Karl Berckmüller

Karl Berckmüller (born December 10, 1895 in Karlsruhe ; † August 16, 1961 there ) was a German politician ( NSDAP ) and a senior Gestapo officer . At the time of National Socialism he was the first head of the Secret State Police in Karlsruhe and from 1937 to 1945 mayor of Villingen .

Origin, school days, First World War and factory manager

Karl Berckmüller was the son of the factory owner Karl Joseph Anton Berckmüller and his wife Maria Karolina Josephina, nee Völker. He had two younger siblings. After elementary school he attended grammar school from 1905, but was unable to properly finish his school days due to the war. He was awarded the Abitur in December 1914. At the beginning of August 1914, after the outbreak of World War I, he volunteered for military service with the German Army . He was deployed in an infantry regiment in Baden and reached the rank of first lieutenant at the end of the war . After the death of his father, he managed his parents' metal goods factory for ten years from 1919 and married Gertrude Elisabeth, née Röhnich, in December 1920. He had four children, two of whom were illegitimate. From the spring of 1920 it belonged to the Karlsruhe Lever Lodge No. 6 of the Federation of Odd Fellows . He resigned because Jews could also become members there.

Political activity

With a national legal position, he joined the Baden Schlageterbund with other Nazi supporters in 1924 , of which he was temporarily deputy head. He became a companion and friend of the later Baden Gauleiter Robert Wagner , whom he lodged in his house for three years. In January 1926 he was admitted to the NSDAP ( membership number 29,365) and in the same year to the SA , of which he was a member until the end of 1933. In 1929 he got a job at the Führer-Verlag GmbH in Karlsruhe and from 1931 to 1933 he was the district press attendant at the National Socialist newspaper Der Alemanne , where he last took over the management of the publishing house.

First head of the Secret State Police Office in Karlsruhe

After the transfer of power to the National Socialists , he and other National Socialists were involved in the mistreatment of a Jewish dentist who is alleged to have committed a moral offense. In early October 1933, he as Government by Gauleiter Robert Wagner head of the Secret State Police Office in Karlsruhe transmitted. As head of the Gestapo, he was initially directly subordinate to the Baden Interior Minister Karl Pflaumer and was able to act relatively independently. Berckmüller excelled in particular through the rigorous persecution of communists, Jews and Catholics. He could take people into protective custody for up to eight days , until the Baden Ministry of the Interior decided on their fate. His cousin, the Nazi opponent Emil Henk , was also arrested several times by the Baden Gestapo. He had Catholic clergy monitored and persecuted, including Archbishop Conrad Gröber . Berckmüller was an anti-Semite, incited against alleged " racial abusers " and excelled through anti-Jewish measures. He informed the chief editor of the anti-Semitic agitation paper Der Stürmer , Ernst Hiemer , about investigations against Jews for propaganda exploitation in the magazine. In this context, he often met the publisher of the striker , Julius Streicher , in the editorial offices.

In the course of the centralization of the police, Berckmüller, who had joined the SS in mid-1934 at Heinrich Himmler's request with the rank of SS-Obersturmführer ( SS-Obersturmführer ) (SS-No.139.455), increasingly got into disputes over competency with the SD of the SS tried hard against him and forced his resignation from the SS in February 1937. Shortly afterwards, under pressure from the chief of the security police Reinhard Heydrich , he gave up his position as head of the Gestapo.

Mayor's office and World War II

From March 1937 he headed the state port authority in Mannheim for a few months. In October 1937 he became mayor of Villingen and held this office until the end of the war in May 1945. During the Second World War, his official duties were limited to the most essential matters, the day-to-day business was carried out by his deputy. Berckmüller was from the beginning of April 1940 to May 1945 in the rank of captain as a company commander in the Air Force, mostly at air bases in Bavaria. Later locations were Greece, France and Italy.

post war period

After the end of the war he was initially able to go into hiding, but was arrested and interned on November 9, 1945. Berckmüller was able to escape from internment several times, but was picked up again and again. After an arbitration chamber procedure , he was denazified in Baden in April 1949, initially as the main victim and, after an appeal hearing, in December 1950 as an accused . Berckmüller was arrested again on June 13, 1950, after having lived in secret under a false name for over two years, and was remanded in custody for the mistreatment of the Jewish dentist in 1933. For crimes against humanity, he was sentenced to 15 months imprisonment by the regional court in Freiburg im Breisgau on November 27, 1950, the sentence was suspended in early June 1951 and Berckmüller was released. He finally found a job with a construction company in Reutlingen . His petitions to withdraw the verdict and regrouping in the category of minor offenders remained unsuccessful. However, in 1958 his time in the mayor's office was credited to his pension entitlement. Berckmüller died as a pensioner on July 27, 1961 in his hometown.

