Ludwig Hahn

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Ludwig Hahn (1930s)
Ludwig Hahn (left), Johannes Steinhoff (center)
Ludwig Hahn orders the shooting of 100 hostages as revenge for the death of Franz Kutschera .

Ludwig Hermann Karl Hahn (born January 23, 1908 in Eitzen ( Uelzen district ), † November 10, 1986 in Ammersbek ) was a German lawyer and in the National Socialist German Reich SS standard leader , government director, head of the Weimar state police station , leader of the Einsatzkommandos  1 der Task Force I in Poland and, as commander of the Security Police and SD in Krakow and Warsaw, jointly responsible for the final evacuation of the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943.

Origin, studies and political beginnings

Ludwig Hahn was the son of the farmer Ludwig Hahn. He had four siblings. After attending elementary school, he entered the Lüneburg secondary school in 1918 and passed the school leaving examination there in 1927. From 1927 to 1931 studied tap at the Universities of Jena and Goettingen jurisprudence . Hahn joined the Suevia Jena Landsmannschaft during his studies . He made his first state exam on June 27 in 1931 and his doctorate on 27 July 1932. Dr. jur. Hahn spent his legal traineeship in Lüneburg, Naumburg , Weimar and Jena before passing his second state examination on April 29, 1935.

Immediately afterwards, on June 1, 1935, Hahn was appointed as a consultant in the main security office of the Reichsführer SS . On January 1, 1936, he came to the state police station in Hanover as an assessor , where he was deputy head. After a transfer to the Secret State Police Office in Berlin on September 1, 1936, he headed the Weimar State Police Office from April 1937. In this capacity he was also the permanent representative of the police chief .

In his curriculum vitae of October 7, 1936, Hahn also goes into detail about his political career:

“Politically, I was only active within the National Socialist movement. On February 1, 1930, I joined the NSDAP in Göttingen and received membership number 194 463. At the same time, I became a member of the NSDStB . In June 1930 I registered for the SA in Jena , and in December 1930 I was promoted to SA squad leader. After passing my first state law examination at the end of July 1932, I gave up the SA service so as not to be removed from the Prussian judicial training service. I continued to belong to the NSDAP.

On April 21, 1933, I joined the SS . Until the end of May 1933 I was on duty in 2. Sturm II / 17. SS standard in Lüneburg. From the end of May to the end of October 1933 I was part of the 3rd Storm IV / 26. SS standard in Hamburg, from late October to late December 1933 for the 1st storm I / 47. SS standard in Weimar. From there I was transferred to the headquarters of the SS Central Section in Weimar. In February 1934 I was assigned to the SD-RFSS in the SD upper section middle and in May 1934 I was transferred to the SD .

Since April 1933 I have been a member of the National Socialist Lawyers' Association . In April / May 1933 I founded the group of young lawyers of the NSRB in the Gau Ost-Hannover. In March 1934 I took part in the 1st law course at the Thuringian State School for Leadership and Politics in Ependorf. "

Since August 1935 he was with Charlotte, geb. Steinhoff and sister of Johannes Steinhoff , married. Several children were born from the marriage.

Hahn completed two eight-week courses with the Wehrmacht : from August 8 to October 3, 1936 with the supplementary battalion 56 in Braunschweig and from January 2 to March 1, 1937 with the anti-tank department 3 in Frankfurt / Oder. Hahn was released from this second course as a private and reserve officer candidate.

Second World War

After the attack on Poland in September 1939, Hahn was appointed leader of Einsatzkommando 1 of Einsatzgruppe I under Bruno Linienbach for the " Operation Tannenberg ", with the task of "fighting all anti-Reich and anti-German elements behind the fencing troops" and at the same time as possible extensive “decimation” of the Polish intelligentsia (especially those whose names were included in the special man-made book of Poland ). The Einsatzgruppe I was set up in Vienna in August 1939 and used in the area of ​​the 14th Army in Poland . After billeting in Sanok from September 26th to October 26th and deployments in Neutitschen, Bielsko and Rzeszów , the task forces were disbanded on November 20, 1939.

In January 1940 Hahn succeeded Walter Huppenkothen as commander of the security police and the SD (KdS) in Krakow . As early as August 14, 1940, he was transferred to the Reich Main Security Office and at the same time seconded to the German envoy in Pressburg as a special representative of the Reichsführer SS , where he worked as an advisor to the Slovak interior minister for the police department. From April 1941 Hahn took over command of Einsatzgruppe Greece in the course of the Balkan campaign .

