Kurt Neifeind

Kurt Neifeind (born September 29, 1908 in Velbert ; † December 15, 1944 in Nagysurány ) was a German civil servant and SS leader. Neifeind was Councilor and at times a leading scientist in the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA).

Life

After attending school, Neifeind studied law . He completed his studies in 1932 with the first legal examination and in 1935 with the second legal examination. In 1933 Neifeind joined the NSDAP ( membership number 3.385.047) and the Schutzstaffel (SS) (SS number 290.038). In the SS, Neifeind was promoted to SS-Sturmbannführer in April 1940 and to SS-Obersturmbannführer in April 1943.

In 1936 he was accepted into the security service of the Reichsführer SS (SD). In 1941 Neifeind joined the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) as a councilor, where he headed Section II A 2 (“Legislation”) within Department A (“Organization and Law”) of Office Group II (“Organization, Administration and Law”). Later he changed with his department in the office group III (German areas of life - SD-Inland), where this from then on was housed in department A ("Questions of the legal order and the building of the empire") as III A 5.

In January 1942, Neifeind took part in the East Ministry as a representative of the RSHA in a conference in which it was defined who was to be called a Jew in the occupied eastern territories . In October 1942 Neifeind also took part in one of the follow-up conferences of the Wannsee Conference on the “ Final Solution to the Jewish Question ” in the Eichmann department of the RSHA. On this, as on other occasions, he advocated making the term “Jew” as vague as possible so that it could be used as desired.

Bernhard Lösener , who as an official of the Interior Ministry was significantly involved in the implementation of the Jewish policy of the Nazi era , described Neifeind in a memorial report after the Second World War, alongside Adolf Eichmann , Blome and Reischauer as one of his four most important "opponents" in his alleged attempts to to direct the legal situation and the practical treatment of state organs against Jews in more moderate channels. Furthermore, he identifies Neifeind as one of the main people responsible for the administrative handling of the extermination of the Jews during the Second World War and expressly names him as one of those people who not only had an approximate idea of ​​what was hidden behind the term "final solution", but precise Possessed knowledge:

“ Heydrich had obtained an 'order for the final solution of the Jewish question ' from Goering (not Hitler !) In a way that remained obscure . Despite all my efforts, I never managed to see this assignment. [...] But from now on Heydrich, Eichmann, Neifeind etc. referred to this 'order for the final solution'. We were never told what the final solution should be.

In May 1944, Neifeind was assigned to Paris by the RSHA, probably as KdS , and later sentenced to death for “failure”. However, the death sentence was not carried out. Instead, Neifeind was demoted to the SS special unit Dirlewanger , where he died in combat operations in December 1944. Neifeind is buried on the war cemetery in Važec .

literature

• Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich . Who was what before and after 1945 . 2nd Edition. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 .
• Michael Wildt : Generation of the Unconditional. The leadership corps of the Reich Security Main Office. Hamburger Edition, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-930908-75-1 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 431.
2. ^ Robert Kempner: Eichmann and accomplices , 1961, p. 166.
3. ↑ Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte , 1961, issue 3, p. 286.
4. ↑ Quarterly Issues for Contemporary History , 1961, Issue 3, p. 296.