Ludwig Ruckdeschel (politician)

Ludwig Ruckdeschel

Ludwig Ruckdeschel (born March 15, 1907 in Bayreuth , † November 8, 1986 in Wolfsburg ) was a functionary of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) and SS brigade leader .

Life

Ruckdeschel attended elementary school in his hometown from 1913 to 1921. He then completed a commercial apprenticeship and attended business school. From 1924 to 1928 Ruckdeschel was a commercial clerk and managing director, then a full-time NSDAP functionary.

Political career

After he had already been active in the national youth movement from 1921 to 1922 , from 1923 he belonged to the Sturmabteilung (SA), the combat formation of the NSDAP. During the prohibition of the NSDAP (November 1923 to February 1925) he was active in the Völkischer Bund Bayreuth and from 1925 leader in the local ban on the front . From 1924 he was confidante of the later Gauleiter Hans Schemm . After the re-establishment of the NSDAP in the spring of 1925, Ruckdeschel not only re-joined the SA, but also the party itself ( membership number 29.308).

From January 1926 to September 1928 Ruckdeschel officiated as managing director of the local group and district leadership of the NSDAP in Bayreuth. In October 1928 he became the Gau managing director and Gau propaganda leader of the Gau Upper Franconia . Immediately after the Nazi takeover of power , on February 1, 1933, he was appointed Gau manager and deputy to the Gau leader in the Gau Bayerische Ostmark , which included Upper Palatinate and Lower Bavaria in addition to Upper Franconia . From November 1933 to 1945 Ruckdeschel was a member of the Reichstag .

Ruckdeschel founded the Deutsche Buchhandlung in Bayreuth in 1930 and was the publisher of the weekly newspaper Kampf (for German freedom and culture) from the beginning of January 1931, and from the beginning of May 1933 it was referred to as the “Brown Sunday newspaper”.

Ruckdeschel was a partner and initially managing director of Ostmark-Selbsthilfe GmbH, founded in 1934, and its subsidiary Allgemeine Förderungsgesellschaft GmbH, founded in 1935. The companies of the Bavarian Ostmark district, whose assets consisted largely of assets stolen from the SPD , were non-profit in the National Socialist sense. The Ostmark self-help set up the Gartenstadt district in Bayreuth.

From February 1, 1933 to June 1941, Ruckdeschel was deputy Gau leader of the Gau Bayerische Ostmark, which was renamed Gau Bayreuth from 1942 . From April 19, 1945, he succeeded Fritz Wächtler as the last Gauleiter of the Bayreuth district. In this role, in a radio address on April 22nd, he called for the defense of the city of Regensburg to the last stone in view of the unstoppable advance of the US Army . A short time later he fled; Thanks to the surrender without a fight on April 27, the city was largely spared destruction.

SS membership and shooting of the Gauleiter

Ruckdeschel joined the SS on October 20, 1934 and was given membership number 234,190. On November 9, 1941, he was promoted to Brigade Leader of the General SS . During the Second World War he was drafted into the SS Totenkopf Division in early April 1940 , where he was assigned to a war reporting department . In May 1942 he was transferred to the Panzer Department of the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler and at the beginning of May 1943 he was transferred to the 6th Company / SS Panzer Rgt. 12 appointed to the 12th SS Panzer Division "Hitler Youth" . In June 1944 he lost his right arm during the Allied landing in Normandy . At the end of September 1944, after a stay in the hospital , he was transferred to the SS Panzer Training and Replacement Regiment and was finally promoted to SS Sturmbannführer of the reserve at the end of January 1945. From January to April 16, 1945 he was appointed inspector of the Volkssturm in the staff of Commander-in-Chief West.

