Leopold Spann

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Leopold Spann (born December 20, 1908 in Bayerbach , † April 25, 1945 in Linz ) was a German lawyer, Gestapo officer and SS leader.

Life

After attending school, Spann studied law . He completed his studies with a doctorate to become a Dr. jur from.

Spann joined the NSDAP in 1932 ( membership number 899.638) and later the SS (membership number 275.503). In 1943, Spann was promoted to SS-Obersturmbannführer in the SS . From 1935, Spann worked for the Secret State Police (Gestapo). After Austria was annexed to the German Reich in March 1938, he was acting head of the Innsbruck state police station from 1939 . During the November pogroms of 1938 , Spann organized groups of National Socialists with other Nazi functionaries on the instructions of Gauleiter Franz Hofer and SS Oberführer Johann Feil , who terrorized the Jewish population group in civilian clothes.

At the beginning of January 1940, Spann was transferred to the Köslin state police station , which he headed from June 1, 1940. From January 1942 to September 1943 he was the commander of the Security Police and the SD for the Nikolayev General District and took part in the mass murders of Jews there.

In November 1943 he was transferred from the Stettin state police station to the Saarbrücken state police station, which he headed as a senior government councilor up to and including July 1944. On March 29, 1944, on instructions from the Reich Main Security Office, Spann and his subordinate Gestapo officer, Emil Schulz, shot the Royal Air Force officers Roger Bushell and Bernard Scheidhauer, who had escaped from Stalag Luft III and who had been captured, on the motorway between Kaiserslautern and Landstuhl.

From the end of July 1944 to April 1945, Spann was the head of the State Police in Linz. He died in an air raid on Linz on April 25, 1945.

literature

  • Verena Weissensteiner: Leopold Spann , in: Thomas Albrich (Ed.): The perpetrators of the Jewish pogrom in Innsbruck in 1938 . Innsbruck: Haymon, 2016, ISBN 978-3-7099-7242-7

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Saarland biographies - Leopold Spann ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) on www.saarland-biografien.de
  2. ↑ Leopold Spann at www.dws-xip.pl
  3. ↑ Places of the November pogrom 1938 in Innsbruck ( memento of December 11, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) at www.novemberpogrom1938.at
  4. ↑ Hans Kirsch: The shooting of the British aviators Roger Bushell and Bernard Scheidhauer near Landstuhl (PDF; 225 kB). In: “Regarding security and order” - history of the police in Kaiserslautern and in the West Palatinate 1275–2006 , Kaiserslautern 2007, pp. 559–561
personal data
SURNAME Spann, Leopold
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer, Gestapo officer and SS leader
DATE OF BIRTH December 20, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Bayerbach
DATE OF DEATH April 25, 1945
Place of death Linz