Horst Bender (SS member)

Horst-Gerhard Bender (born February 24, 1905 in Lyck ; † November 8, 1987 ) was a German lawyer and Supreme SS and Police Judge on the personal staff of Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler , most recently with the rank of SS Oberführer .

biography

After finishing his school career, Bender studied law and political science at the Universities of Breslau and Königsberg . After completing his studies, he worked as a lawyer in Lyck.

Bender had been a member of the NSDAP since the beginning of August 1932 ( membership number 1,261,871) and joined the General SS after the transfer of power to the National Socialists in early April 1933 (SS number 122,746). In 1937 Bender entered the service of the SS disposable troops full-time , where he was a member of the inspector's staff.

From August 15, 1939, he was a member of the main office of the SS Court . From 1941 he headed Division III in the Reichsführer SS command staff . He also became Supreme SS Judge and Police Judge on the Personal Staff of the Reichsführer SS. In a report by Reich Justice Minister Otto Georg Thierack on a meeting with Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler on September 18, 1942, State Secretary Dr. Curt Rothenberger and SS-Gruppenführer Bruno Linienbach also mentioned SS-Obersturmbannführer Horst Bender. The content of the discussion under point 2 was

“Delivery of anti-social elements from the prison system to the Reichsführer SS for destruction through work. The people in preventive detention, Jews, Gypsies, Russians and Ukrainians, Poles over 3 years penalty, Czechs or Germans over 8 years penalty according to the decision of the Reich Minister of Justice, are completely extradited ... "

In January 1945 Bender rose to the position of SS Oberführer in the Waffen SS .

After the end of the war he was arrested by soldiers of the US Army in May 1945 and was then interned until the beginning of May 1948. In the meantime, he was denazified as a fellow traveler in a trial chamber procedure in the Hammelburg internment camp . In July 1947 he was interrogated as part of the Nuremberg legal process and in August 1948 he was interrogated by a public prosecutor in Wiesbaden. During this time he lived in Rottach and was unemployed.

He later worked as a lawyer in Stuttgart. In May 1977, the public prosecutor's investigations into Bender were stopped for lack of evidence after Holocaust survivor Simon Wiesenthal filed a complaint against Bender in the early 1970s. Wiesenthal had presented Bender's wartime document in which the execution of unauthorized shootings of Jews for purely political motives was not classified as a crime.

literature

Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich . Who was what before and after 1945 . 2nd Edition. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 .

Web links

Institute for Contemporary History : Minutes of the hearing of Horst Bender on August 9, 1948. In: Directory of digitized ZS holdings (ZS 0447).

Individual evidence

^ Franz Wilhelm Seidler: The Military Jurisdiction of the German Wehrmacht 1939 - 1945. Jurisprudence and Penal Execution , Herbig, 1991, p. 203.
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 37.
↑ Horst Bender on www.dws-xip.pl
↑ Bianca Vieregge: The jurisdiction of an "elite": National Socialist jurisprudence using the example of SS and police jurisdiction , Nomos, 2002, p. 46.
↑ Herbert Michaelis, Ernst Schraepler: causes and consequences of the German collapse in 1918 and 1945 to the government restructuring of Germany in the present; A collection of documents and documents on contemporary history : Vol. The turn of the First World War and the beginning of internal political change in 1916 , Document Publishing House, 1979, p. 44.
↑ Buchenwald. Reminder and obligation. Documents and reports. Published on behalf of the Fédération Internationale des Résistants, des Victimes et des Prisonniers du Fascisme (FIR) by the International Buchenwald Committee and the Committee of Antifascist Resistance Fighters in the GDR. Röderbergverlag, Frankfurt am Main 1960. 621 pages, with picture part and storage plan, p. 31
↑ Peter Witte, u. a .: Heinrich Himmler's 1941/42 service calendar . Hans Christians Verlag, Hamburg 1999, p. 668.
^ Himmler's Legal Advisor Will Not Face Trial in West Germany . In: Global Jewish News Source, May 2, 1977.

personal data
SURNAME	Bender, Horst
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Bender, Horst Gerhard (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German lawyer and SS leader
DATE OF BIRTH	February 24, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH	Elk
DATE OF DEATH	November 8, 1987

[1] Franz Wilhelm Seidler: The Military Jurisdiction of the German Wehrmacht 1939 - 1945. Jurisprudence and Penal Execution , Herbig, 1991, p. 203.

[Klee37-2] Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 37.

[3] Horst Bender on www.dws-xip.pl

[4] Bianca Vieregge: The jurisdiction of an "elite": National Socialist jurisprudence using the example of SS and police jurisdiction , Nomos, 2002, p. 46.

[5] Herbert Michaelis, Ernst Schraepler: causes and consequences of the German collapse in 1918 and 1945 to the government restructuring of Germany in the present; A collection of documents and documents on contemporary history : Vol. The turn of the First World War and the beginning of internal political change in 1916 , Document Publishing House, 1979, p. 44.

[6] Buchenwald. Reminder and obligation. Documents and reports. Published on behalf of the Fédération Internationale des Résistants, des Victimes et des Prisonniers du Fascisme (FIR) by the International Buchenwald Committee and the Committee of Antifascist Resistance Fighters in the GDR. Röderbergverlag, Frankfurt am Main 1960. 621 pages, with picture part and storage plan, p. 31

[7] Peter Witte, u. a .: Heinrich Himmler's 1941/42 service calendar . Hans Christians Verlag, Hamburg 1999, p. 668.

[8] Himmler's Legal Advisor Will Not Face Trial in West Germany . In: Global Jewish News Source, May 2, 1977.