Johannes Clemens

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Johannes Max Clemens , also Hans Clemens , service name Hoffmann , (born February 9, 1902 in Dresden ; † September 9, 1976 in Bad Kissingen ) was a member of the SS (SD) security service during the Nazi era , after Germany's defeat in the Second World War I employee of the Gehlen Organization (OG) and the Federal Intelligence Service (BND). At the same time he worked as an employee in the Soviet intelligence service (ND), later the KGB, and betrayed his West German employer.

School and Nazi career

Before and during World War I , Clemens still had the plan to embark on a career as a military musician. But with the military defeat of the German Reich in 1918 this wish also ended. Since Clemens came from a family of musicians and his father Franz Max Clemens worked as a music director in Dresden, he wanted to study piano. That is why he began studying at the Dresden University of Music in 1916 .

From 1920 to 1933 he worked as a piano player and violinist in various bands . Already at the beginning of the thirties he orientated himself politically with the National Socialists and in 1931 he was registered as a member of the NSDAP under the number 550.429. He joined the SS on June 1, 1931 (in his curriculum vitae he stated that he would join in August 1932) and worked part-time in the NSDAP's intelligence service in the Dresden district. As a member of the SA he was involved in the establishment of a motor storm, which was founded on August 1, 1931.

The bat

Clemens first became famous in Dresden because he was particularly brutal and ruthless in the battles against social democrats and communists. He was called the "horror of Pieschen" because he lived in the Pieschen district. On March 2, 1933, he was involved in a brawl in the state parliament building of Saxony , where he beat up communist members of the state parliament.

Entry into the SD

In 1933, after the National Socialist seizure of power, he became a member of the SD as SS-Scharführer , which incorporated the NSDAP's news organization (in his curriculum vitae he stated the year 1934 for his work in the SD). In the years 1936 to 1937, as SS-Untersturmführer , he took over the position of head of the SD main branch in Dresden. In this position he got to know the lawyer Erwin Tiebel as his subordinate head of the SD Radeberg branch . He knew Heinz Felfe from the time he was assigned to the SD-Leitabschnitt Dresden during his training.

During the Sudeten crisis of 1938, Clemens led a group of provocateurs who were supposed to make some preparations for the occupation of the Sudetenland . In a personnel report of March 2, 1939, Clemens was judged by the SD leader of the Elbe section to be “balanced” and with a “Dinaric influence” when it came to the characteristics of “overall racial image”. He was certified as having a special ability to master the SS service regulations. Clemens participated in the persecution of Jewish citizens in Dresden, including Victor Klemperer .

An investigation was carried out against Clemens in 1941 by the SS and Police Court V based in Dresden. He was accused of extorting testimony. The proceedings were discontinued on March 20, 1941.

With the Head of Department II / N of the state police control center Dresden , Arno River Weser , led Clemens with Klemperer in his apartment on June 11, 1942, a raid in which Clemens Klemperer several times the book by Alfred Rosenberg , The Myth of the 20th century to the head beat and insulted him with "Jewish pig". Clemens and Weser then carried out other raid-like house searches at Klemperer's premises for several weeks. They were feared as the duo "the Boxer (Clemens) and the Spucker (Weser)".

Reich Security Main Office and massacre in Rome

In 1942, Clemens was promoted to SS-Hauptsturmführer and transferred to the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) in Office VI in Department B 3, responsible for Switzerland. Felfe came to the same department in August 1943, where he met Clemens and Tiebel. Clemens had brought Tiebel from Dresden to the RSHA in autumn 1943, where he began his service as SS-Oberscharführer. Clemens then moved to Section B 1, which was responsible for Italy.

Towards the end of 1943, Clemens was assigned to the command of the SD in Rome, where SS-Obersturmbannführer Herbert Kappler headed the office. On March 23, 1944, the 11th company of a police battalion from Bolzano was assassinated in Rome , killing 32 policemen and 2 passers-by immediately. Clemens and the SS-Sturmbannführer Borante Domizlaff were commissioned to search the houses in the area of ​​Via Rasella.

