Johannes Stumm

Johannes Richard Reinhold Stumm (born March 27, 1897 in Berlin ; † December 25, 1978 there ) was a German lawyer. From 1948 to 1962 he headed the West Berlin police as police chief in Berlin .

Live and act

After attending school, Stumm studied law and political science in Berlin. In 1920 he was employed by the Berlin Police Headquarters . In 1922 he was appointed detective inspector . In 1925, Stumm was promoted to Dr. jur. PhD. Around the same time he joined the SPD . Since 1923, Stumm worked in Department IA (Political Police) for the "Inspection for Right-Wing Parties and Organizations". In 1926 he testified before the Prussian state parliament about the Fememorden in the Black Reichswehr .

Through numerous investigations against political criminals from the ranks of the NSDAP and its branches, especially because of politically motivated acts of violence by the SA, Stumm was significantly involved in the police attempts to repel the National Socialist "onslaught" on the republic. In 1931 he attempted to expel the then stateless Adolf Hitler from the German Reich. In the same year he was appointed head of the inspection “right-wing extremist parties and organizations”, with which Stumm officially took over the lead in the dispute between the Berlin police and the NSDAP.

When the right-wing government of the Reich overthrew the SPD through the Prussian strike in July 1932 , this resulted in the replacement of the head of Department IA and the dissolution of the "Right-wing parties and organizations" inspection as well as Stumm's transfer and demotion to the head of the Friedrichshain criminal inspection . After the National Socialists came to power in the spring of 1933, he was given leave of absence and soon afterwards dismissed from civil service. During the rest of the Nazi rule, he earned his living in the private sector as an authorized signatory and director of an auditing and trust company.

Shortly after the end of the Second World War, Stumm was appointed Police Vice President of Berlin by the Soviet city command in 1945. On July 26, 1948 , the Berlin magistrate suspended Police President Paul Markgraf for "arbitrary acts in criminal prosecution" and appointed Stumm as police chief. The SED member Margrave was meanwhile held in office by the Soviet occupying power. On July 28th, Stumm moved the police headquarters from Elsässer Strasse in the Soviet sector to Friesenstrasse in Berlin-Kreuzberg in the American sector, while the SED-loyal staff around Markgraf remained on Elsässer Strasse. The resulting split in the police initiated the split in Berlin, which was completed in November 1948. In the years that followed, Stumm built up the police force in West Berlin. During his term of office, the Berlin Airlift , the uprising of June 17, 1953 , the Cuban Missile Crisis and the building of the Wall in 1961 fell .

On the instructions of the Soviet city commandant Alexander Kotikow , Stumm's property and his apartment in the East Berlin district of Prenzlauer Berg were confiscated on August 3, 1948 .

Johannes Stumm became known to the East German public by calling the West Berlin police the "Stumm Police" or "StuPo".

Johannes Stumm was buried in the Luisenstadt cemetery on Südstern in field 23. He was a member of the Berlin Masonic Lodge Zur Treue .

Honors

Awarded the Ernst Reuter badge on April 18, 1977

Web links

The kidnapping of Otto Nuschke (CDU / GDR) from the democratic sector on June 17, 1953 and the "silent police" . GDR document

Individual evidence

^ Hsi-Huey Liang: The Berlin Police in the Weimar Republic. Translated from the American by Brigitte and Wolfgang Behn , de Gruyter, Berlin, New York 1977 (= Publications of the Historical Commission in Berlin, Vol. 47; cited below as “Hsi-Huey Liang”), p. 158, with evidence
↑ Hsi-Huey Liang, p. 180
↑ Arthur Schlegelmilch: Capital in Zone Germany. The emergence of post-war Berlin democracy 1945–1949 . Haude and Spener, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-7759-0370-4 (= writings of the Historical Commission in Berlin. Vol. 4), pp. 125–131, here 129, on the course of the split pp. 131–141.

personal data
SURNAME	Mute, Johannes
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Stumm, Johannes Richard Reinhold (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German lawyer, police chief of West Berlin
DATE OF BIRTH	March 27, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH	Berlin
DATE OF DEATH	December 25, 1978
Place of death	Berlin

[1] Hsi-Huey Liang: The Berlin Police in the Weimar Republic. Translated from the American by Brigitte and Wolfgang Behn , de Gruyter, Berlin, New York 1977 (= Publications of the Historical Commission in Berlin, Vol. 47; cited below as “Hsi-Huey Liang”), p. 158, with evidence

[2] Hsi-Huey Liang, p. 180

[3] Arthur Schlegelmilch: Capital in Zone Germany. The emergence of post-war Berlin democracy 1945–1949 . Haude and Spener, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-7759-0370-4 (= writings of the Historical Commission in Berlin. Vol. 4), pp. 125–131, here 129, on the course of the split pp. 131–141.