Kurt Zillmann

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Kurt Zillmann (born July 17, 1906 in Kolberg , † after 1980 ) was a German lawyer, criminal investigator and SS leader.

Studies and entry into the police service

Zillmann finished his school career at a humanistic grammar school in Neustettin with the Abitur and then studied law . While still a student, he applied for the police service and was in 1931 as chief inspector set -Anwärter the police headquarters Magdeburg. At the Police Institute Charlottenburg he graduated from the middle of September 1934 his training as a detective superintendent and in 1935 set as the chief inspector on probation in the criminal investigation department in Cologne. From November 1936 he was a specialist teacher for criminology and forensics at the Charlottenburg Police Institute, which later became the Sipo and SD leadership school .

Second World War

Member of the task force e.g. V.

With the beginning of the Second World War in early September 1939, Zillmann belonged to the task force led by Udo von Woyrsch in the course of the attack on Poland . b. V. at. The task of this task force was to put down alleged uprisings by Poland in the Polish part of Upper Silesia "with all available means". Zillmann was an adjutant to Otto Hellwig , who was part of this task force. b. V. directed and was the commander of the Sipo and SD leadership school in Berlin-Charlottenburg. As an adjutant, Zillmann had the task of implementing the instructions of his superior. The Hellwig sub-command marched via Katowice , Krakow and Tarnów to Przemyśl and carried out mass shootings of Jewish Poles.

Head of the criminal police in Luxembourg

After the German occupation of Luxembourg in May 1940, Zillmann was transferred there as head of the criminal police. In the same year he became a member of the NSDAP . In this function, the criminal adviser was a close employee of the head of civil administration (CdZ) Gustav Simon in the CdZ area Luxembourg and was jointly responsible for the expulsion and deportation of Jews as well as the action against the Luxembourg resistance. According to his own information, Zillmann had meanwhile set up a criminal police station in Trier and headed the Koblenz criminal police station from February 1944 . In the course of the liberation of Luxembourg by the Allies in September 1944, Zillmann left for Germany. At the end of the war in May 1945, Zillmann was given the rank of SS-Sturmbannführer (SS-No. 310.214) at the Reich Security Main Office , where he was assigned to the SD .

Post-war period and re-entry into the Schleswig-Holstein criminal police

After the end of the war he earned his living as a construction laborer for three years. With embellished biographical information, he succeeded in re-entering the police service in Schleswig-Holstein in June 1948 as chief criminal inspector and took over the management of the criminal police in Bad Oldesloe . In 1953, Zillmann was promoted to the government criminal councilor and entrusted with the management of the criminal police in Lübeck.

Head of the LKA Schleswig-Holstein

In May 1959 he moved to Kiel as head of the Schleswig-Holstein State Criminal Police Office , where he also became an officer in the police department in the Schleswig-Holstein Ministry of the Interior. In the fall of 1959, Zillmann was entrusted with the investigation into the Nazi euthanasia perpetrator Werner Heyde and the preparations for his arrest. Heyde, who had the alias name Fritz Sawade , left Flensburg on November 5, 1959 and surrendered to the public prosecutor's office in Frankfurt am Main on November 13, 1959 . On November 5, Zillmann was informed of the suspicion that Sawade was identical to Heyde and that the head of the Psychiatric and Nervous Clinic at Kiel University, Gustav Ernst Störring , could help clarify the situation, since Störring had worked with Heyde in Würzburg. Zillmann failed to interrogate Störring and missed a look at the Federal Criminal Police Gazette , in which Heyde had been a wanted man since 1953. According to Godau-Schüttke, “it is almost impossible” that Zillmann Heyde could have warned of the imminent arrest.

In August 1964, Zillmann and 18 other high-ranking police officers from Schleswig-Holstein acted as witnesses to their imprisoned colleague Waldemar Krause , who was accused of unlawful executions as head of a task force. In detail, a detention examination was about the question of whether Krause was suspected of escaping after being released from custody. After Krause's police colleagues had given assurance that they would vouch for him financially, which was an unusual process, Krause was released from custody.

