Karl Ritter von Halt

Karl Ritter von Halt

Karl Ritter von Halt (portrayed by Emil Stumpp , 1929)

Halt (2nd from the left next to Reinhard Heydrich , Heinrich Himmler and Kurt Daluege ) as guest of honor at a major event in the Berlin Sports Palace for the benefit of the WHW on February 16, 1941

Karl Ferdinand Halt , from 1917 Knight von Halt (born June 2, 1891 in Munich ; † August 5, 1964 there ), was a German sports functionary in the National Socialist German Reich and in the Federal Republic .

life and work

Halt was the son of the Munich master locksmith Karl Halt, who came from Württemberg , and his wife Katharina, née Gaab. After graduating from the Luitpold secondary school in Munich, Halt found a job in the Deutsche Bank deposit box in 1908. He also studied at the University of Munich and received his doctorate in political science ( Dr. rer. Pol. ).

At the outbreak of the First World War he enlisted on August 3, 1914 as a volunteer in the Infantry Regiment body of the Bavarian army . In the twelfth battle of the Isonzo , he and the company he led took on Monte Madlessena on October 27, 1917. For this he later received the Knight's Cross of the Military Max Joseph Order . The elevation to the personal nobility was connected with the award ; he was allowed to call himself Ritter von Halt after his entry in the nobility register . As a reserve lieutenant and leader of the 3rd Company halt was in the Battle of Épehy wounded for the fifth time during the war and came here in British captivity . After the end of the war , he was released on November 18, 1918 and retired from military service shortly after his return to Munich.

From 1923, Halt was employed by the H. Aufhäuser Bank in Munich, where he became a general agent in the same year. In 1936 he became a director at Deutsche Bank and from 1938 was the board member responsible for human resources. In addition, he held the office of " operator ".

As a multiple German decathlon champion - like Avery Brundage , he took part in the V Olympic Games in Stockholm in 1912 in the pentathlon (eliminated after three competitions) and in the decathlon (8th place) - he became chairman of the sports association for athletics in 1931 and succeeded Franz Lang Acting President of the International Amateur Handball Federation (President elected from 1934) and elected to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1929 . Since the IOC at its meeting during the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles was concerned about the situation in Germany and feared a victory for the NSDAP in the coming Reichstag elections, Karl von Halt (the IOC member with the best connection to Adolf Hitler ) was commissioned to meet with Hitler and ask him about compliance with Olympic regulations. Since von Halt was friends with a number of " old fighters ", he got an audience with Hitler, who promised that the international rules would of course apply to foreign Olympic participants. The IOC was satisfied with this.

Halt joined the NSDAP ( membership number 3,204,950) and the SA on May 1, 1933 , where he became Oberführer . He belonged to the Friends of the Reichsführer SS . As a member of the board of directors of Deutsche Bank, he repeatedly made substantial donations to the SS. Halt visited the Dachau concentration camp with the Himmler Circle of Friends in 1937 while the concentration camp prisoners went about their work, and in 1939 the Oranienburg concentration camp . In 1937 v. Stop in the SS , but this failed because of resistance from Chief of Staff Lutze .

Had stopped at the 1936 Berlin Olympics instrumental in the projection of the then outstanding high jump - athlete Gretel Bergmann . Since the USA threatened to boycott if Jewish athletes were excluded, the Germans brought them back from England with a ruse - for which they wanted to participate in the games - and invited them on the day the Americans arrived in Germany (one day before the start of the Games) in writing. The document for this was written by Halt. The title favorite was robbed of her possible Olympic glory in advance.

Due to his commitment to the NSDAP, he remained at the top of German athletics, now in the position of head of the specialist department for athletics. In 1936 he became President of the Organizing Committee for the IV Winter Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen.

As early as May 1935 he saw “with growing concern”, as he reported in a letter to Oberregierungsrat Hans Ritter von Lex and the Reich Ministry of the Interior in the run-up to the veils, “in Garmisch-Partenkirchen and the surrounding area, anti-Semitic propaganda starting as planned” and “above all on the highway from Munich to Garmisch-Partenkirchen ”. In conclusion he wrote: "Dear Lex, [...] you also know very well that I am not telling you these worries of mine in order to help the Jews, it is all about the Olympic idea."

At the Summer Games in Berlin, he was responsible for organizing the athletic competitions. After the games he was looked after by the Reichssportführer with the management of the specialist office for bobsleigh and luge sports and was elected to the board of the International Bobsleigh Association. From 1937 to 1945 he was also a member of the Executive Committee of the International Olympic Committee; From 1944 he held the office of Reich Sports Leader in the National Socialist Reichsbund for physical exercises .

In mid-April 1945 he was drafted into the Volkssturm and took a leadership position there. On May 7, 1945, he was captured by Soviet forces and registered as a 'leading figure in the economy'. Until the beginning of 1950 he was detained in the special camp No. 2 in Buchenwald of the NKVD (Soviet State Security Service), the former Buchenwald concentration camp . He was released from captivity after the IOC greats Avery Brundage and IOC President Sigfrid Edström stood up for their old friend Ritter von Halt. One of the basic conditions of the Soviet Union for admission negotiations with the IOC was that Ritter von Halt would be dismissed from Buchenwald: "Without the release of Halts, no IOC membership."