On August 1, 1941, he succeeded SS-Sturmbannführer Johannes Müller as KdS Warsaw . In this function he was jointly responsible for the liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto through deportations to the Treblinka extermination camp in the summer of 1942. As KdS, Hahn was subordinate to approx. 500–600 men (including SS-Unterscharfuhrer Josef Blösche ) and approx. 1000 Polish criminal police officers guard companies made up of Ukrainians and Cossacks; a total of approx. 2000 employees and servants. By the late autumn of 1942, 300,000 Jews had been deported.

Hahn was also significantly involved in the terrorist measures against the population of Warsaw and with his office he was also involved in the suppression of the Warsaw Uprising in late summer 1944 as well as the murders and expulsion of civilians as well as the destruction of Warsaw .

On December 16, 1944, Hahn was transferred to the western front as chief of Einsatzgruppe L (Cochem), and then on January 31, 1945 he returned to the eastern front for Army Group Vistula as a representative of Carl Oberg . He was then on the staff of the Higher SS and Police Leader in Dresden and was deployed in March 1945 as commander of the security police and SD in Westphalia and to protect Gauleiter Alfred Meyer . On March 29, 1945, 120 followers of the Gestapo wanted to flee from the approaching front, but were checked in at the Gestapo headquarters in Münster on Gutenbergstrasse by Hahn and assigned to the front running east of the city on the Dortmund-Ems Canal at that time .

post war period

Ludwig Hahn and Thomas Wippenbeck in the dock

After the end of the war , Hahn went underground in Bad Eilsen under a false name and earned his living as a farm worker. Hahn took on his real name again in 1949 and found employment in the textile industry through his father-in-law, most recently as sales manager at Scharpenack & Teschenmacher in Wuppertal . In the fall of 1951 he switched to the insurance industry, became deputy organizational director of Karlsruher Lebensversicherung AG and from 1955 headed the Hamburg branch for this company . At the end of 1958, Hahn moved to Hans Rudolf Schmidt & Co GmbH in Hamburg , where he managed the life insurance division and worked as an authorized signatory. A journalist who happened to find out about Hahn's stay in Hamburg in a Hamburg hotel turned to the central office of the state justice administration and reported Hahn.

In early July 1960, Hahn at his residence in Hamburg-Bahrenfeld arrested and in custody taken, but released back in July 1961, subject to conditions. He returned to his workplace, bought a piece of land and had a detached house built there, which he moved into with his wife and four children. In the meantime, the investigations against Hahn continued in partial cooperation with Polish authorities. After the evidence against Hahn was sufficient, he was arrested again in December 1965 and released again after two years "for health reasons". He had lost his old job in the meantime, was then briefly employed by an investment company and finally became a freelance insurance broker. From 1969 on Hahn was reported in the press. The Holocaust survivors Simon Wiesenthal and Joseph Wulf criticized the length of the lengthy investigation against Hahn.

In May 1972, the main trial of the Pawiak Gestapo prison complex began before the Hamburg jury court . Hahn was found guilty of " complicity in the murder of at least 100 Poles" who were shot on his order on July 21, 1944. For this crime he was sentenced to twelve years imprisonment on June 5, 1973. A request for revision was rejected by the Federal Court of Justice on March 4, 1975. On March 5, 1975, Hahn was arrested again and taken to the detention center. The Hamburg Regional Court sentenced him on July 4, 1975 following a further process eventually because of his responsibility (Community murder) for the deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto to life imprisonment. Previously, perpetrators subordinate to him, such as Heinrich Klaustermeyer in 1965 in the Federal Republic of Germany by the Bielefeld district court and Josef Blösche in 1969 in the GDR by the Erfurt district court, had been tried for a long time. a. due to material from Germany and Poland . Even after these proceedings against Hahn, the BGH on January 11, 1977 did not allow a petition for an appeal. Hahn was released on September 30, 1983 and died on November 10, 1986.

