Kurt Daluege

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Kurt Daluege (1936)

Kurt Max Franz Daluege (born September 15, 1897 in Kreuzburg (Upper Silesia) , † October 23, 1946 in Prague ) was a German police general , most recently an SS-Oberst-Gruppenführer and colonel- general of the police in the National Socialist German Reich during the Second World War . Daluege was chief of the regulatory police and Heinrich Himmler's deputy in the police department.

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Career

The son of a middle-class civil servant, a member of the youth movement “ Wandervogel ”, graduated from high school in 1916 and volunteered for military service. During the First World War he fought mainly on the Western Front , was wounded several times and in 1918 dismissed as a deputy sergeant and officer candidate . From 1918 to 1921 he participated as a member and leader of the " Self-Defense of Upper Silesia " in the fighting against Polish militias, worked temporarily in Berlin as a factory worker and from 1921 to 1924 studied civil engineering at the Technical University of Berlin . During this time he was active in various nationalist , ethnic and anti-Semitic associations and in 1922 served as a department commander in the Roßbach Freikorps . In 1923 he became a member of the Berlin fraternity Teuto-Rugia . He completed his studies with a degree in engineering .

Career in the NSDAP

Daluege as General of the Prussian State Police (1933)

In 1922, Daluege joined the as yet insignificant NSDAP and supported Adolf Hitler in his attempted coup in Munich on November 9, 1923 as a liaison in Berlin, which Hitler gave him credit for all his life. After the failed coup attempt and the ban of the NSDAP, Daluege tried to keep the party base together in Berlin and founded the " Frontbann " in 1924 as a camouflaged SA , of which he was leader until 1926. In March 1926 he joined the re-established NSDAP ( membership number 31,981) and founded the SA for Berlin and Northern Germany. From 1926 to 1930 Daluege was SA group leader for Berlin-Brandenburg , at the same time SA-Gausturmführer in the Gau Berlin-Brandenburg and from 1926 to 1928 at the same time deputy Gauleiter of the NSDAP Berlin-Brandenburg.

On October 16, 1926 he married Käthe Schwarz (daughter of Carl Schwarz and Gertrud Schaaf). They adopted a child and then had three more children.

At Hitler's personal request, Daluege left the SA in 1930 and joined the SS (SS no. 1119), which at that time was still a sub-organization of the SA (albeit internally competing). As SS-Oberführer Ost, he took over the leadership of SS Section III Ost in Berlin from 1931 to 1932. In 1931 he “proved himself” for the second time after 1923 as Hitler's loyal “comrade in arms” when he made a decisive contribution to the suppression of the Stennes revolt against Hitler in the Berlin SA. Daluege's permanent protection from Hitler was the consequence.

From 1927 to 1933 Daluege was a full-time department head of a municipal construction company and an engineer at the Berlin garbage disposal. From 1932 to October 1933 Daluege was a member of the state parliament of the NSDAP in Prussia . In July 1932 he was promoted to SS group leader and leader of the SS group east (Berlin).

After the Nazi seizure of power Daluege was established in February 1933, "Commissioner zbV" and head of the "Special Department Daluege" in the Prussian Ministry of the Interior (under Hermann Goering appointed), where he during the DC circuit , the Social Democrats dominated Prussian police in the sense of the Nazis cleaned . In gratitude, Göring appointed Daluege Ministerial Director and Head of the Police Department in the Prussian Ministry of the Interior in May 1933 and General of the Prussian State Police in September 1933.

From July 1933 to 1945 Daluege carried the title “ Prussian Council of State ”, and from November 1933 he was also a member of the Reichstag .

At the beginning of July 1934, immediately after the “ Röhm Putsch ”, Göring commissioned him with the reorganization and personal “cleansing” of the SA groups in Berlin-Brandenburg, Pomerania, Grenzmark, Silesia and Mitte; He was rewarded by the " Reichsführer SS " Himmler in August 1934 with the promotion to SS-Obergruppenführer.

Chief of the regulatory police

Daluege in a meeting with Heinrich Himmler (1943)

When in November 1934 the Prussian Ministry of the Interior was merged with the Reich Ministry of the Interior under Wilhelm Frick , Daluege rose (until June 1936) to head the police department in the "Reich and Prussian Ministry of the Interior". As such, he suffered his first heart attack in March 1936 . This did not prevent his appointment as Himmler's deputy (in office until August 31, 1943) in June 1936 as "Chief of the German Police" in the Ministry of the Interior and at the same time as "Chief of the German Ordnungspolizei" (in office until May 1945). Daluege was thus subject to the entire uniformed police of the German Reich. The Order Police (Orpo) included not only the police and other institutions, such as the fire protection police (fire) and the Technical Emergency Relief .