On March 24, 1944, under the command of Kappler, Clemens took part in the massacre in the Ardeatine Caves (Italian: Fosse Ardeatine), in which 335 hostages were shot. Clemens, together with other senior SS officers, including Kappler, Karl Hass , Carl-Theodor Schütz and Erich Priebke , formed the first firing squads that shot the first twelve victims by hand. From May 3 to July 20, 1948, Clemens and Kappler, Borante Domizlaff, SS-Hauptscharführer Johannes Quapp, SS-Oberscharführer Kurt Schütze and SS-Scharführer Karl Wiedner were indicted before the Tribunale Militare di Roma. Clemens appealed to the order for execution and was acquitted in July 1948.

In June 1944, Clemens was transferred to the border command post in Como as head of the intelligence service . Clemens is said to have received the nickname “Tiger of Como” from the SD members stationed there in a “wine mood”. Clemens was captured by a Canadian unit in Como on April 28, 1945 and extradited to the Italians in 1946/1947. During his imprisonment, Clemens corresponded with Tiebel and Felfe. In September 1949 he returned to Germany.

Homecoming and acting as an agent

His drive home took him directly to Rhöndorf , where Felfe lived. In his memoirs, he reported that he met Konrad Adenauer there several times because they had the same footpath. Clemens engaged a group of singers in a restaurant and moved with them past Adenauer's house to Felfe's apartment to give him a serenade. Felfe had moved in with his sister there.

Then he drove to Lendringsen (Bergh calls the place "Lendringhausen") in the Sauerland , where Tiebel worked as managing director in a construction company. Tiebel had offered Clemens to live with him.

James H. Critchfield claimed in his memoirs on the OG that after his release from Allied imprisonment, Clemens worked for the British intelligence service in the Rhineland and the Ruhr area and resigned from the British in the spring of 1950. Critchfield does not give a source for this, however. In 1953, Clemens is said to have made contact with the British intelligence service again. The purpose of this contact should be that he offered a person as a double agent for the KGB in Karlsruhe , by which Felfe was probably meant. However, this offer was not accepted by the British. They also did not inform the upper floor of this offer, although they had connections to the upper floor at the time. In later years, however, a British officer is said to have pointed this out to a representative of the CIA.

Clemens's wife, who lived in Dresden and was in contact there with an officer of the later KGB, had written several letters to Tiebel's address, which Tiebel gave to Clemens. In it, Clemens was invited to a discussion, to which he should come to Dresden. Clemens had already received information during his imprisonment in Italy that his wife Gerda had relations with Soviet officers. On this matter he conferred with Felfe, whom he visited for several days in October and December 1949. Towards the end of January 1950, Clemens' wife came to visit from Dresden and invited him to Dresden, where a Russian friend wanted to meet him.

At the end of February / beginning of March 1950, Clemens met his wife in Walkenried in the Harz Mountains , where they crossed the inner-German border to the GDR and met the Soviet contact officer "Max". During his one-week stay in Dresden, Clemens made a written declaration that he would work for the later KGB in the FRG . He received u. a. the order to work in the OG and to provide information about former SS and SD members. After his return, he reported to Felfe and Tiebel about the offer to get in touch with “Max”. With the support of Felfe, Clemens moved his residence to Bonn , from where he prepared reports from the Bundeshaus and the environment of Parliament. From July 1950 on, Clemens also delivered reports from Felfe to the KGB about his wife, who visited him several times.

Organization Gehlen

During a train journey on the Bonn-Düsseldorf route, he met a friend of the SS who told him that Wilhelm Krichbaum was in charge of the district agency for Bavaria "BV Süd" in Bad Reichenhall , which was part of the OG general agency L. Clemens went to see Krichbaum, who immediately offered him a job in the upper floor. On June 15, 1951, Clemens became a member of the OG and initially served Krichbaum as a courier in the function of a registrar. Krichbaum also gave him the job of recruiting former SD people. Over the next few months, Clemens arranged Krichbaum's contact with Felfe, whom he knew personally from his time at the RSHA. When Felfe was accepted into the upper floor on November 15, 1951, they celebrated this event in Munich in the “Königshof”.

