Karl Futh

Karl Futh (born November 6, 1879 in Britsch ; † after 1937) was a German police officer.

Live and act

Futh probably entered the police force in the German Empire . Since 1923 at the latest, he has been working as a detective commissioner in Department IA ( Political Police ) of the Berlin Police Headquarters. At the end of 1931 he was entrusted with the processing of press matters as Inspector I.

After the so-called Prussian strike of July 20, 1932 (in the course of which the then Chancellor Franz von Papen relieved the Social Democrat-minded Berlin police leadership and replaced it with "national" men) Futh appeared as a witness against his former superiors. Christoph Graf builds on the thesis that Futh was promoted to the criminal inspector at the end of 1932 as a reward for this service.

Futh joined the NSDAP as early as September 1, 1932 , making him one of those officers of the Political Police who had ties to the NSDAP before 1933.

A few months after the National Socialists came to power in May 1933, Futh was taken over into the Secret State Police , which was formed in spring 1933 , and was one of the earliest employees and in which he initially also performed press police duties. As of April 1, 1934, Futh was, along with Reinhold Heller , Konrad Nussbaum and Hubert Geissel, one of four Gestapa employees who had the rank of criminal councilor, and thus one of the five highest-ranking employees of the Gestapo headquarters.

From 1935 Futh headed the Gestapa as successor to Hans-Joachim Tesmer the Department II 1 D (" Protective Custody Matters"), which was responsible for the organization and implementation of the introduction to concentration camps and which he also headed after the Gestapo and the criminal police were brought together Main Office of the Security Police retained. After the department had received the official title II D in February 1937 and was upgraded to a department, Futh retired on March 1, 1937. His successor as head of the protective custody department was Emil Berndorff . Graf also mentions for the year 1937 that he was "obviously" transferred to Mecklenburg , although it remains unclear whether this "transfer" was an official assignment or his place of retirement.

Graf characterizes Futh in summary as one of those civil servants who "made the continuity from the pre-war civil servant to the nationally minded servant of the Weimar Republic and willing informers of the Papen regime to the National Socialist".

literature

• Christoph Graf : Political police between democracy and dictatorship. 1983, p. 344.
• Johannes Tuchel : Headquarters of Terror. Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse 8. 1987, p. 120.