Jakob Werlin

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jakob Werlin (born May 10, 1886 in Andritz ; † September 23, 1965 in Salzburg ) was an Austrian car salesman who, due to his early contact with Adolf Hitler during the time of National Socialism, was an SS honorary leader and inspector general of the Führer for Motor Vehicles and a member of the board of directors of the Daimler-Benz AG became.

Life

Werlin completed his school days at the elementary, civil and commercial school in Graz . In 1903 he got a job at Puchwerke AG Automobilfabrik Graz and from 1910 was a branch manager in Budapest for this company . As a war volunteer he took part in the First World War with the Austro-Hungarian Army from 1914 to 1917 .

From 1917 to 1921 he was branch manager for Hansa-Lloyd and the Association of German Automobile Manufacturers in Essen . From 1921 he was in charge of Benz & Cie. (from 1925: Daimler-Benz AG) the sales office in Munich. He got to know Adolf Hitler as early as 1923, when he often visited the Völkischer Beobachter's print shop and the car dealership, both of which were located in the same building. As early as 1923 he succeeded in selling a Benz automobile for Hitler to the NSDAP. In the following years Werlin made further limousines available to the NSDAP. In 1926 he became head of the Daimler-Benz branch in Munich.

Werlin was an honorary member of the NSDAP from 1932 ( membership number 3,208,977) and since 1934 of the SS (membership number 266,883). He became a confidante of Hitler and his advisor on motor vehicle issues. On January 16, 1942, Hitler appointed him Inspector General of the Fuehrer for Motor Vehicles . At the end of January 1942, Werlin became SS Oberführer . In the same year he received the golden party badge and was promoted to SS honorary leader with the Reichsführer SS.

Because of his good contacts with Hitler, Werlin was appointed to the Board of Management of Daimler-Benz AG in 1934. As a liaison to the Nazi regime, he was solely responsible for the Munich branch. He was also heavily involved in the development of the Volkswagen by Ferdinand Porsche and from 1938 was honorary managing director and member of the supervisory board of the newly founded Volkswagenwerk GmbH .

After the end of the war, Werlin was interned in US detention in the Moosburg camp from July 1945. In 1948 he was released as a fellow traveler. From 1951 he owned the Daimler-Benz sales and service points in Rosenheim and Traunstein under the name J. Werlin & Sons .

According to one researcher, Werlin informed Eduard Schulte , the general manager of the mining company Giesches Erben , about the approaching Holocaust in 1942 .

literature

  • Wolfgang Graf: Austrian SS generals. Himmler's reliable vassals. Hermagoras-Verlag, Klagenfurt / Ljubljana / Vienna 2012, ISBN 978-3-7086-0578-4 .
  • Traudl Junge , Melissa Müller: Until the last hour. Hitler's secretary tells her life. List, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-54860470-6 .
  • Hans Pohl, Stephanie Habeth, Beate Brüninghaus: Daimler-Benz AG in the years 1933 to 1945. (= Supplement 47 of the journal for corporate history .) Franz Steiner Verlag, Wiesbaden 1987, ISBN 3-515-04733-6 .
  • Paul Schilperoord: The True Story of the VW Beetle - How the Nazis Josef Ganz stole the VW patents. Huber-Verlag, Frauenfeld et al. 2011, ISBN 978-3-7193-1565-8 .
  • An autobiographical manuscript of Werlin is in the archive Mercedes-Benz Archives & Collections, Daimler AG, Stuttgart.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Wolfgang Graf: Austrian SS Generals. Himmler's reliable vassals. Klagenfurt / Ljubljana / Vienna 2012, p. 373.
  2. ^ Robert Melvin Spector: World without Civilization. Mass Murder and the Holocaust. History and Analysis. UP of America Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham MD (Maryland) 2004, ISBN 0-76182963-6 , p. 473. (available online)
personal data
SURNAME Werlin, Jakob
BRIEF DESCRIPTION General Inspector of the Führer for Motor Vehicles during the National Socialism
DATE OF BIRTH May 10, 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH Andritz
DATE OF DEATH September 23, 1965
Place of death Salzburg