Leo from Jena

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Leo Ferdinand von Jena (born July 8, 1876 in Biebrich am Rhein , † April 7, 1957 in Celle ) was a German military man who rose to the position of SS general in the course of World War II and temporarily to the position of commandant of the Waffen SS in Berlin .

Von Jena had already joined the DNVP and the Stahlhelm in 1921 and had been a member of the NSDAP since the late 1930s . He had previously been a member of their "combat organizations", SA and SS .

Above all in the latter, Jena started his "second career": On November 9, 1936, Heinrich Himmler personally accepted him as an honorary SS-Sturmbannführer in the SS, where he was quickly promoted.

On March 30, 1941, he was promoted to SS Brigade Leader of the Waffen SS and on January 30, 1944 to Gruppenführer of the General SS , who in the Waffen SS was allowed to wear the uniform of an SS Obergruppenführer and Lieutenant General of the Waffen SS.

Life

Empire

Von Jena was the eleventh child of the Prussian officer and later general of the infantry Eduard von Jena (1834-1911) and his first wife Elisabeth Auguste Karoline Helene, née Freiin von Dalwigk (1840-1880).

After successfully completing the secondary school and the aptitude test in the cadet corps , von Jena joined the Leib Grenadier Regiment "King Friedrich Wilhelm III." (1st Brandenburgisches) No. 8 as a flag junior on November 18, 1897 and was promoted to secondary lieutenant on November 18, 1897 after he was posted to the war school in Gdansk .

From May 1902 he was seconded to the Holstein Field Artillery Regiment No. 24 in Güstrow . Von Jena stayed there until April 30, 1903.

Between 1903 and 1911 he did his military service in various units. On February 18, 1908, von Jena was promoted to first lieutenant . In addition, in 1911 he became adjutant of the Landwehr district of Frankfurt (Oder) and in September 1912 was seconded as the second military advisor to Prince Friedrich Leopold of Prussia . There he was promoted to captain on October 18 .

In August 1913 von Jena was appointed personal adjutant to Prince Friedrich Karl of Prussia .

With the beginning of the First World War (August 1914) von Jena performed his first military operations with the 2nd Cavalry Division in Belgium and France . On October 21, 1914 he married his then fiancée Josefine Margarethe Schumacher and in December 1914 he became company commander and battalion leader in the 5th Guards Regiment on foot . As such he was now deployed in Masuria / East Prussia and stayed there until February 1915.

In spring 1915, von Jena returned to France and suffered a knee injury during the second Battle of the Marne. After his recovery he was deployed to the reserve battalion of the 5th Guards Regiment on foot in Spandau , where he was appointed deputy adjutant of the 4th Guards Infantry Brigade in autumn 1915. And a little later he was adjutant in a Landwehr division of the Guard Corps. In November 1916 von Jena was promoted to commander of the 1st Battalion of the 4th Guards Regiment on foot and in October 1917 was assigned to the staff of the 1st Guards Regiment on foot . Towards the end of the war, von Jena was also temporarily the leader of Reserve Infantry Regiment No. 932.

Weimar Republic

One of those soldiers from Jena was who was deceived by the “November criminals” . According to his own statement, he came back from the war "defeated but not defeated".

On December 16, 1918, together with other officers loyal to the monarchy, he founded the National Association of German Officers . Already on January 12, 1919 von Jena joined one of the approximately 200 Freikorps existing in Germany : He became leader of the "Freiwilligen Detachement Jena" in the "Freikorps von Oven" in Berlin .

In 1919 Jena took over as captain in the provisional Reichswehr and was promoted to major there in October 1919 . There he was used in the staff of the Reichswehr Infantry Regiment 6.

On December 31, 1920, von Jena was discharged from the Reichswehr at his own request and from January 1, 1921 was appointed by the Reichswehr leadership as "Leader of the liquidation command of the previous Reichswehr Infantry Regiment 6". In the same year he joined the DNVP Alfred Hugenbergs and their "military arm", the Stahlhelmbund , where he quickly rose to the board. There he met the Prussian Lieutenant General a for the first time . D. Paul Hausser . In the Stahlhelmbund he was now the federal liaison officer to the German ex-emperor and was on friendly terms with him. So he stayed several times in his exile in Doorn, the Netherlands .

Von Jena joined the "ORGESCH" (Organization Escherich) in 1921 and was deployed by this German national free corps leader on March 1, 1921 as a military leader in the Osthavelland. In October 1921 he was employed as a "political advisor" at the "National Association of German Officers" (NVDO). He stayed that way until 1924.

In 1924 von Jena became the managing director of the NVDO, which he led until it was dissolved (1934) and incorporated into the Reich Association of German Officers . In 1928 he also joined the “Kaiserdank e. V. “at. In the same year he was sentenced by the Berlin District Court to a fine of 50 Reichsmarks for assault and insult .