He was released in January 1950, returned to Munich and worked at Bayerische Creditbank . In 1952 he became a member of the supervisory board of another Deutsche Bank successor, the Süddeutsche Bank in Munich. Despite ongoing media criticism between 1951 and 1960 due to his position in National Socialism , he became President of the West German Olympic Committee . The talks on the formation of an all-German team for the 1952 Olympic Games with the East German NOK under the leadership of Kurt Edels he conducted in such a way “that they had to be fruitless”. From 1961 to 1964 he was honorary president of the NOK for Germany. He was also Honorary President of the International Handball Federation and the German Athletics Association.

In 1959, Halt campaigned successfully on behalf of the Avery Brundage-led IOC with the then Federal Chancellor Adenauer for the further retention of the all-German team at the Olympic Games.

On the occasion of the Federal Youth Games on July 18, 1958, a sports field in Garmisch-Partenkirchen was named "Ritter-von-Halt-Stadion". On July 18, 2006 it was renamed “Stadion am Gröben” again.

Karl Ritter von Halt died of circulatory problems in Munich at the age of 73. His grave is in the Partenkirchen cemetery in Garmisch-Partenkirchen .

Honors

• Large Federal Cross of Merit with Star (1956)

literature

• Rudolf von Kramer, Otto von Waldenfels: VIRTUTI PRO PATRIA. The Royal Bavarian Military Max Joseph Order. Acts of War and Book of Honor 1914–1918. Self-published by the Royal Bavarian Military Max Joseph Order. Munich 1966. p. 309 f.
• Peter Heimerzheim: Karl Ritter von Halt. Life between sport and politics. Writings of the German Sport University Cologne (Volume 44). Academia Publishing House. Sankt Augustin 1999. ISBN 3-89665-124-2 .
• Heinz Bergschicker: German Chronicle 1933–1945. A picture of the times of the fascist dictatorship. Knowledge Advice to Olaf Groehler. 2nd Edition. Publishing House of the Nation. Berlin 1982. Fig. P. 176.
• Arnd Krüger : The Ministry of Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda and the Nazi Olympics of 1936. In: RK BARNEY, KB WAMSLEY u. a. (Ed.): Global and Cultural Critique: Problematizing the Olympic Games. (⇐ 4th International Symposium for Olympic Research). London, Ont .: University of Western Ontario 1998, 33 - 48. http://library.la84.org/SportsLibrary/ISOR/ISOR1998g.pdf

Web links

• Literature by and about Karl Ritter von Halt in the catalog of the German National Library
• Biography of the Historical Society of Deutsche Bank

Footnotes

1. ^ Arnd Krüger : The Olympic Games 1936 and the world opinion. Its importance in foreign policy, with particular reference to the USA. Berlin: Bartels & Wernitz 1972, ISBN 3-87039-925-2 , p. 36.
2. ↑ according to a statement by Oswald Pohl on July 29, 1946. See the investigation documents prepared by the US military government in 1946/1947 to initiate a war crimes trial against Deutsche Bank. They were translated and published in 1985: Hans Magnus Enzensberger (Ed.), Investigations against Deutsche Bank: 1946/1947 / Military government d. United States for Germany, Finance Department, Sect. For Financial Research. , Transl. U. edit from D. Documentation center for Nazi politics, Hamburg, Nördlingen: Greno 1985 ISBN 3-921568-66-8 , p. 389.
3. ↑ Anno Hecker: The Leap of Life. In: FAZ.net . April 12, 2014, accessed December 17, 2014 . 
4. ^ Matthias Koch: The games played . Tagesspiegel Online, February 8, 2006.
5. ^ Arnd Krüger : Germany and the Olympic Movement (1945–1980) . In: Horst Ueberhorst (Ed.): History of physical exercises. Volume 3/2: Physical exercise and sport in Germany from the First World War to the present. Bartels and Wernitz, Berlin 1981, ISBN 3-87039-054-9 , pp. 1048-1081.
6. ↑ Der Spiegel 4/1950: Karl Ritter von Halt
7. ^ Karl Ritter von Halt to Federal Chancellor Konrad Adenauer , May 25, 1951; Quote from Tobias Blasius: Olympic Movement, Cold War and Germany Policy 1949-1972. Peter Lang - Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften, Frankfurt am Main, 2001, ISBN 9783631381823 , p. 85.
8. ↑ Der Spiegel : Died
9. ↑ knerger.de: The grave of Karl Ritter von Halt
10. ↑ Gerd Otto-Rieke: Graves in Bavaria . Munich 2000, p. 95.
11. ^ Solveig Grothe: 60 years of the Federal Cross of Merit: Die Blechlawine. In: Spiegel Online . September 2, 2011, accessed December 17, 2014 . 
12. ↑ Photo : the Bavarian Prime Minister Wilhelm Hoegner presents the medal.