Karl Kaehne

Edgar Karl Kaehne (* 13. March 1899 in Bunzlau ; † 10. July 1969 in Würzburg ) was a German officer and Nazi - functionary .

Life

Edgar-Karl Julius Rudolf Kaehne was born the son of a bank manager. He attended the Liegnitz Knight Academy and passed his final exams there in the summer of 1917 . Immediately afterwards, during the First World War , he joined the 5th Lower Silesian Infantry Regiment No. 154 in Jauer as a volunteer with the rank of flagjunker in order to become a professional officer. This planned career was canceled because of the lost war and the revolution, because he was not ready to serve the new republic in the Reichswehr . He was then released from active service in 1920. After a bank apprenticeship at Dresdner Bank , a short course in economics at the University of Breslau that was broken off due to economic difficulties , he was hired as a civil servant candidate at the Reichsbank . On September 27, 1924 Kaehne married Marianne Martha, née Kittler (1901-1993), who came from a wealthy Liegnitz merchant family in Liegnitz . The marriage resulted in two daughters.

Freikorps fighter and SA functionary in the Weimar Republic

As an active officer, Kaehne took part in the first of the three Silesian uprisings of Polish insurgents under Wojciech Korfanty in August 1919 at the request of his division commander in the so-called Voluntary Corps Silesia , when the Polish rebels wanted to additionally conquer Silesian territories that were not assigned to Poland according to the Versailles Treaty . He took part in all battles in Upper Silesia and was awarded the Silesian Eagle for this. Although he had been an apprentice at Dresdner Bank in Liegnitz since April 1920, he largely stayed away from work in the first two months because he moved west with the Silesian Blücher regiment to fight communist uprisings in the Ruhr area . Returned to Liegnitz, he became a member of the "Heimatverband Schlesien". When, at the beginning of May 1921, Polish volunteer corps under the leadership of Korfanty again moved into Upper Silesia, he immediately joined the German self-protection . There was bitter fighting between the German and Polish free corps fighters, which culminated in the storm on the Annaberg on May 23, 1921, in which Kaehne also took part.

From June 1923 Kaehne was back at his apprenticeship in Liegnitz at Dresdner Bank. Working there and later at the Reichsbank bored him. He was more satisfied with his activities in training volunteers for the anti- republic free corps founded by the Bavarian Forestry Councilor Georg Escherich , the so-called Organization Escherich , who organized secret military exercises in the Silesian forests. In 1929 Kaehne joined the local branch of the NSDAP, founded in 1925, and the SA . He quickly made a career in the party and SA. From the beginning of January 1930 he was the part-time personnel manager of the Frankenstein district leadership, in 1934 he became SA storm leader , then leader of a storm man , leader of a standard, staff leader of a brigade. Within the NSDAP he was head of the Gau main office and speaker. He was the holder of the bronze and silver service award of the NSDAP . In the meantime transferred to the Reichsbank branch in Würzburg, shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War, he was called up to the Army of the Wehrmacht as a first lieutenant in the reserve .

Second World War

After the outbreak of war he took part in the fighting in Poland , France and the East . He received the Iron Cross 1st Class for his service in France and was wounded there. In Russia he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross as captain of the reserve and commander of the 1st Battalion of the 135th Infantry Regiment for personal bravery in a counterattack against Russian troops on February 2, 1942 . In mid-September 1943 Kaehne was promoted to regimental commander in Croatia and in early February 1944 to lieutenant colonel. In January 1945 he became a colonel and was appointed commander of the 954 Fortress Infantry Brigade. Because of an inflammation of the liver he was relieved and in mid-March 1945 he was taken to a hospital in the Upper Bavarian town of Neuötting .