After reaching the age limit, Zillmann retired as senior criminal adviser and government criminal director at the end of September 1966.

Investigations against Zillmann and questioning of witnesses

In the year before his retirement, the Kiel Ministry of Justice made inquiries about Zillmann at the central office of the state justice administrations . During this time, a parliamentary committee of inquiry was formed by the Schleswig-Holstein state parliament to research the Nazi past of civil servants in Schleswig-Holstein. Although Zillmann's membership in the Einsatzgruppe z. b. V. was known, public prosecutor's investigations against him came to nothing. Zillmann himself is said to have boasted that the LKA in Kiel had informed him about investigations against him in advance. He stated that in the course of the proceedings against Woyrsch they only turned to him after four and a half years. In January 1981 he stated in a testimony by an officer of the State Office of Criminal Investigation in Bavaria that as an adjutant in the Hellwig branch he had neither been present at the shootings nor had he heard anything about them. In the same month, the investigation against Zillmann was discontinued due to lack of evidence.

Zillmann is listed in the GDR Brown Book .

According to Dieter Schenk , Zillmann stands “as an example for many police officers of this generation who were often caught up in a German-national world of thought and who remained rather distant towards the Federal Republic, even if they recognized the democratic rules of the game of the new state. They felt misunderstood and treated unfairly by the public ”.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dieter Schenk: Blind in the right eye. The brown roots of the BKA. 1st edition, Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2001, ISBN 3-462-03034-5 , p. 28 ff.
  2. ↑ Dieter Schenk: Blind in the right eye. The brown roots of the BKA. 1st edition, Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2001, ISBN 3-462-03034-5 , p. 32 f.
  3. ↑ a b c d 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 , p. 695 f.
  4. ↑ Dieter Schenk: Blind in the right eye. The brown roots of the BKA. 1st edition, Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2001, ISBN 3-462-03034-5 , p. 31.
  5. ^ Klaus-Detlev Godau-Schüttke: The Heyde / Sawade affair. In: Hartmut Brenneisen, Dirk Staack, Susanne Kischewski: 60 Years of the Basic Law. Series: Police and Security Management, Volume 6, Lit-Verlag, Münster 2010, ISBN 978-3-643-10636-0 , p. 384.
  6. ^ Klaus-Detlev Godau-Schüttke: The Heyde / Sawade affair. 2nd Edition. Nomos-Verlag, Baden-Baden 2001, ISBN 3-7890-7269-9 , pp. 207-209.
  7. ^ Klaus-Detlev Godau-Schüttke: The Heyde / Sawade affair. In: Hartmut Brenneisen, Dirk Staack, Susanne Kischewski: 60 Years of the Basic Law. Series: Police and Security Management, Volume 6, Lit-Verlag, Münster 2010, ISBN 978-3-643-10636-0 , p. 383 f.
  8. ↑ Suspected of having escaped. Kiel Guard. Police. In: Der Spiegel. No. 34 of August 19, 1964, p. 30 f.
  9. ↑ Dieter Schenk: Blind in the right eye. The brown roots of the BKA. 1st edition, Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2001, ISBN 3-462-03034-5 , p. 34.
  10. ↑ Dieter Schenk: Blind in the right eye. The brown roots of the BKA. 1st edition, Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2001, ISBN 3-462-03034-5 , p. 35.
  11. ^ Klaus-Detlev Godau-Schüttke: The Heyde / Sawade affair. 2nd Edition. Nomos-Verlag, Baden-Baden 2001, ISBN 3-7890-7269-9 , p. 211.
  12. ^ National Council of the National Front of Democratic Germany - Documentation Center of the State Archives Administration of the GDR (ed.): Braunbuch - War and Nazi criminals in the Federal Republic and in West Berlin. State Publishing House of the German Democratic Republic, Berlin 1968, p. 123.
  13. ↑ Dieter Schenk: Blind in the right eye. The brown roots of the BKA. 1st edition, Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2001, ISBN 3-462-03034-5 , p. 38.
personal data
SURNAME Zillmann, Kurt
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer, criminal investigator and SS leader
DATE OF BIRTH July 17, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Kolberg
DATE OF DEATH after 1980