Johann Rattenhuber
Johann "Hans" Rattenhuber (born April 30, 1897 in Oberhaching , † July 1, 1957 in Munich ) was a German SS group leader and lieutenant general of the police . As head of the " Command for the Protection of the Fuehrer " or the Reich Security Service (RSD), Rattenhuber was primarily responsible for the personal protection of Adolf Hitler from 1933 on .
Life
Youth and Weimar Republic
Rattenhuber was the son of the innkeeper Hans Rattenhuber and his wife Anna, née Stoyler. In 1904 the family moved to Munich, where the father became a partner in a forwarding business. In his childhood Rattenhuber attended elementary school and then high school in Munich.
On April 3, 1916, Rattenhuber joined the 16th Infantry Regiment of the Bavarian Army after he had passed his secondary school diploma , with which he actively participated in the First World War from September . In the following years he fought with this unit in the Carpathian Mountains, Romania , Russia and France. On September 14, 1917, Rattenhuber was transferred to the 13th Infantry Regiment as a flag boy , with whom he fought on the Western Front until November 1918 . During this time he was promoted to ensign and in October 1918 to lieutenant . In December 1918, Rattenhuber, who had been awarded the Iron Cross of both classes during the war, returned to Ingolstadt with his unit. In April and May 1919 he participated with the Dentz detachment in the suppression of communist uprisings in Freising and Munich. After that he belonged to the Reichswehr-Schützen-Regiment 42 until September 1919.
In September 1920 Rattenhuber joined the state gendarmerie police of Bavaria, where he was initially deployed in Bayreuth. On February 10, 1922, he was transferred to the police in Munich. There he was promoted to lieutenant (August 1, 1925) and captain (June 1, 1933) of the police.
Time in National Socialism
On March 10, 1933, Rattenhuber was appointed adjutant by the newly appointed police chief of Munich, Heinrich Himmler , whom he had met in the summer of 1932. In May 1933, Himmler commissioned him to set up the so-called "Command zbV", which was entrusted with the personal protection of Adolf Hitler, who was appointed Reich Chancellor in January 1933. In this capacity, the command added z. b. V. formed the Führer Accompanying Command in March 1932 , whereby the two commandos worked together without losing their independence as a unit . b. V. consists exclusively of professional criminologists with experience in the field of personal protection. The command z. b. V. was initially only used within the area of Bavaria, which was due to the fact that Himmler, as head of the Bavarian Political Police (BPP), only had political police power within this area, while in other areas of the Reich other NS- Leaders.
In April 1934, Rattenhuber was appointed to the capital by Himmler on the occasion of the takeover of the Secret State Police Office in Berlin - who thus took control of the political police in almost the entire Reich. On June 1, 1934 he received the order for the command z. b. V. to the so-called Reich Security Service (RSD), which was now entrusted with personal protection for Hitler in all areas of the Reich in a comprehensive manner and was accordingly significantly expanded in terms of quantity, which naturally went hand in hand with a considerable increase in importance for Rattenhuber.
After the events of the Röhm Putsch , Rattenhuber and his RSD people were integrated into the SS (membership number 52,877), in which they received SS ranks corresponding to their police ranks. In the following years Rattenhuber consolidated his position as the person primarily responsible for Hitler's personal security. In the SS he was successively appointed Sturmbannführer (April 20, 1934), Obersturmbannführer (October 1, 1935), Standartenführer (September 15, 1935), Oberführer (April 20, 1942), Brigadführer (January 30, 1944) and Gruppenführer ( February 24, 1945), while in the police he was successively appointed Police Major (1935) to Lieutenant General of the Police (1945). He also became a member of the NSDAP in 1935 (membership number 3.212.449).
Captivity and last years of life
In the spring of 1945, Rattenhuber, as a member of Hitler's closest entourage, witnessed Hitler's last weeks of life in the Berlin Führerbunker and finally his suicide on April 30th.
When the Red Army finally captured the government district on May 1, 1945, Rattenhuber was taken prisoner by the Soviets. He was taken to Russia, where he was held in various prisons for more than ten years. During his imprisonment, he was repeatedly questioned about Hitler's death by the Soviet secret service. These statements, as well as information given to fellow prisoners, are still considered to be one of the most important sources about the end of the dictator.
In 1956 Rattenhuber was finally released from captivity and returned to West Germany. There he died on July 1, 1957 in Munich. His grave is in the Ostfriedhof there (grave site 90-7-25).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Henrik Eberle (ed.), Matthias Uhl (ed.): Das Buch Hitler . ( limited preview on Google Book Search ).
- ^ The Bayreuth fire brigades in the Third Reich, p. 143
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Rattenhuber, Johann |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Rattenhuber, Hans |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German head of the Reich Security Service and Adolf Hitler's bodyguard |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 30, 1897 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Oberhaching |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 1, 1957 |
| Place of death | Munich |