Karl Gutenberger

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Karl Gutenberger

Karl Michael Gutenberger (born April 18, 1905 in Essen ; † July 8, 1961 there ) was a German politician ( NSDAP ), SA brigade leader , SS upper group leader and general of the Waffen SS and the police . During the National Socialist era , he was police chief in Duisburg and Essen and, during the Second World War, Higher SS and Police Leader West. Gutenberger, who was involved in several homicide crimes in the final phase of World War II, was sentenced to several years in prison as a war criminal after the end of the war.

Life

Karl Gutenberger was the son of the warehouse manager of the Essen Krupp cast steel factory . After elementary school he attended the upper secondary school and the secondary school in Altenessen . From 1921 and 1923 he completed a bank apprenticeship and then earned his living as a bank clerk for a few months. He then worked for several companies, including from 1928 to 1929 at Rheinstahl AG in Essen. After all, he was an employee of the National-Zeitung in Essen from 1930 to the end of December 1931 .

Gutenberger was active with the National Socialists very early on and joined the NSDAP as early as 1923 and again in mid-December 1925 after the party was banned ( membership number 25.249). When he rejoined the party, he was a local group leader in Essen-Segeroth until 1926 and also worked as a Gau speaker. On July 31, 1932, he was elected to the 6th Reichstag for the NSDAP , of which he was a member until November 1932. He belonged to the Prussian state parliament from November 1932, when he replaced the retired MP Friedrich Peppmüller , until the body was dissolved in October 1933. After the seizure of power by the Nazis, he was from November 1933 to the end of the Nazi regime in 1945 a member of the Nazi Reichstag for the constituency 23 (Dusseldorf-West). From 1923 and again in 1925 he was also a member of the storm department . From the beginning of January 1932 he was a full-time SA leader of numerous SA standards and brigades in the western Ruhr area .

From the beginning of May 1937 he was initially acting and in 1938 officially police chief of the city of Duisburg . On November 14, 1939, he was appointed chief of police in Essen and held this post until the beginning of May 1941. During his time as chief of police, he was also the local air raid chief. At the beginning of June 1940 he switched from the SA to the SS (SS no. 372.303), for which he was employed as a full-time SS leader from the beginning of May 1941. From mid-1941 he was Higher SS and Police Leader West ( Wehrkreis VI) and SS Upper Section Leader in Düsseldorf ; he took over both functions until the end of the Second World War. From this point onwards, Max Henze took up his position as police chief in Essen . However, Gutenberger remained on a temporary basis until September 30, 1942.

In the second half of 1944 he was promoted to SS-Obergruppenführer and General of the Police and the Waffen SS. In October 1944 he was also appointed Higher Commander of the POWs in Military District VI. From November 1944 he was finally Inspector of Freischärlerbewegung werewolf for the West Division in Westphalia . In the end of the war he was responsible for numerous homicide crimes. On December 12, 1944, he wrote to Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler in view of the Allied troops advancing into Reich territory : “Initially, 108 deserters or persons suspected of espionage were shot to stabilize morale. The deserters who were not clearly identified as such were handed over to the field courts, which almost always imposed the death penalty. ”In January 1945, his quarters were in a bunker in Düsseldorf-Lohausen . On the instructions of Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler, Gutenberger had the mayor of Aachen Franz Oppenhoff murdered on March 25, 1945 by members of the SS and the Air Force.

After the war ended, he was interned in the United States on May 10, 1945. On October 20, 1948, a British military tribunal in Hamburg gave him a twelve-year prison sentence for his order to shoot foreign workers. Further proceedings before jury courts followed: The Aachen Regional Court sentenced him to two and a half years in prison for aiding and abetting manslaughter in the murder of Aachen's Lord Mayor Oppenhoff. A conviction of five years in prison before the Duisburg Regional Court for crimes against humanity ( murder and deprivation of liberty ) was overturned by the Federal Court of Justice in 1952 and referred back to the Duisburg Regional Court. Due to an act of grace, Gutenberger was released from Werl prison on May 9, 1953 , but was immediately arrested again by the German criminal police. The proceedings against Gutenberger before the Duisburg Regional Court were discontinued in 1953. After his release from prison he worked as a sales representative.

Awards

Gutenberger's SA, SS and police ranks
date rank
September 15, 1932 SA standard leader
November 9, 1933 SA Oberführer
April 20, 1936 SA brigade leader
June 1, 1940 SS Brigade Leader
March 1, 1942 Major General of the Police
November 9, 1942 SS group leader and lieutenant general of the police
July 30, 1944 SS-Obergruppenführer and General of the Police
November 16, 1944 SS-Obergruppenführer and General of the Waffen SS

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Joachim Lilla: Senior administrative officials and functionaries in Westphalia and Lippe (1918–1945 / 46). Biographisches Handbuch , Münster 2004, p. 166
  2. ↑ Ernst Kienast (Ed.): Handbook for the Prussian Landtag. Edition for the 4th electoral term. R. v. Decker's Verlag (G. Schenck), Berlin 1932, corrections for the manuals (as of February 15, 1933), p. 11.
  3. ↑ a b Joachim Lilla: Senior administrative officials and functionaries in Westphalia and Lippe (1918–1945 / 46). Biographisches Handbuch , Münster 2004, p. 167
  4. ^ Message from Karl Gutenberger to Heinrich Himmler on December 12, 1944. Quoted in: Klaus-Dietmar Henke: The American occupation of Germany. 3rd edition, Oldenbourg, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-486-59079-1 , p. 150
  5. ^ Klaus-Dietmar Henke: The American occupation of Germany. 3rd edition, Oldenbourg, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-486-59079-1 , p. 285
  6. ↑ Volker Koop: Himmler's last contingent. The Nazi organization »Werwolf« , Cologne 2008, p. 122ff.
  7. ↑ Joachim Lilla: Senior administrative officials and functionaries in Westphalia and Lippe (1918–1945 / 46): Biographisches Handbuch , Münster 2004, p. 166f.
  8. ↑ The book is based on this chapter. on the judgment of the Regional Court Aachen KS2 / 49 of October 22, 1949, Goebbels' diaries and contemporary reports in the Nazi press; on Henke, The American Occupation, as well as two SHAEF texts
personal data
SURNAME Gutenberger, Karl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gutenberger, Karl Michael (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (NSDAP), MdR, MdL, General
DATE OF BIRTH April 18, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH eat
DATE OF DEATH July 8, 1961
Place of death eat