Manfred Sellier

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Manfred Sellier (born December 2, 1898 in Mainz , † January 23, 1968 in Übersee / Chiemgau ) was a German secret service officer in the OKW - Foreign Office / Defense and alleged employee of the Gehlen organization and the Federal Intelligence Service .

Life

Manfred Sellier was the son of the artillery officer Numa Sellier and his wife Margarete, geb. Aschenbach. The young Sellier spent his childhood in East Prussia and Mainz until 1914 , depending on where his father was stationed.

After primary maturity Manfred Sellier resigned in May 1915 volunteered as a cadet in the army and fought in 1916, among others, in the Battle of Verdun and the Battle of the Somme . From August 1917 he served as an air observation officer on the Western Front . After several other positions in the air force , he served from January to August 1919 in the Freikorps in the Voluntary Aviation Department 408 Iron Division in the Baltic States . In 1919/20 he took part in fighting during the uprisings in Upper Silesia . In 1920 he was dismissed in the course of the army reduction with the rank of first lieutenant , awarded the Iron Cross 1st and 2nd class.

After his discharge from the army, Manfred Sellier began working as a businessman in 1920. As a part-time job, he completed two semesters of commercial college followed by a technical degree. Between various positions as a trade correspondent, he was repeatedly unemployed in the economically troubled 1920s. In August 1925 Sellier joined the Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten . From April 1926 he worked in a diamond mine in South West Africa and in Angola : "In the bush I spent the years as a chauffeur, locksmith, locomotive driver and bridge fitter." In Lüderitzbucht he also headed the local branch of the Stahlhelm . In 1928, suffering from malaria, he returned to Germany.

In May 1929 Manfred Sellier joined the NSDAP (membership number 129.524). Then he went to Budapest to a well-known family who wanted to get him a job. In July 1929 he married Vilma Szirmai, a Jew. The marriage remained childless. In November 1929 Sellier started a job at the Vacuum Oil Company . In November 1930 Manfred Sellier returned to Germany and was hired as an advertising engineer in Kiel. There he was also active as a squad leader of the SA in 1930/31 . On November 17, 1930 he took part in a battle in Eutin in which political opponents were beaten out of the room. From October 20 to December 1, 1931 Sellier worked temporarily as a commercial clerk at a tobacco factory in Plön . He then went to Tobis-Klangfilm AG in Berlin , where he headed the international department from 1933. In October 1932 Manfred Sellier resigned from the NSDAP because he objected to its campaign appearances against the Reichstag President General Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg .

From May to September 1933 Sellier was Stahlhelm group leader for Spandau. In February 1933 his marriage to Vilma Sellier, b. Szirmai, divorced. Shortly afterwards, at the end of March 1933, he married again. From her marriage to Johanna Proske, a second cousin, three children were born by 1938. From March 1934, Manfred Sellier applied several times to be reactivated as an officer. This was repeatedly rejected because of alleged communist activities in 1921. In 1936 he received a troop pass as a first lieutenant in the reserve.

Defense 1936–1945

The information in the military files of the Federal Archives and the Allied file entries about Manfred Sellier differ. In the latter, his real name does not appear, but the code names such as Erich Salzmann or Cellier . From 1936 to 1939 Manfred Sellier worked under real names on his trips abroad for Klangfilm AG as an “honorary” for the secret economic reporting service of Abwehrstelle III AK as a “scout”. In 1937 he explicitly applied to the defense. In 1938 he was accepted by Luftgaukommando III as a reserve officer . In addition to international experience and technical knowledge, his assessment confirmed that he had above-average foreign language skills (Sellier spoke French and fluent English , plus some Portuguese and Hungarian ). He is suitable as an employee of the defense service.

On September 10, 1939, Manfred Sellier was hired as first lieutenant in the Air Force , promoted to captain on July 1, 1939 , and major on July 1, 1940 . In 1940 he was in Bordeaux at the Secret Economic Reporting Service and from 1941 to 1942 as Head of I Wi in the Abwehr control center in Paris. In January 1941, during a stay in Paris, he renewed his acquaintance with Captain von Winterfeld, the adjutant of Field Marshal Erhard Milch . According to Manfred Sellier, his father Numa was known for milk. In 1942 he was transferred to Russia. Stays in Mariupol , Simferopol , Losowaja and Kharkov are on record . His task was to "question Russian prisoners of war". On June 19, 1942, he returned to Germany for health reasons. On September 1, 1942, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel of the Abwehr.