In 1931 von Jena appeared as a speaker at the “Nationalen Familienbund”, a propaganda event of the “Bismarck Society” in Berlin. In the same year he also became a member of the National Socialist NSBO (but without membership in the NSDAP ), which was converted a little later into the Reich operating cell department of the NSDAP .

National Socialism

In 1934 Jena joined the Kyffhäuserbund e. V. Berlin of Wilhelm Reinhard , a "traditional association" of former World War II soldiers. This was still called the Deutscher Reichskriegerbund (DRKB) in 1934 and was already strongly Nazi -oriented, as many ex-soldiers and former members of the free corps of the federal government were also members of Adolf Hitler's Sturmabteilung (SA) . Within this Reich Warrior League, von Jena belonged to the "Kameradschaft Spandau der Leibgrenadiere No. 8".

On February 1, 1934, he was elected to the federal leadership of the National Socialist Reich Warrior Association (NSRKB) and took over Department II (personal details) in the staff of the federal leader. On the same day, von Jena also joined SA Reserve II, where he was also looked after in the staff of the Oberstlandesführer (Office II).

At the beginning of 1936, von Jena met again with Paul Hausser , who had meanwhile changed from the SA to the SS, at an event organized by the DRKB . Hausser then persuaded Jena to report to the SS as well.

On November 9, 1936, von Jena was accepted into the SS by Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler as an honorary SS-Sturmbannführer . The SS no. 277,326 received from Jena immediately after submitting his admission and commitment certificate, which he had to submit like all regular SS members. Von Jena was now appointed as "Leader in the staff of the SS main office".

But at the beginning of Jena, National Socialism remained “a stranger”, which was later repeatedly criticized by SS leaders: Until about 1943 he was considered a supporter of the Hohenzollern monarchy and politically as a German national and only from this year onwards did von Jena openly embrace National Socialism .

Two days after being accepted into the SS, the staff chancellery information center of the SS Security Service reported to the Reichsführer SS after they had examined "the political background" of Jenas:

"Major a. D. Jena was still strongly German nationalist after the takeover. (...) Jena is an outspoken monarchist and was the liaison between the Stahlhelm leadership and the ex-emperor. In this capacity he was in Doorn for a long time. Due to this fact, Jena cannot politically be regarded as absolutely reliable. (...) "

On January 30, 1937, von Jena was promoted to SS-Obersturmbannführer and was now listed as "Leader at the RFSS Staff". Already on April 20 of the same year the promotion to SS-Standartenführer and on November 9, 1937 the regular promotion to SS-Oberführer took place .

On November 15, 1937, von Jena joined the National Socialist Adolf Hitler , when he asked for admission to the NSDAP by submitting an "acceptance and commitment certificate" and received from it with effect from May 1, 1937 with party no. 4,359,167 was recorded.

In 1938 von Jena ran for election to the German Reichstag on the NSDAP list . However, he was not an active member of this, but was only available as a substitute member in the event that a member of the Reichstag unexpectedly resigned or failed.

In September 1939 he was transferred from Jena to the SS-Totenkopfverband , where he led the 5th SS-Totenkopfstandarte “Brandenburg” in Oranienburg until December of the same year , which was set up in 1937 as a so-called “police reinforcement”. On December 1, 1939, von Jena was released from active administrative service of the General SS and transferred to the emerging Waffen SS when he set up the 8th SS skull standard in Krakow on the same day , which he led until July 1940 and which was also officially reinforced as a police reinforcement was true. This SS standard was actively used in occupied Poland for so-called "special police tasks", in particular for "fighting gangs and partisans".

On May 1st, 1940 von Jena was appointed "SS-Oberführer der Reserve" of the Waffen-SS and on July 11th he was transferred to the command office of the Waffen-SS . There, as "Group Leader II (Organization)", he was in charge of an office in the "Management and Organization Office" of Office I.

On March 30, 1941, he was appointed brigade leader of the General SS and was granted the right by Himmler to wear the "uniform and badge of rank of a major general in the Waffen-SS". With this permission from Himmler, von Jena now wore the same rank in the Waffen SS as in the General SS and which he had not yet been awarded in the Waffen SS.

But within the SS leadership office to which the command office of the Waffen SS was subordinate, his position was not undisputed. A letter from SS personnel chief Maximilian von Herff to Karl Wolff (November 23, 1942) stated:

“There is a circle around Jüttner that must be watched, as it can be dangerous. This is the liaison of Gruppenführer Petri, Brigadführer Jena and Hansen. They are far from SS-like thinking and willing. They just want to be officers of the guard, the other thing is just a minor matter for them! (...) "

On April 1, 1941, von Jena was appointed " Site Commander of the Waffen SS" in Berlin. But as early as February 10, 1942, he wrote to Himmler asking him to be removed from this post, citing health problems:

“My state of health has recently deteriorated so much that I fear that I will no longer be able to fill the post of SS site commander for Berlin in every case, as the Führer may have to demand. (…) I therefore ask you, Reichsführer, to arrange for my removal from my current position. (...) Should I be able to serve the Fuehrer in any other position within the Waffen-SS, I will of course remain at your disposal at any time for any other use. (...). "

On March 1, 1943, von Jena was replaced as the Berlin site commander of the Waffen SS and was no longer used. Nevertheless, this member of the Waffen SS remained, where he was promoted to SS Brigadefuhrer of the Reserve on July 1, 1944. According to the single copy of the Waffen-SS seniority list, Himmler granted him the right to “wear the uniform and badges of a Major General of the Waffen-SS” and thus the badges of his SS rank in the General SS wear.