Promotions

  • SS Rottenführer: November 9, 1934
  • SS-Unterscharführer: June 1, 1935
  • SS-Hauptscharführer: November 9, 1935
  • SS-Untersturmführer: April 20, 1936
  • SS-Obersturmführer: January 30, 1938
  • SS-Hauptsturmführer: August 1, 1938
  • SS-Sturmbannführer: September 26, 1938
  • Upper Government Council: September 12, 1941
  • SS-Obersturmbannführer: November 9, 1941
  • SS-Standartenführer: April 20, 1944
  • Government Director: April 20, 1944

Awards

  • Iron Cross (1939) 2nd class on December 6, 1940
  • War Merit Cross II and I Class with Swords on January 30, 1943
  • Iron Cross (1939) 1st class on October 9, 1944

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Ludwig Hahn  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Death register of the Ammersbek registry office No. 26/1986.
  2. ^ Hahn, Ludwig Hermann Karl, Dr. iur., among other things, because of the order and passing on to the shooting of at least 2,000 Polish civilians during the Warsaw Uprising from the beginning of August to the end of September 1944 by the security police in the police quarter (KdS Warsaw) (Hamburg public prosecutor's office 147 Js 22/69, separated from 141 Js 192 / 60). Accessed January 1, 2020 .
  3. ↑ a b c d Josef Wulf: The Third Reich and its executors - The liquidation of 500,000 Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto , Berlin 1961, p. 290
  4. ↑ a b c Jacek Andrzej Młynarczyk: From mass murderer to life insurer. Dr. Ludwig Hahn and the mills of the German judiciary . In: Andrej Angrick, Klaus-Michael Mallmann (ed.): The Gestapo after 1945. Careers, conflicts, constructions. , Darmstadt 2009, p. 136
  5. ↑ Federal Archives Koblenz. Quoted from Joseph Wulf: The Third Reich and its executors - The liquidation of 500,000 Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto , p. 290 f.
  6. ↑ Der Spiegel 1/1973 to the last
  7. ↑ Josef Wulf: The Third Reich and its executors - The liquidation of 500,000 Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto , p. 290f
  8. ↑ Jacek Andrzej Młynarczyk: From mass murderer to life insurer. Dr. Ludwig Hahn and the mills of the German judiciary . P. 136f
  9. ^ Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 219
  10. ↑ Jacek Andrzej Młynarczyk: From mass murderer to life insurer. Dr. Ludwig Hahn and the mills of the German judiciary . P. 138
  11. ↑ Jacek Andrzej Młynarczyk: From mass murderer to life insurer. Dr. Ludwig Hahn and the mills of the German judiciary . P. 137f
  12. ↑ cf. Jacek Andrzej Młynarczyk: From mass murderer to life insurer. Dr. Ludwig Hahn and the mills of the German judiciary . P. 137
  13. ↑ Ultimo: Time travel: Eastern Front on the Canal - Research without end: The historian Christian Steinhagen knows everything about "The Brown Minster" , Carsten Krystofiak, No. 11/13, May 13, 2013 - May 26, 2013, p. 8f.
  14. ↑ Jacek Andrzej Młynarczyk: From mass murderer to life insurer. Dr. Ludwig Hahn and the mills of the German judiciary . P. 138f
  15. ↑ Jacek Andrzej Młynarczyk: From mass murderer to life insurer. Dr. Ludwig Hahn and the mills of the German judiciary . P. 140f
  16. ↑ Jacek Andrzej Młynarczyk: From mass murderer to life insurer. Dr. Ludwig Hahn and the mills of the German judiciary . P. 142
  17. ↑ Jacek Andrzej Młynarczyk: From mass murderer to life insurer. Dr. Ludwig Hahn and the mills of the German judiciary . P. 143f
  18. ↑ a b Jacek Andrzej Młynarczyk: From mass murderer to life insurer. Dr. Ludwig Hahn and the mills of the German judiciary . P. 147f
  19. ↑ Andreas Mix: The ghetto in court. Two criminal trials against criminal offenders from the Warsaw ghetto before West German and GDR courts in comparison . In: Stephan Alexander Glienke, Volker Paulmann and Joachim Perels (eds.): Success story Federal Republic? The post-war society in the long shadow of National Socialism , Wllstein, Göttingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-8353-0249-5 , p. 319ff.
  20. ↑ a b c d e f g Josef Wulf: The Third Reich and its executors - The liquidation of 500,000 Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto , p. 292
  21. ↑ a b c d Josef Wulf: The Third Reich and its executors - The liquidation of 500,000 Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto , p. 293
  22. ↑ a b c Josef Wulf: The Third Reich and its executors - The liquidation of 500,000 Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto , p. 294
personal data
SURNAME Hahn, Ludwig
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hahn, Ludwig Hermann Karl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German commander of the Security Police and the SD in Krakow and Warsaw
DATE OF BIRTH January 23, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Eitzen
DATE OF DEATH November 10, 1986
Place of death Ammersbek