In May 1943, the French exile intelligence service received the information that alias Sibelius , alias Dr. Erich von Salzmann worked under the new alias Colonel Scellier after his return from Russia for the German Armistice Commission in Royat , a small community in the French region of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and headquarters of the intelligence service of the Vichy regime . In 1944 he was appointed inspector of a defense service.

From July 7, 1943 to February 1, 1944, Manfred Sellier was head of Heeres-Kraftfahrpark 51 in Orleáns . On November 1, 1944, Lieutenant General Gustav Hundt , Chief of the Armaments and Procurement Staff in France, “confirmed that in recent months his otherwise recognizable, spirited and active nature, as a result of difficult personal circumstances, has increased to pathological nervousness, which then unfortunately under the influence of the military Situation led to complete collapse at the most critical moment ”. This "nervous overstimulation" is due to a "skull fracture" as an aviator in the First World War. A command can no longer be given to him.

His last known troop units were the Chemnitz Air Base, previously the Frankfurt Air Base and the Defense Department of General Command III in Berlin. On April 30, 1945 he received his departure from the Wehrmacht .

post war period

After the end of the war, Manfred Sellier came from December 1945 to 1946 for denazification in the British Camp 031 in Stöckse near Walsrode . In the subsequent arbitration chamber proceedings in Oldenburg , he was classified as "unencumbered" because his NSDAP party membership was not known. Then he returned to his family, who had meanwhile been evacuated to Brettorf , a village near Wildeshausen . One adult child reported that Manfred Sellier had instructed the young siblings to say “Sibelius” if a stranger asked them about their father. Manfred Sellier began working in Oldenburg as a "cinema engineer" for the British Army Kinema Corporation . There he met a new woman, the marriage with Johanna Sellier was divorced. In 1951 he married for the third time in Oldenburg. The couple moved to Munich.

Sellier operated as an "export broker" in Munich. The special edition of the research and working group of the BND on "Cassations of personnel files in the BND archive" records a file "S., M.", born in 1898, period of service unknown, which was destroyed on August 28, 2007 under the administrative number 017893 . So it is not possible to understand whether he possibly had a function in the Gehlen apparatus. This administrative number also includes an entry at the central office in Ludwigsburg .