Federal Intelligence Service

Clemens stayed with BV Bayern until mid-July 1952, before being deployed in Düsseldorf to help build BV “Rhein-Ruhr”. He went to Stuttgart in autumn 1953 as a branch manager of the sub-representative (UV) Württemberg and shop steward leader (VMF) for the upper floor. In April 1956 it was taken over by the BND. From July 1, 1956, he was employed in Cologne as the local branch manager of the BND. Here he worked as part of the “Operation Index”, which was carried out by both the BND and the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution . Members of the Soviet embassy and the Soviet trade organization should be observed in order to clear up their suspected sabotage, espionage and infiltration activities and to initiate appropriate defensive actions . Clemens held this position until March 1958, when he then worked in an observation command in Cologne as a senior servant and driver of a specially equipped vehicle.

Clemens was employed as an employee in the tariff group Vb of the TAO (tariff regulation for civil servants) in the BND, whereby in 1961 he received a gross salary of 1,060 DM including the allowance for expenses. He was mandated by his Soviet employers to meet with them every six to eight weeks. In doing so, they camouflaged their trips as part of their official assignments. The meetings took place in East Berlin until 1958, then in West Berlin. Other locations for the meetings were Brussels, Linz, Salzburg and Vienna. They handed over microfilms of the documents they had photographed and the sound reels they had discussed. Further orders were also received. In total, Clemens attended around 40 meetings before his arrest. From 1957, Clemens also had the task of listening to so-called A 3 radio messages on Saturday and Monday and, after decryption, to pass them on to Felfe. He also sent letters in latency or messages as micrate to cover addresses .

Clemens initially received DM 800 per month from the Soviet intelligence service, and 1,000 per month for the next two years. Several years followed with 1,500 DM per month. Payments were 2,000 per month as of January 1960. When he had worked for the KGB for ten years in 1960, he received a certificate of recognition from the head of the KGB, Alexander Nikolajewitsch Schelepin, and a bonus of DM 2,000. After deducting expenses, Clemens received at least DM 140,000 from the KGB, as he stated in court . This sum was collected from him as part of his conviction.

Investigations in the GDR

During a visit to his wife in Dresden in 1951, Clemens was recognized and reported to the criminal police. The Department C 10 of the Dresden criminal police put him on the wanted list. The main department (HA) II / 4 in the district representation (BV) Gera of the state security of the GDR started investigations against Clemens since 1954 because he was suspected of engaging in espionage. He made contact with former employees of the SD. As a measure against Clemens in May 1955, the operational process was created under the code name "Elbe" in order to clear up his activities and his agent organization. The Soviet ND was informed of this measure and intervened in the process in July 1955. As a result of this intervention, the case against Clemens was ended in May 1956.

Arrest and trial

In December 1960, the Polish lieutenant colonel Michał Goleniewski transferred to the US intelligence service and reported on Soviet agents in the BND. Information about events emerged from the information, so that Felfe came under suspicion. A group to monitor Felfes was set up under the direction of Walrab von Buttlar . On Friday, November 3rd, 1961, a letter from Clemens to Felfe fell into the group's hands, which contained material for encryption. Felfe and Clemens were thus convicted, so that on Monday, November 6, 1961, Felfe and Clemens were arrested. Because of his diabetes , Clemens was released from prison in the spring of 1963 and took a cure in Bad Oeynhausen for several weeks , where he was visited by BND employees Hans-Henning Crome and Karl-Eberhard Henke .

The trial against Felfe, Clemens and Tiebel began on July 8, 1963 before the 3rd criminal division of the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe and ended on July 9, 10, 11, 12, 15, 16, 18 and 19 continued. Federal judge Kurt Weber chaired the meeting . Associate federal judges were Hans Faller , Hermann Hengsberger , Albert Schumacher and Heinz Wiefels .

Clemens willingly reported on his past and his agent activities in Germany. His pre-trial detention was fully credited. In its judgment of 23 July 1963, he was to ten years prison sentenced. In 1968 he was released from prison for health reasons.