Nonetheless, Daluege was pushed back and largely disempowered by the SS leadership duo Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich in the following years up to 1939 , but remained in office due to good contacts with Hitler. During the Second World War he was responsible in particular for the personal protection of Hitler and other high party leaders. On October 14, 1941, Daluege signed the first deportation order for German Jews to Lodz in Poland. On April 20, 1942 - as one of only four SS leaders - he was promoted to the highest rank, SS-Oberst-Gruppenführer and Generaloberst of the police .

After the successful assassination attempt by the English Special Operations Executive (SOE) with the help of again smuggled Czech emigrants on Heydrich, who had been Deputy Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia since 1941 , Hitler appointed Daluege as Heydrich's successor in Prague in June 1942. As such, he was responsible for the reprisals against the residents of Lidice and Ležáky . His dual role as OrPo boss in Berlin and de facto Reich Protector in Prague - the official Reich Protector Konstantin von Neurath had been on permanent leave since 1941, even though he was not released until 1943 - Daluege was no longer able to cope with it after a year. In June 1943 he was released from the office of Deputy Reich Protector by Hitler, and after suffering a second heart attack in the same month, he applied for leave of absence as head of the regulatory police on August 17, 1943 for health reasons.

In 1944, Daluege received an estate worth 610,000 Reichsmarks from Hitler as a donation . There he withdrew.

Arrest and execution

In May 1945 the British military police arrested Daluege in Lübeck . Due to an extradition request from the Czechoslovak government, he was transferred to Prague in May 1946 , indicted by the Prague People's Court for his war crimes and sentenced to death by hanging on October 23, 1946 . The sentence was carried out on the same day in the Pankrác prison using choke barrels. Daluege had previously attempted suicide .

Awards

Archival tradition

Daluege's estate is now kept in the Secret State Archives in Berlin.

literature

Document collections :

  • SS-Obergruppenführer and Police General Kurt Daluege: the chief of the Ordnungspolizei. Document collection of the Institute of Documentation in Israel for the Investigation of Nazi War Crimes, compiled by Tuviah Friedman , Haifa 1997.

Biographical sketches :

  • Caron Cadle: Kurt Daluege. The prototype of the loyal National Socialist. In: Ronald Smelser u. a. (Ed.): The brown elite. Volume 2. Darmstadt 1993, pp. 66-79.

Other publications in which Daluege is essentially treated

  • Richard Breitman : State Secrets. The crimes of the Nazis - tolerated by the Allies. Munich, Blessing, 1999.
  • Jörg Fligge : Lübeck schools in the "Third Reich": a study on the education system in the Nazi era in the context of developments in the Reich. Schmidt-Römhild, Lübeck 2014, ISBN 978-3-7950-5214-0 , p. 975 ff. (Biographical information) .
  • Stefan Klemp : "Not determined". Police Battalions and the Post War Justice . 2nd edition, Klartext Verlag, Essen 2011, ISBN 978-3-8375-0663-1 .
  • Bernhard Sauer: Goebbels "Rabauken". On the history of the SA in Berlin-Brandenburg . In: Yearbook of the Landesarchiv Berlin 2006, pp. 107–164 ( digitized version ).
  • Michael Wildt : Generation of the Unconditional. The leadership corps of the Reich Security Main Office. Hamburger Edition, Hamburg 2002.
  • Bernhard Sauer: Old fighters and solid ties. Kurt Daluege and Herbert Packebusch . In: Zeitschrift für Geschichtswwissenschaft 62, 2014, pp. 977–996 ( digitized version ).

Web links

Commons : Kurt Daluege  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Kurt Daluege  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kösener Corpslisten 1981, 147 , 17.
  2. ↑ see also decree on the appointment of a chief of the German police in the Reich Ministry of the Interior of June 17, 1936 (RGBl. I p. 487).
  3. ↑ Himmler's executive decree to create the two main offices is dated June 26, 1936, Erl.d.RMdI. v. June 25, 1936 - Z HB 139/110 or business distribution and business dealings of the chief of the German police in the Reich Ministry of the Interior RdErl. Of the RFSSuChdDtPol.im RMdI. dated June 26, 1936 O / S No. 3/36
  4. ↑ Gerd R. Ueberschär , Winfried Vogel : Serving and earning. Hitler's gifts to his elites. Frankfurt 1999, ISBN 3-10-086002-0 .
personal data
SURNAME Daluege, Kurt
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Daluege, Kurt Max Franz (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician, MdR, MdL, SS-Oberstgruppenführer and chief of the Ordnungspolizei in the Third Reich
DATE OF BIRTH September 15, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH Kreuzburg (Upper Silesia)
DATE OF DEATH October 23, 1946
Place of death Prague