Horst Klein (SS member)

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Horst Klein during the Nuremberg Trials . Photo taken in January 1947.

Oskar Edwin Wilhelm Horst Klein , called Horst Klein (born February 27, 1910 in Wiedenbrück , † after 1947), was a German lawyer and SS leader .

Life

Klein, the son of a district administrator, finished his school career in 1927 at a humanistic grammar school in Gütersloh with the Abitur . Klein then studied political science and law at the universities of Lausanne , Freiburg and Bonn . Klein passed his first state examination in law in February 1933. After completing his legal clerkship, Klein completed his studies in August 1937 with the second state examination in Düsseldorf . After completing his studies, Klein completed an in-house training as an accountant in a company in Bielefeld .

Klein became a member of the SS at the beginning of April 1933 (SS number 114,488). In the SS he rose to SS-Obersturmbannführer until 1943 . From May 1933, Klein belonged to the NSDAP ( membership number 2,167,516). From April 1933, Klein was a member of an SS motor storm in Wiedenbrück, but had to temporarily give up his involvement with the SS due to a serious motorcycle accident. Klein completed several months of military service in the Wehrmacht in 1935 . At the beginning of February 1938, Klein joined the SS administration office and worked in the legal department. In addition, Klein has since been employed by the SS Society for the Promotion and Maintenance of German Cultural Monuments. From September 1938 Klein was SS leader on the staff of Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler . From April 20, Klein worked in the newly created main office for administration and economics , where in April 1940 he took over the management of the main department for special tasks and in September 1941 the management of the Society for the Promotion and Maintenance of German Cultural Monuments.

At the beginning of February 1942, Klein became head of the WV III (special tasks) office in the newly established SS Economic and Administrative Main Office. On October 1, 1944, Klein was arrested and interned by Oswald Pohl himself for defeatism and misconduct of an economic nature. On October 24, 1944, Klein was convicted by the SS courts and placed under house arrest in his private apartment in Kranichfeld due to illness . There remained small until the invasion of the US Army in April 1945. His sister, who had expressed also state critical within the meaning of the dominant ideology, was for a denunciation to the Gestapo in the concentration camp admitted. Her husband committed after a brutal interrogation by the Gestapo suicide .

After the end of the war

After his arrest by the Allies , Klein was indicted before the United States Military Tribunal II, along with 17 other accused, in the Economic and Administrative Main Office of the SS . Klein was acquitted on November 3, 1947, on all charges, war crimes , crimes against humanity, and membership in criminal organizations. His leading activity in the WVHA and his SS membership were not punished because there were no incriminating testimonies or evidence against Klein. Nothing is known about his further life.

literature

  • Walter Naasner (Hrsg.): SS-Wirtschaft und SS-Verwaltung - The SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt and the economic ventures under its supervision , Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1998, publications of the Federal Archives: 45a, ISBN 3-7700-1603-3 .
  • Jan Erik Schulte : Forced Labor and Extermination: The Economic Empire of the SS. Oswald Pohl and the SS Economic Administration Main Office 1933–1945. Paderborn 2001, ISBN 3-506-78245-2 .
  • Records of the United States Nuremberg War Crimes Trials , Vol. V. United States Government Printing Office , District of Columbia 1950. (Volume 5 of the " Green Series ")

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Walter Naasner (Ed.): SS-Wirtschaft und SS-Verwaltung , Düsseldorf 1998, p. 342f.
  2. ^ A b c Records of the United States Nuremberg War Crimes Trials , Vol. V. District of Columbia 1950, pp. 1059ff
  3. ^ A b Jan Erik Schulte : Forced Labor and Destruction: The Economic Empire of the SS. Oswald Pohl and the SS Economic Administration Main Office 1933–1945. Paderborn 2001, p. 469
personal data
SURNAME Small, Horst
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Klein, Oskar Edwin Wilhelm Horst (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer and SS leader
DATE OF BIRTH February 27, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Wiedenbrück
DATE OF DEATH after 1947