In a cabinet meeting on July 10, 1963, State Secretary Hans Globke briefed members of the Federal Cabinet on the espionage trial against Heinz Felfe , Johannes Clemens and Erwin Tiebel .

literature

  • Wolfgang Kraushaar: Career of a Boxer - Johannes Clemens: From the Dresden Gestapo thug to the double agent of the KGB and BND. In: Hannes Heer (ed.): In the heart of the darkness - Victor Klemperer as chronicler of the Nazi era. Berlin 1997.
  • Louis Hagen: The secret war on German soil. Since 1945. Econ, Düsseldorf 1969.
  • Carsten Schreiber: "A conspiratorial community" - regional persecution networks of the SD in Saxony . In: Michael Wildt (Ed.): Intelligence Service, Political Elite and Murder Unit. The security service of the Reichsführer SS. Hamburg 2003.
  • Hendrik van Bergh : ABC of Spies - An illustrated history of espionage in the Federal Republic of Germany since 1945. Ilmgau 1963.
  • Hermann Zolling, Heinz Höhne : Pullach internally - General Gehlen and the history of the Federal Intelligence Service. Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 1971.
  • Adolf Diamant: Chronicle of the Jews in Dresden. Darmstadt 1973.
  • Mary Ellen Reese: Organization Gehlen - The Cold War and the construction of the German secret service. Berlin 1992.
  • James H. Critchfield: Order Pullach - The Organization Gehlen 1948-1956. Hamburg 2005.
  • Henry Leide: Nazi Criminals and State Security - The GDR's Secret Past Policy. Göttingen 2006.
  • Annette Weinke : The persecution of Nazi perpetrators in divided Germany. Paderborn 2002, p. 377.
  • Robert Katz: Death in Rome. New York 1967 (German: Murder in Rome, 1968).
  • Robert Katz: Rome 1943–1944, Essen 2006.
  • Filippo Focardi: The Calculus of the “Boomerang” - Politics and Legal Issues in Dealing with German War Crimes in Italy. In: Norbert Frei (Hrsg.): Transnational Politics of the Past - Dealing with German war criminals in Europe after the Second World War. Göttingen 2006, p. 547.
  • Helmut Roewer et al .: Lexicon of the Secret Services in the 20th Century . Munich 2003.
  • Hugged and kissed . In: Der Spiegel . No. 30 , 1963 ( online - details in the process before the Federal Court of Justice 1963).
  • Bodo V. Hechelhammer : Spy without borders. Heinz Felfe - agent in seven secret services. Piper, Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-492-05793-6 .

swell

  • Hartmut Weber, Ulrich Enders, Christoph Seemann (eds.): Cabinet Protocols of the Federal Government, Volume 16, Munich 2006.
  • Judgment of the Federal Court of Justice 6 StE 1/63 of July 23, 1963.

Individual evidence

  1. Thomas Wolf: The emergence of the BND. Structure, financing, control (= Jost Dülffer, Klaus-Dietmar Henke, Wolfgang Krieger, Rolf-Dieter Müller [eds.]: Publications of the Independent Commission of Historians for Researching the History of the Federal Intelligence Service 1945–1968 . Volume 9 ). 1st edition. Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-96289-022-3 , pp. 556 .
  2. ^ Birth register StA Dresden IV, No. 158/1902
  3. Death register StA Bad Kissingen, No. 445/1976
  4. Wolfgang Kraushaar : Career of a Boxer - Johannes Clemens: From the Dresden Gestapo thug to the double agent of the KGB and BND. In: Hannes Heer (ed.): In the heart of the darkness - Victor Klemperer as chronicler of the Nazi era. Berlin 1997. pp. 152ff.
  5. ^ Joachim Staron: Fosse Ardeatine and Marzabotto. German war crimes and resistancea. History and national myth-making in Germany and Italy (1944-1999) . Schöningh, Paderborn 2002, p. 67
  6. Staron, Fosse Ardeatine , p. 171
  7. James H. Critchfield: Order Pullach- The Gehlen Organization 1948-1956 . Hamburg 2005, ISBN 978-3-8132-0848-1 .
  8. Bodo V. Hechelhammer : Spy without borders. Heinz Felfe. Agent in seven secret services . Piper, Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-492-05793-6 , pp. 223 .