But on November 17, 1943, von Jena asked in writing to “be released from active service in the Waffen SS with the statutory retirement pension as of April 30, 1944”. This letter to Heinrich Himmler concluded with the polite phrases customary at the time with the words:

“(...) I will always remember the time with inner satisfaction when I was allowed to serve the Führer and Greater Germany in the Waffen SS in this most violent war of all time. (…) Of course I, Reichsführer, remain at your disposal whenever and wherever I may be needed. My life belongs to the Führer and the fatherland! "

Von Jena was released from the Waffen SS on December 18, 1943, with effect from January 31, 1944, after he had been appointed SS-Gruppenführer of the General SS the day before. For the Waffen-SS, the last regular seniority list of the SS noted that he was entitled to wear the uniform of an SS-Obergruppenführer and Lieutenant General of the Waffen-SS.

As a result of his discharge from the Waffen SS and his transfer back to the General SS, it can be assumed that Jena was transferred to the main SS department responsible for him until the end of the war due to his age. But perhaps because of his military experience, he was also named “SS-Führer z. b. V. in the RFSS staff ”. Here, all biographies are largely silent.

post war period

A few days before the end of the war , von Jena managed to break through to what would later become the Federal Republic of Germany , where he was taken prisoner by the British on May 2, 1945 (Island Farm Prisoner of War Camp: 198 / Special Camp: XI Brigend, South Wales).

After his release from prison, von Jena lived withdrawn in Celle. Politically, however, between 1949 and 1950 he was close to the right-wing extremist Socialist Reich Party (SRP), which had already been banned in 1952, and openly supported it with numerous donations and guest appearances as a speaker. When von Jena, contrary to his own expectations, was not elected to their board of directors, he withdrew from any political activity, disappointed. Politically, he did not join any party.

Von Jena joined HIAG at short notice , but he was also unable to take on a management position there. After leaving HIAG, he was now a member of the West German "Association of German Officers", a traditional association of former members of the Reichswehr and Wehrmacht, which he left around 1956. From this point on, von Jena was no longer a member of any organization of former soldiers and died on April 7, 1957 as a result of an illness.

Awards

See also

literature

  • Andreas Schulz, Günter Wegmann and Dieter Zinke: Germany's Generals and Admirals - Part V: The Generals of the Waffen-SS and the Police 1933–1945 , Volume 2, Biblio-Verlag Bissendorf 2005, ISBN 3-7648-2592-8 , p 364-369.
  • Andreas Schulz and Dieter Zinke: Germany's Generals and Admirals - Part V: The Generals of the Waffen-SS and the Police 1933-1945 , Volume 3, Biblio-Verlag Bissendorf 2008, ISBN 3-7648-2375-5 , addendum p. 699 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c SS-Personalhauptamt: Seniority list of the SS , edition 1944, serial no.162.
  2. ^ Kurt von Priesdorff : Soldatisches Führertum . Volume 10, Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt Hamburg, undated [Hamburg], undated [1942], DNB 986919810 , pp. 433-434, no. 3311.
  3. ↑ SS personal file from Jena, Leo [curriculum vitae].
  4. ↑ The SA Reserve II is the former Kyffhäuserbund, which was integrated into the SA.
  5. ↑ a b SS Personnel Office: List of seniority of the SS , edition 1936, serial no. 1050.
  6. ↑ Bastian Hein: Elite for people and leaders? , P. 172.
  7. ↑ a b c d e f Andreas Schulz, Günter Wegmann, Dieter Zinke: The Generals of the Waffen-SS and the Police , Volume 2, Article “Leo von Jena”, pp. 364–369.
  8. ^ SS personal file from Jena, Leo.
  9. ^ SS personal file from Jena, Leo.
  10. ^ SS personal file from Jena, Leo.
  11. ^ SS personal file from Jena, Leo.
  12. ↑ a b Ranking list of the Royal Prussian Army and the XIII. (Royal Württemberg Army Corps for 1914 , Ed .: War Ministry , Ernst Siegfried Mittler & Sohn , Berlin 1914, p. 32
personal data
SURNAME Jena, Leo von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Jena, Leo Ferdinand von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer, member of the SS and the Waffen SS
DATE OF BIRTH July 8, 1876
PLACE OF BIRTH Biebrich on the Rhine
DATE OF DEATH April 7, 1957
Place of death Celle