1968 died Manfred Sellier at his last place of residence overseas to lung cancer and was buried there.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Arthur Sellier, Memoirs 1860–1950, Munich 1950
  2. ↑ His judgments chamber file in the Lower Saxony State Archives Oldenburg (Rep. 980 Best. 351 No. 20692) records an "engineering examination" in Königsberg , passed in March 1924 with "Good". Corresponding to this information can not be found in his military files in the Federal Archives. However, statements in the arbitration chamber proceedings had to be made particularly conscientiously.
  3. ↑ Job reference of the Elisabethbucht operations department, The Consolidated Diamond Mines of South-West Afrika, Limited, Incorporated in the Cape Province, from May 15, 1927: From August 27, 1926 to October 28, 1926 as an auto mechanic in the workshops of Kolmankuppe, where he was also trained as a locomotive driver. From 1926 to May 15, 1927, he drove a 72-ton locomotive for the company in Elizabeth Bay. Another German-language job reference from Lüderitzbucht confirms that Manfred Sellier was employed as a car driver from June to September 1926, including in the Charlottenfelder Diamond Mining Syndicate.
  4. ↑ Job reference of the Allgemeine Konstruktions-Gesellschaft / Reconstruction Society of the Loanda Railway: Manfred Sellier worked there from October 11, 1927 to March 31, 1928 as "Adjutant of the chief engineer for the assembly of a railway bridge with a span of 60 m, self-supporting over the Luinha - River in the Cazengo area ”. Among other things, he led a riveting column / compressed air, Ingersoll system.
  5. ↑ Handwritten curriculum vitae from March 9, 1933, Federal Archives Koblenz
  6. ↑ Letter Obersturmführer SA storm 23/187, March 8, 1934 Military Act Federal Archives
  7. ↑ "The NSDAP, which I joined in February 1929, had given me back my belief in a better Germany. When certain appearances against Mr. Feldmarschall SE von Hindenburg in the 1932 election campaign led me to leave the party, I fell for the idea as such stayed. "(handwritten curriculum vitae from March 9, 1933, military files Federal Archives)
  8. ↑ Stapo Inspection IG II 5668/35: “Political attitude: KPD. Is in business. Connection with the local Soviet mission, should visit Kopp often. M. d. J. 10.5.21 II G St. 21. 6.21; Gestapo information from July 30th, 37 as well as his first marriage to a Jew "
  9. ↑ In April 1936 he reported to the military district command Berlin X that he was going on a “business trip abroad” from April 22 to June 2, 1936, namely “I will be in Poland, Yugoslavia, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania one after the other , Hungary, Austria and in CSR “. Official communications are to be sent to Klangfilm GmbH in Berlin.
  10. ↑ According to Abwehrstelle III, Sellier had been working as a volunteer for the Abwehr with great success since November 16, 1936: “In the period from April 5, 1939, he has already achieved results that normally from a new Abwehr officer only in ½ to ¾ year to be achieved. "(Letter of May 22, 1939 to Luftgaukommando III)
  11. ↑ "Since I have had extensive international experience from years of living in South Africa, Angola and Hungary as well as from my constant trips abroad and especially know the East, Balkans and Nordic countries well and speak English, French, Hungarian and Portuguese, I am at home at the same time in the case of mobilization, to be used by a defense agency, as I believe that I can do particularly useful work at such a post. ”(Letter of February 13, 1937 to Wehrbezirkskommando X, Section II / Air Force)
  12. ^ Fliegertruppe Bodenorganisation, Berlin-Dahlem, July 12, 1938
  13. ↑ Assessment note OKW Office Abroad / Defense, Abwehrabteilung I, September 12, 1942, Military Files Federal Archives
  14. ↑ "S'identifié peut-être avec le Dr. SAELSMANN, alias Colonel SCELLIER, Manfred, signalé en May 1943 comme membre de la CAA à Royat (revenant de Russie). Nommé, en 1944, inspecteur de postes d'Abwehr. ”(Présidence du Gouvernement provisoire de la République Francais / Deuxieme Bureau: Synthèse de l'organization des services spéciaux Allemands et de leurs activités sur la France 1940–1944, Algiers 1944). In 1944 there was fierce fighting between the German occupying power and the Resistance at Royat, the seat of the French secret service, see International Military Tribunal Nuremberg , Nuremberg 1949, vol. XXXVll, p. 79.
  15. ^ Spruchkammerakte Manfred Sellier, Lower Saxony State Archives Oldenburg, Rep. 980 Best. 351 No. 20692; he kept silent about three years of party membership from 1929 to 1932.
  16. ↑ The code name "Sibelius" appears three times in Allied files: twice at the Office of Strategic Services ("Salzmann, (Lieutenant Colonel) Dr. Erich von @ SIBELIUS or SIBELLIER, Major Dr.", OSS: The German Intelligence Services, Volume II, Washington DC 1944; German Intelligence Service. Personal of the Abwehr Stellen in France 1945 , p. 36, Alst Paris. I Wi: "Former. Head of Oberstlt. SALZMANN, Dr. Erich @ SIBELIUS or, SIBELLIER (Aug 41)) and once at the French intelligence service in exile ("SIBELIUS alias SALZMANN (Dr. Erich von) Lieutenant-Colonel", Présidence du Gouvernement provisoire de la République Francais / Deuxieme Bureau: Synthèse de l'organization des services spéciaux Allemands et de leurs activités sur la France 1940-1944 , Algiers 1944)
  17. ↑ Bodo Hechelhammer, BND (ed.): Cassations of personnel files in the holdings of the BND archive , December 22, 2011, p. 17, last accessed on February 25, 2019
  18. ↑ ZS, Bundesarchiv B 162/25007, fol. 1, AZ .: 115 Js 262, February 28, 1963
  19. ↑ "The Gehlen Organization temporarily operated an HF direction finding station overseas", later also the Federal Army and the BND. See Gerhard Pieper: Abhörstaat Germany. The SIGINT landscape since 1945 in east and west. Telepolis, Hanover 2015
personal data
SURNAME Sellier, Manfred
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German secret service officer in the OKW office abroad / defense as well as employee of the Gehlen organization and the Federal Intelligence Service
DATE OF BIRTH December 2, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Mainz
DATE OF DEATH January 23, 1968
Place of death Übersee / Chiemgau