literature

• Michael Stolle: Of idealists, climbers, executors and criminals. Karl Berckmüller, Alexander Landgraf, Walter Schick, Josef Gmeiner, Head of the Secret State Police Headquarters Karlsruhe . In: Michael Kißener , Joachim Scholtyseck (ed.): The leaders of the province. Nazi biographies from Baden and Württemberg , Karlsruhe contributions to the history of National Socialism, Vol. 2, Universitätsverlag, Konstanz 1997, ISBN 3-87940-566-2 .
• Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich . Who was what before and after 1945 . 2nd Edition. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 .
• Michael Stolle: The Secret State Police in Baden. Personnel, organization, effect and aftermath of a regional prosecution authority in the Third Reich. UVK Universitätsverlag, Konstanz 2001, ISBN 978-3-89669-820-9 .
• Stadtarchiv Mannheim (Ed.): Persecution and resistance under National Socialism in Baden: the situation reports of the Gestapo and the Karlsruhe Public Prosecutor 1933–1940 . Edited by Jörg Schadt . Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1976.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Life data of Michael Stolle: Of idealists, climbers, executors and criminals. Karl Berckmüller, Alexander Landgraf, Walter Schick, Josef Gmeiner, Head of the Secret State Police Headquarters Karlsruhe , Konstanz 1997, p. 35, at the DNB deviating from this, the place of death is given as Freiburg im Breisgau
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Michael Stolle: Of idealists, climbers, executors and criminals. Karl Berckmüller, Alexander Landgraf, Walter Schick, Josef Gmeiner, Head of the Secret State Police Headquarters Karlsruhe , Konstanz 1997, p. 31
3. ↑ Michael Stolle: Of idealists, climbers, executors and criminals. Karl Berckmüller, Alexander Landgraf, Walter Schick, Josef Gmeiner, Head of the Secret State Police Control Center Karlsruhe , Konstanz 1997, p. 35
4. ↑ Michael Stolle: Of idealists, climbers, executors and criminals. Karl Berckmüller, Alexander Landgraf, Walter Schick, Josef Gmeiner, Head of the Secret State Police Headquarters Karlsruhe , Konstanz 1997, p. 37
5. ↑ Michael Stolle: Of idealists, climbers, executors and criminals. Karl Berckmüller, Alexander Landgraf, Walter Schick, Josef Gmeiner, Head of the Secret State Police Control Center Karlsruhe , Konstanz 1997, p. 39
6. ↑ Michael Stolle: Of idealists, climbers, executors and criminals. Karl Berckmüller, Alexander Landgraf, Walter Schick, Josef Gmeiner, Head of the Secret State Police Headquarters Karlsruhe , Konstanz 1997, p. 40ff
7. ↑ Michael Stolle: Of idealists, climbers, executors and criminals. Karl Berckmüller, Alexander Landgraf, Walter Schick, Josef Gmeiner, Head of the Secret State Police Control Center Karlsruhe , Konstanz 1997, p. 35
8. ↑ Michael Stolle: Of idealists, climbers, executors and criminals. Karl Berckmüller, Alexander Landgraf, Walter Schick, Josef Gmeiner, Head of the Secret State Police Control Center Karlsruhe , Konstanz 1997, p. 47
9. ↑ Michael Stolle: Of idealists, climbers, executors and criminals. Karl Berckmüller, Alexander Landgraf, Walter Schick, Josef Gmeiner, Head of the Secret State Police Headquarters Karlsruhe , Konstanz 1997, p. 44ff
10. ↑ Michael Stolle: Of idealists, climbers, executors and criminals. Karl Berckmüller, Alexander Landgraf, Walter Schick, Josef Gmeiner, Head of the Secret State Police Control Center Karlsruhe , Konstanz 1997, p. 49
11. ↑ Michael Stolle: Of idealists, climbers, executors and criminals. Karl Berckmüller, Alexander Landgraf, Walter Schick, Josef Gmeiner, Head of the Secret State Police Headquarters Karlsruhe , Konstanz 1997, p. 51f.
12. ↑ Michael Stolle: Of idealists, climbers, executors and criminals. Karl Berckmüller, Alexander Landgraf, Walter Schick, Josef Gmeiner, Head of the Secret State Police Control Center Karlsruhe , Konstanz 1997, p. 53f.