Johannes Hassebroek

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Johannes Hassebroek (born July 11, 1910 in Halle (Saale) , † April 17, 1977 in Westerstede ) was a German SS leader and camp commandant of the Groß-Rosen concentration camp .

Career

Johannes Hassebroek, baptized Protestant Lutheran, was the third child and the only son of a prison officer and spent his childhood in an orderly manner in Halle an der Saale. After completing his school career with secondary school leaving certificate in 1926, he began a commercial apprenticeship in a machine factory. After completing his apprenticeship, he worked as a commercial clerk. In 1931 he was laid off and was unemployed for three years. He then did some odd jobs and then initially started an administrative career at the tax office in Merseburg . He married in 1937 and had three children.

The National Socialist coinage

Hassebroek, raised nationally and anti-communist by his parents, joined the Bismarckbund , a youth organization in the orbit of the Stahlhelm , in early May 1923 . He orientated himself on his father, who was a member of the steel helmet. In early November 1929, he left the Bismarck Federation and then joined the NSDAP ( membership number 256527) and SA at motivated by participating in a Nazi Party Rally in Nuremberg. Fights with the communists, in which he sustained head injuries, and his temporary unemployment combined with his aversion to the Weimar system are likely to have prompted him to take this step.

Through the mediation of an acquaintance, he continued his administrative career from 1934 in the administration of the SD (Section XVII / XVIII) in Halle and joined the SS (SS No. 107.426). This was followed by a two-week military training with the SS disposable troops and, from November 1934, a basic military course with the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler as part of the qualification for SS leadership training . In April 1935 he began a leadership course at the SS Junker School in Braunschweig. This course solidified his National Socialist worldview. Hassebroeck, who was only able to improve his performance in the course of the course, finally completed his training as an SS leader at the end of January 1936 with success.

From April 1936 Hassebroek, who went through the Dachau School under Theodor Eicke , was assigned to the SS-Totenkopfverband Ostfriesland at the Esterwegen concentration camp . Initially he was a member of the guard and platoon leader there, but rose to the position of adjutant to the commander of the SS-Totenkopfverband Ostfriesland Otto Reich in July 1937 . After the closure of the Esterwegen concentration camp, he was transferred to another unit of the SS skull and crossbones associations in Oranienburg near Sachsenhausen concentration camp in 1937 .

Front deployment and concentration camp commander

After the outbreak of the Second World War , Hassebroek took part as a company commander of the 2nd SS-Totenkopfstandarte Brandenburg, initially in the attack on Poland and from May 1940 in the " western campaign ". From January 1942 he was assigned to the Eastern Front as a company commander.

In June 1942 he was shot in the lower leg near Demyansk . After several hospital stays, Hassebroek was transferred to Office Group D of the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office. From mid-November 1942, Hassebroek, no longer fit for use in the war after the injury, headed the Heinkel-Werke satellite camp of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp . From there he was transferred to the Groß-Rosen concentration camp as a camp commandant in October 1943, replacing Wilhelm Gideon in this function . From the end of 1943, the Groß-Rosen concentration camp was expanded, various new satellite camps were set up and the number of prisoners quadrupled by the beginning of 1945. Between 30,000 and 35,000 prisoners in this concentration camp died during Hassebroek's service in Groß-Rosen. After the end of the war, the German prisoners witnessed an improvement in their living conditions under Hassebroek's command, but the situation for the Polish, Soviet and Jewish prisoners deteriorated considerably. After the evacuation of the Groß-Rosen concentration camp in February 1945, Hassebroek left the camp with most of his command staff and went via the Zittau subcamp to the Reichenau subcamp in the Sudetenland.

In the SS, Hassebroek rose to SS-Sturmbannführer at the end of January 1944 .

After the end of the war

Hassebroek was arrested in August 1945. The trial against him before a British military court began in Hamburg in August 1948. He was sentenced to death on October 22, 1948 for the murder of British officers in the Groß-Rosen concentration camp. However, the death sentence was not carried out. He was released from prison in mid-September 1954, moved to Braunschweig to live with his family and returned to work in the commercial area. In May 1967 he again had to answer before the Braunschweig Regional Court for the murder of twelve prisoners at the Groß-Rosen concentration camp. The court only found manslaughter, and because of the statute of limitations for this offense, Hassebroeck was acquitted in June 1970. This judgment was confirmed by the Federal Court of Justice .

Hassebroek did not deny his activity as camp commandant in an interview with Tom Segev in March 1975. He died in April 1977 in Westerstede.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Karin Orth: The Concentration Camp SS , Munich 2004, pp. 118 ff.
  2. ↑ a b Karin Orth: The Concentration Camp SS , Munich 2004, p. 142 f.
  3. ↑ Tom Segev: The Soldiers of Evil. On the history of the concentration camp commanders. Reinbek near Hamburg 1995, p. 215 ff.
  4. ↑ Karin Orth: The Concentration Camp SS. Munich 2004, p. 153 ff.
  5. ↑ Karin Orth: The Concentration Camp SS. Munich 2004, p. 161 ff.
  6. ^ Norbert Rohde : Historical military objects of the Oberhavel region, Volume 1: The Heinkel aircraft factory Oranienburg. Velten Verlag GmbH, Leegebruch 2006, ISBN 3-9811401-0-9 , p. 134.
  7. ↑ Karin Orth: The Concentration Camp SS. Munich 2004, p. 214 f.
  8. ↑ Karin Orth: The Concentration Camp SS. Munich 2004, p. 229 f.
  9. ↑ Karin Orth: The system of the National Socialist concentration camps. Hamburg 2002, p. 281.
  10. ↑ a b Ernst Klee: The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 231.
  11. ↑ Karin Orth: The Concentration Camp SS. Munich 2004, p. 290 f.
  12. ↑ Tom Segev: The Soldiers of Evil. On the history of the concentration camp commanders. Reinbek near Hamburg 1995, p. 220 f.
personal data
SURNAME Hassebroek, Johannes
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German SS leader and concentration camp commander
DATE OF BIRTH July 11, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Halle (Saale)
DATE OF DEATH April 17, 1977
Place of death Westerstede