Ludwig Thumm (police officer)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ludwig Thumm (born May 11, 1893 in Stuttgart ; † December 15, 1950 ibid) was a detective inspector and head of the “ protective custody ” section of the Stuttgart state police headquarters and a member of the SS .

Youth and activity until 1933

Ludwig Thumm was born in Stuttgart. After graduating from elementary school, Thumm worked as an office assistant. In 1911 he volunteered for three years for military service, which then lasted until the end of the First World War .

In 1920 Thumm was hired by the Stuttgart police department as a criminal investigator. At first he worked in the "custom", later in the department for fraud and theft and then in the department for deprivation of liberty. In the crisis year of 1923, Thumm first made contact with the NSDAP and, according to his own statements, joined the National Socialist Civil Service Department in 1930. In April 1932 he became a member of the NSDAP.

Worked for the political police

On March 1, 1933, Thumm was transferred to the Württemberg Political Police , where from 1934 he worked as a detective commissioner in department 5 (intelligence) under the direction of Friedrich Mußgay . Later he worked in the protective custody department . The workers there applied to the Württemberg Ministry of the Interior, and from February 1938 to the Secret State Police Office in Berlin, for the “custody” of people and implemented them. They also supervised the Wuerttemberg penal institutions in such a way that they had to report to them if persons convicted by the courts were released after they had served their sentences. Some were arrested again by the Gestapo immediately on release and taken into "protective custody".

In 1940 Thumm became a member of the SS and took over the management of the "Protective Custody" department. In this capacity he was also responsible for the supervision of the protective custody camp Welzheim and the labor education camps Rudersberg and Aistaig . Thumm was primarily a so-called desk felon. He was also head of an execution squad at least once. In Oberndorf am Neckar on June 12, 1942, a Polish slave laborer named Stanisław Jóźwik, who was previously a prisoner in the Aistaig labor education camp, was hanged under his direction . Since the files of the Stuttgart state police headquarters were burned at the end of the war, his involvement in further executions cannot be proven.

Thumm has been characterized as not particularly astute, but wicked and ambitious.

After the war

In 1945 Thumm was arrested by the French army and interned in Speyer , but released again in 1946. In 1949 he was arrested again and transferred to the American zone of occupation . In the same year charges were brought against him before the Spruchkammer 37 in Stuttgart. Thumm died before the trial chamber proceedings were concluded .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ingrid Bauz, Sigrid Brüggemann, Roland Maier (eds.): The Secret State Police in Württemberg and Hohenzollern. Stuttgart 2013, ISBN 3-89657-138-9 , pp. 118ff. u. 143ff.
  2. ^ Report of the Oberndorf am Neckar police department from the Oberndorf a. N. (AF 679). Printed in: Annette Schäfer: Forced Laborers and Nazi Racial Policy: Russian and Polish Workers in Württemberg 1939–1945. Stuttgart / Cologne 2000, p. 137.
  3. ↑ Lina Haag : A handful of dust. (written in 1944, first published in 1947). Röderberg-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1977, ISBN 3-87682-579-9 , pp. 40-42. - Lina Haag's experiences with Thumm dated from around 1935/1936.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Thumm, Ludwig
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German detective commissioner and head of the “Protective Custody” section of the Stuttgart State Police Headquarters
DATE OF BIRTH May 11, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH Stuttgart
DATE OF DEATH December 15, 1950
Place of death Stuttgart