Civil murder in Altötting

In the morning hours of April 28, 1945, some respected citizens of Altötting, led by District Administrator Kehrer, decided to hand over the city to the Americans without a fight, contrary to the orders of the party leadership. As a result, they arrested several local party members and locked them in a cell at the local gendarmerie post . The mayor of Neuötting found out about this and immediately went to the doctor at the hospital there, who was also the local combat commandant, and requested his intervention. He then commissioned Kaehne, the longest serving hospital inmate, to drive to Altötting to investigate the matter. Kaehne went to Altötting accompanied by two captains. In the office of the district administrator he confronted him, a shot was fired; the district administrator allegedly shot himself. Then Kaehne freed the Nazi officials who had been arrested. In the district office he ordered that the service be continued and not to surrender. Then he drove back to the hospital in Neuötting.

In Altötting, the liberated imprisoned Nazi functionaries had the ringleaders of those willing to surrender arrested according to a list they had drawn up on the instructions of the NSDAP district leader. Five citizens were then shot on the same day by an SS unit commissioned by the district leadership.

On May 12, 1945, Kaehne was assigned by the Americans to the first officers company at the US prisoner-of-war camp in Altötting.

Trial and Denazification

Kaehne was arrested on April 4, 1946. After a short stay in the 'Open Camp' Ochsenfurt , he was then transferred to the American-run 'German Internment Camp Darmstadt (Civil Internment Enclosure 91)'. After a few months he was transferred to the Moosburg an der Isar camp, where the Nazis from Altötting, who were also arrested, were already sitting. Here he also filled out the obligatory questionnaire on the Nazi past. In the following proceedings before the verdict chamber established to try Nazi misconduct , he was charged and on September 10, 1948, he was classified as the main culprit and sentenced to five years in a labor camp. The reasons refer not only to his high party positions and his position as an old fighter , but also to the events of April 28, 1945 in Altötting. In particular, he was also charged with complicity in the shootings in Altötting.

In mid-December 1948 Kaehne also had to answer to the Traunstein Regional Court for the Altötting incidents. However, the regional court came to a different assessment of what had happened than the ruling chamber: It acquitted all of the defendants from the murder charge, Kaehne even because of proven innocence. The murders were not to be attributed to him, since after the names of those who were later shot had been determined he went back to his hospital and was therefore not responsible for the acts that occurred afterwards; in the case of District Administrator Kehrer, the forensic doctor's report showed that he had committed suicide. Kaehne has now been released from prison. His appeal against the verdict of the Spruchkammer was successful insofar as he was now only classified as an incriminated person and no longer had to go to camp.

Kaehne then initially worked in private companies until he was granted a supply because of his official position at the Reichsbank.

literature

• Ulrich Völklein : One day in April - The civil murders of Altötting , Steidl-Verlag, Göttingen 1997.
• Ulrich Völklein: Farewell to Sophienhof , Droemer, 2006

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Veit Scherzer : Knight's Cross bearer 1939–1945. The holders of the Iron Cross of the Army, Air Force, Navy, Waffen-SS, Volkssturm and armed forces allied with Germany according to the documents of the Federal Archives. 2nd Edition. Scherzers Militaer-Verlag, Ranis / Jena 2007, ISBN 978-3-938845-17-2 , p. 427.
2. ^ Ulrich Völklein: Farewell to Sophienhof, Droemer, 2006, page 130.
3. ^ Ulrich Völklein: Farewell to Sophienhof, Droemer, 2006, pages 143, 145.
4. ^ Ulrich Völklein: Farewell to Sophienhof, Droemer, 2006, page 143 ff, esp. 154.
5. ↑ Source: Article from February 1942 in the Mainfränkische Zeitung in Würzburg on the occasion of the award of the Knight's Cross to Karl Kaehne, printed in Ulrich Völklein: Abschied von Sophienhof, Droemer, 2006, page 196.
6. ^ Ulrich Völklein: Farewell to Sophienhof, Droemer, 2006, page 200.
7. ^ Herbert Riedl-Heyne: Murder in our small town , in Süddeutsche Zeitung of April 28, 1985.
8. ↑ ^{a b} Völklein: Farewell to Sophienhof, page 237.
9. ^ Ulrich Völklein: One day in April , Steidl-Verlag, Göttingen, 1997.