Ruckdeschel was a convinced and fanatical National Socialist until the end. He was a long-time rival Fritz Wächtler , those accused in April 1945 of desertion and denounced him obviously when Hitler's headquarters . In the early morning of April 19, he ran 35 SS men before before Wächtler Hotel, leaving him to put on the nearest tree and from a command to shoot . According to Ruckdeschel, Wächtler had been expelled from the NSDAP for "wicked treason" and executed for cowardice in front of the enemy. Every "villain and traitor" is threatened with this fate if they behave accordingly.

Condemnation and post-war activity

Ruckdeschel was taken into custody in August 1947 and sentenced on November 2, 1948 to eight years imprisonment by the Nuremberg Higher Regional Court for the execution of two Regensburg citizens, including the cathedral preacher Johann Maier , after a trial on April 23, 1945 . The executed had taken part in a rally for the surrender of the city without a fight. After his early release in 1952, Ruckdeschel found employment as a tour guide for prominent guests at Volkswagen in Wolfsburg.

Fonts

• Shows the Gauleitung Bayerische Ostmark of the NSDAP. Borderland under construction , 1936.

literature

• Joachim Lilla , Martin Döring, Andreas Schulz: extras in uniform: the members of the Reichstag 1933–1945. A biographical manual. Including the Volkish and National Socialist members of the Reichstag from May 1924 . Droste, Düsseldorf 2004, ISBN 3-7700-5254-4 .
• LG Weiden, February 19, 1948 . In: Justice and Nazi crimes . Collection of German convictions for Nazi homicidal crimes 1945–1966, Vol. II, edited by Adelheid L. Rüter-Ehlermann, CF Rüter . Amsterdam: University Press, 1969, No. 45, pp. 233–346 Trial and public execution of two Regensburg citizens after a court martial because they had participated in a rally to surrender the city without a fight
• LG Landshut, January 29, 1949 . In: Justice and Nazi crimes . Collection of German convictions for Nazi homicides 1945–1966, Vol. III, edited by Adelheid L. Rüter-Ehlermann, CF Rüter . Amsterdam: University Press, 1969, No. 113, pp. 761–794 Hanging of a civilian who had raised a white and blue flag after a call by the 'Freedom Action Bavaria' (Wayback Machine)

Web links

• Ludwig Ruckdeschel in the database of members of the Reichstag
• Luise Gutmann: April 23, 1945. In memory of the last victims of fascism in Regensburg (= Gutmann's speech as a representative of the VVN)
• Joachim Lilla: Ruckdeschel, Ludwig , in: ders .: Minister of State, senior administrative officials and (NS) officials in Bavaria 1918 to 1945 , URL: < http://verwaltungshandbuch.bayerische-landesbibliothek-online.de/ruckdeschel-ludwig > ( October 9, 2012)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Ruckdeschel, Ludwig at Bayerische Landesbibliothek Online, accessed on September 3, 2016
2. ↑ Albrecht Bald: “The border shimmers brown and the Mark stands true!” The NS-Gau Bayerische Ostmark / Bayreuth 1933–1945. Grenzgau, Grenzlandideologie and economic problem region , Bayreuth 2014 (= Bayreuth Reconstructions, Vol. 2), p. 143.
3. ↑ Werner Chrobak : Cathedral preacher Dr. Johann Maier - a blood witness for Regensburg , in: Negotiations of the Historical Association of Regensburg and the Upper Palatinate (VHVO) 125, 1985, p. 457; available online (last accessed May 2012) ( memento of the original from January 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . 
4. ^ Albrecht Bald: The NS-Gau Bayerische Ostmark / Bayreuth 1933–1945 . P. 139.
5. ↑ Ian Kershaw: The End. Fight to the end. Nazi Germany 1944/45 . DVA, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-421-05807-2 , p. 445 and P. 469.
6. ↑ Ian Kershaw: The End. Fight to the end. Nazi Germany 1944/45 . DVA, Munich 2011, p. 445.
7. ↑ Summary of the judgment ( Memento of the original from April 25, 2014 on WebCite ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in justice and Nazi crimes. 
8. ↑ Ernst Klee : Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , p. 512.