Karl Reinhardt (politician)

Karl Reinhardt as a witness at the Nuremberg trials

Karl Wilhelm Reinhardt (born December 4, 1905 in Kittelsthal , † July 26, 1968 in Bamberg ) was a German farmer and politician ( NSDAP ). Reinhardt was, among other things, a member of the Reichstag and rural farmers' leader in the Gau Bavarian Ostmark .

Live and act

After attending the elementary school in Kittelsthal and the Realgymnasium in Eisenach , Reinhardt was taught at the agricultural school in Marksuhl . As a volunteer and later as an administrator, he then worked for several years on various farms in Thuringia before he set up as a farmer in 1929 with his own farm in Kittelsthal, Thuringia. After the annexation of the Sudeten areas in 1938, he also acquired a twelve-year lease near Furth on the former German-Czech border from the town of Taus .

On December 1, 1929, Reinhardt joined the NSDAP ( membership number 161.617). In 1930 he took over official duties as a Reich speaker . In 1932 he was elected for the NSDAP as a member of the Thuringian state parliament, to which he belonged until the dissolution of this body in 1933. Also in 1929 Reinhardt joined the Schutzstaffel (SS) (membership number 17.254), in which he was promoted to SS brigade leader .

Karl Reinhardt in SS uniform.

Immediately after the National Socialists came to power in the spring of 1933, Reinhardt became chairman of the Eisenach district council. In addition, in 1933 he was appointed regional young farmers 'leader for Thuringia and head of main department I of the regional farmers' union of Thuringia. He retained both offices until October 6, 1938. Also until 1938 he was chairman of the Thuringian State Settlement Society. On the occasion of the Reichstag election of November 1933, Reinhardt also became a member of the National Socialist Reichstag, to which he was a member of constituency 12 (Thuringia) from November 12, 1933 until the end of Nazi rule in spring 1945.

October 6, 1938 to January 1, 1940 Reinhardt was with the state peasantry Bayreuth country peasant leader for the Bavarian Ostmark, then up to the January 30, 1941 State Farmers' leader of the country's peasantry Wartheland based in Poznan (Wartheland). In addition, he was a member of the Reichsbauernrat , special representative of the Reichsbauernführer Walther Darré for agricultural workers' questions and special representative of the Reichsbauernführer for the Bavarian Ostmark (until October 6, 1938) and from October 6, 1938 to May 1945, agricultural district advisor to the Bavarian Ostmark district and district manager for agricultural policy in the same Gau from February 6, 1940 until the end of the war.

During the Second World War, Reinhardt was also a consultant for food and agriculture for the Special Staff of Economic Representatives (I Wi) at the Quartermaster General of the Army.

Shortly after the end of the Second World War, Reinhardt was taken prisoner by the Allies and was heard as a witness in the Nuremberg trials . His farm in Thuringia was expropriated by the Soviet occupying power , while his lease near Furth fell back to Czechoslovakia.

Promotions

• January 30, 1934: SS-Untersturmführer
• November 9, 1935: Hauptsturmführer (skipping the Obersturmführer rank)
• April 20, 1936: SS-Sturmbannführer
• January 30, 1937: SS-Obersturmbannführer
• April 20, 1939: SS Standartenführer
• ?: SS-Oberführer
• December 13, 1944: SS brigade leader

literature

• Joachim Lilla , Martin Döring, Andreas Schulz: extras in uniform. The members of the Reichstag 1933–1945. A biographical manual. Including the ethnic and National Socialist members of the Reichstag from May 1924. Droste, Düsseldorf 2004, ISBN 3-7700-5254-4 .
• Erich Stockhorst : 5000 people. Who was what in the 3rd Reich . 2nd Edition. Arndt, Kiel 2000, ISBN 3-88741-116-1 .

Web links

• Karl Reinhardt in the database of members of the Reichstag
• Minutes of an interrogation of Reinhardt from 1947 (PDF; 583 kB)