Karl Herwig

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Karl Herwig (born July 25, 1895 in Wesselburen ; † January 20, 1967 ) was NSDAP Mayor of the cities of Wesselburen and Heide (Holstein) and SS Oberführer .

Life

Karl Hinrich Herwig was born on July 25, 1895 as the son of Engelhard Herwig in Wesselburen. Herwig attended secondary school in Heide for a short time and left school without a degree.

Herwig was a soldier in World War I from September 21, 1914, and was promoted to private on October 6, 1917. On November 30, 1918, he was transferred to Heide. He was discharged from military service on February 19, 1920. In 1919 Herwig married Elly Peters, with whom he had three children. He was a machine fitter by profession , but used the unprotected professional title of engineer . Herwig was a member of the Stahlhelm from 1925 to 1927 . In 1928 he joined the NSDAP (membership number 97.428) and the SA and in 1929 took over the leadership of the local branch of the NSDAP in Wesselburen. In the local elections in 1929 he entered the city council for the NSDAP and became deputy mayor of Wesselburen.

In 1930 Herwig became a member of the SS . From 1932 to 1945 he was in charge of SS-Standarte 53. In 1932 he was appointed acting mayor of Wesselburen, and on April 1, 1933, this office was officially assigned to him. On April 1, 1933, a call for a boycott of Jewish shops appeared in the Dithmarscher Bote, under which Herwig's name was written. A group of SA and SS men led by Herwig occupied the town hall in Büsum with loaded carbines on March 13, 1933 and relieved the Büsum mayor Otto Johannsen from his office. On March 7, 1933, Johannsen refused to hand over the black, red and gold flag to SA men.

On January 22, 1934, Herwig was dismissed as mayor because he prevented the arrest of four SS men who had attacked a member of the Tannenberg Association . After two days, however, he was reinstated as mayor of Wesselburen.

When the headquarters of SS Standard 53 was relocated to Heide in 1937, Herwig was appointed mayor of Heide (Holstein) after a letter of appeal to Heinrich Himmler , replacing Hermann Hadenfeldt early. In 1937 Herwig also took over the newly founded SD branch in Heide.

From October to December 1940 he worked for the immigration center in Romania . The immigration center organized the resettlement of ethnic Germans to Romania. On January 30, 1941, Heinrich Himmler promoted him to SS-Oberführer .

In May 1941, Herwig sent out invitations to the execution of the forced laborer Stefan Slowinski in Norderwurth . The Pole was accused of having a relationship with a German. Contemporary witnesses reported that "Karl Herwig emphatically demonstrates the feeling of power over life and death at the place of execution." It has not been clarified who was legally responsible for the execution.

As part of the thunderstorm campaign after the failed coup attempt of July 20, 1944 , Herwig instructed the city director to draw up a list of former representatives of the left-wing parties. The three social democrats Auguste Ebeling, Thord Jibsen and Emil Schmekel and the communist Erich Böhlig were then arrested. Only Ebeling and Jibsen survived. Schmekel died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp , Erich Böhlig on the Cap Arcona .

Herwig was in detention from May 10, 1945 to November 24, 1947. The Bielefeld Spruchkammer sentenced him on November 17, 1947 to nine months in prison and a fine of RM 2,000, “because he belonged to the SS and SD after September 1, 1939, although he knew that these organizations were used to commit acts, which have been declared criminal by Art. VI of the Statutes of the International Military Tribunal. "

The Heider SPD was in the investigation of the German authorities about Herwig the following statement: "It is well known the party that Karl Herwig in Heide and in the circle Norderdithmarschen is considered activist übelster variety." In its judgment of the Second Criminal Chamber of the. District Court Flensburg from On July 4, 1948, Herwig was sentenced to one year in prison for crimes against humanity . Ten months of this sentence were considered to have been served due to pre-trial detention and internment.

literature

  • Marie-Elisabeth Rehn : Heider gottsleider - small town life under the swastika. New edition. Pro Business, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-939000-31-0 .
  • Martin Gietzelt, Ulrich Pfeil : Dithmarschen in the “Third Reich” 1933–1945 in the history of Dithmarschen , Heide 2000.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Marie-Elisabeth Rehn: Heider gottsleider - small town life under the swastika. New edition. Pro Business, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-939000-31-0 , page 122
  2. ^ Marie-Elisabeth Rehn: Heider gottsleider - small town life under the swastika. New edition. Pro Business, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-939000-31-0 , p. 126.
  3. ^ Marie-Elisabeth Rehn: Heider gottsleider - small town life under the swastika. New edition. Pro Business, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-939000-31-0 , page 131
personal data
SURNAME Herwig, Karl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Herwig, Karl Hinrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Nazi war criminal
DATE OF BIRTH July 25, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Wesselburen
DATE OF DEATH 20th January 1967