of Department II were largely transferred to other organs, so that von Hanneken went on vacation in mid-August 1942 and left the RWM in October.

Command in Denmark

On October 12, 1942 von Hanneken became "Commander of the German troops in Denmark ". According to the judgment of his superior, Colonel-General Friedrich Fromm , he was “in a difficult position because the instructions he received for his [one] management team contradict the guidelines that the political ] Representative in Denmark has to follow. Know how to avoid these difficulties with tact. ”On August 29, 1943 von Hanneken - due to increasing sabotage - declared a military state of emergency over Denmark and dissolved the Danish army and the navy. During the state of emergency, the SS group leader and German "Reichsbevollmächtigte in Denmark" Werner Best received the order to carry out the deportation of the Danish Jews . Von Hanneken had objected to it, but Alfred Jodl harshly dismissed it as "chatter". Since November 1943 von Hanneken held the title of Wehrmacht commander in chief .

In his official assessments, von Hanneken was considered to be “a clever, well-informed, well-educated, and very skilled person. Strong personal need for recognition. ”In March 1944, the head of the Wehrmacht High Command , Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel , emphasized that von Hanneken was an“ energetic and purposeful personality, and that his task was organizational and organizational. tact [ish] fully grown. An excellent military service [eighth] command [but]. ”In January 1945, von Hanneken was relieved of his command. The allegation is corruption . On April 12, 1945, the Reich Court Martial sentenced him to eight years in prison and a loss of rank. On April 17th - after Hitler's intervention - he was promoted to major again. The Copenhagen District Court sentenced him to eight years in prison in 1948 in the Great War Crimes Trial. In the appeal hearing before the regional court on May 9, 1949, a final acquittal took place.

family

Hanneken's first marriage was on September 27, 1911 in Dessau, Anna-Maria Countess von Hacke (born January 1, 1892 in Torgau ; † November 9, 1911 in Berlin ), the daughter of Curt-Bogislav Count von Hacke and Margarete Hainauer. In his second marriage, he married on June 26, 1915 in Berlin Celia-Cicita von Soest (born October 9, 1891 in Berlin, † January 27, 1981 in Herford), the daughter of the factory owner Hermann von Soest and Almaria Kuschke-Heinersdorf.

Awards

literature

  • Hans Kehrl: Crisis Manager in the Third Reich. Droste, Düsseldorf 1973, ISBN 3-7700-0355-1 .
  • Ernst Klee : Personal Lexicon for the Third Reich. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2003, ISBN 3-10-039309-0 .
  • Herbert Michaelis among others: causes and consequences. From the German collapse in 1918 and 1945 to the state reorganization of Germany in the present. Biographical register part 1: A – K. Berlin 1979, DNB 790353180 .
  • Matthias Riedel: Iron and Coal for the Third Reich - Paul Pleiger in the Nazi Economy. Musterschmidt, Frankfurt am Main et al. 1973, ISBN 3-7881-1672-2 .
  • Genealogical handbook of the nobility : Adelige Häuser B. Volume XIV, p. 288, Volume 78 of the complete series, CA Starke Verlag, Limburg (Lahn) 1981.
  • Ole Drostrup: Den hæmmede kriger. Et portræt af general von Hanneken. Odense University Press , Denmark 1997, ISBN 87-7838-167-3 .
  • Wolf-Ingo Seidelmann: Making iron for the fighting army! - The Doggererz AG - a contribution of the Otto Wolff Group and the Saarland steel industry to the National Socialist autarky and armaments policy on the Baar in Baden. UVK Verlag Konstanz and Munich, 2016, ISBN 978-3-86764-653-6 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung of March 22, 1938.
  2. ^ Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung of November 2, 1938.
  3. ↑ The Flick Group in the Third Reich. Pp. 235-236.
  4. ↑ Wolf-Ingo Seidelmann: "Making iron for the fighting army!" Doggererz AG - a contribution by the Otto Wolff Group and the Saarland steel industry to the National Socialist autarky and armaments policy on the Baar in Baden. UVK Verlag Konstanz and Munich, 2016, ISBN 978-3-86764-653-6 , p. 181-319 .
  5. ↑ Wolf-Ingo Seidelmann: "Making iron for the fighting army!" P.  419 . .
  6. ^ Köster in the foreword to Kehrl: Crisis Manager. 1973, p. 8.
  7. ↑ Alex J. Kay : Starving as a Mass Murder Strategy. The meeting of the German state secretaries on May 2, 1941. In: Hans-Heinrich Nolte (Hrsg.): Zeitschrift für Weltgeschichte . Issue 1/2010, p. 81–105, here p. 81 f. (Quote) u. P. 95 (participants).
  8. ^ Assessment of Hannekens by Friedrich Fromm of March 24, 1943, Hanneken personnel file, Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv Pers. 6/299785
  9. ^ Assessment of Hannekens by Friedrich Fromm of March 24, 1943, Hanneken personnel file, Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv Pers. 6/299785
  10. ^ Assessment of Hannekens by Wilhelm Keitel from March 31, 1944, Hanneken personnel file, Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv Pers. 6/299785
  11. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Ranking list of the German Imperial Army. ES Mittler & Sohn , Berlin, p. 126.
personal data
SURNAME Hanneken, Hermann von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hanneken, Hermann Konstantin Albert Julius von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer, most recently general of the infantry and business leader
DATE OF BIRTH January 5, 1890
PLACE OF BIRTH Gotha
DATE OF DEATH July 22, 1981
Place of death Herford