Martin Kirschbaum

Martin Friedrich Wilhelm Kirschbaum (born July 19, 1888 in Berlin ; † February 5, 1958 there ) was a German detective.

Live and act

Empire

Kirschbaum was a son of the court operator Heinrich Kirschbaum. From 1907 to 1910, Kirschbaum was a member of the cuirassiers. Then he switched to the 3rd Guard Uhlans in Potsdam. From there he was transferred to the emperor's head stable office.

When the First World War broke out in the summer of 1914, he reported back to the cuirassiers. From 1914 to 1916 he was used with the Pasewalker Cuirassiers on the Western Front. Most recently he achieved the rank of sergeant there. After a serious injury, he was sent back home in 1916. He then took over the espionage surveillance at the military police in Stettin ( Department IIIb of the Great General Staff). In July 1918, Kirschbaum was transferred to the Political Police in Berlin, where he was made available to the Upper Government Councilor Doyé.

Participation in the fight against the November Revolution (1918 to 1920)

Shortly after the outbreak of the November Revolution and the collapse of the German Empire in autumn 1918, Kirschbaum joined the Freikorps Regiment Reinhard , to which he belonged until 1920: During the protracted conflict between revolutionaries and state law enforcement officers in Berlin in 1919, he headed the news department of von Eugen "Streifkompanie Kessel" (also known as "Fliegende Kraftwagenstaffel Kessel") run by Kessel , whose task it was to collect evidence of "anti-state and anti-government intentions". In this context, the news department headed by Kirschbaum compiled lists of the leaders of the Spartacus movement - including lists of their whereabouts - with the help of which over 120 leaders of the Spartacus movement were arrested by members of the patrol company shortly before the outbreak of the March uprising of 1919.

Kirschbaum was also involved in the arrests of communist leaders Karl Radek and Leo Jogiches in 1919 . The intention to hang Kirschbaum and other members of the Reinhard Radek regiment was prevented at the last moment when the news arrived that he was to be exchanged for German officers prisoner of war in Russia.

The then Reich Finance Minister Matthias Erzberger was assigned to Kirschbaum for personal protection with the secret additional task of Colonel Reinhard and von Doyé to monitor him and to keep them, Doyé and Reinhard, constantly informed about Erzberger's activities.

Kirschbaum himself was briefly arrested together with Otto Marloh because of their role in the shooting of a few dozen members of the Berlin People's Navy Division. After his release from prison for lack of evidence, he participated in the forcible release of Marloh from custody. a. procured two passports with which he could flee abroad.

Kirschbaum arrested the leader of the People's Navy Division, Heinrich Dorrenbach , in Eisenach - after Dorrenbach had been freed by a crowd after being arrested for the first time in Gotha - and brought him to Berlin, where he was shot after being questioned while attempting to escape. Kirschbaum was then branded as an "assassin" in the left-wing press.

In a similar way, Kirschbaum participated in the arrest of the communist Sylt, who was arrested by him and the detective inspector Dehnecke when he, Sylt, gave an incendiary speech in front of the staff of the water, gas and electricity works, and shortly afterwards by Dehnecke in the presence Kirschbaums was shot.

After the signing of the Versailles Treaty, together with Lieutenant Simson, he led an attack by a group of students on the Berlin armory, during which French war flags, which were captured in the war of 1870/1871 and were kept there as trophies, were returned to France the German Reich had committed with the signing of the Versailles Treaty, "confiscated" and in a "patriotic" protest rally against the Versailles Treaty on the street Unter den Linden in front of the equestrian statue of Frederick II of Prussia were burned in order to return the flags To withdraw from France. Since Simson, unlike Kirschbaum, was single at the time, he took responsibility for this action on his own and fled to South America while Kirschbaum remained undisturbed.

In 1920 he was employed by the Berlin criminal police. From there he was transferred to the customs investigation office: The customs investigation office sent him to the English High Command in Cologne to jointly fight communism in this area together with the English occupation authorities. He was then used on the Dutch border to fight smuggling. After completing his duties there, Kirschbaum wanted to be transferred back to the Berlin criminal police, but was instead removed from civil service at the instigation of Carl Severing . Thereupon he retired as criminal secretary i. R. back to private life.

Weimar Republic

In 1927, Kirschbaum accepted a position as an investigative officer and debt collector for the company Deutsche Familienkaufhaus GmbH (Defaka). In the course of the nationwide expansion of this group, he took over the organization of the Defaka central investigation office.

With the rise of the Nazi movement at the end of the 1920s and the beginning of the 1930s, Kirschbaum began to get closer to it: From 1929 he worked as an intelligence service for the Berlin SA led by Walter Stennes . Stennes, who Kirschbaum had trained in intelligence in 1919, was provided with important information by him until 1931. After Stennes left the Berlin SA leadership in April 1931, Kirschbaum continued his unofficial informational work at the request of Karl Ernst , who became staff leader of the Berlin SA in 1931. In particular, he supplied the SA subgroup Berlin East, which was led by Ernst from 1932, with news and helped them with the procurement of weapons and ammunition. He is said to have refrained from officially joining the SA and the NSDAP during this time in order not to endanger his work as a newsman or to camouflage it better.

time of the nationalsocialism

A few weeks after the National Socialists came to power in the spring of 1933, Kirschbaum officially joined the NSDAP on April 1, 1933 ( membership number 3.010.824). The Berlin SA group certified that he had already worked for the SA as an intelligence service before 1933 and, at the express request of the SA leadership - in order not to endanger his camouflaged activities for them - had not joined the party before 1933 . In the SA, which he joined at the same time, Kirschbaum received the rank of Sturmführer in 1933 and later that of Obersturmführer.

Friendship bonds entertained Cherry 1933-1934 in particular for group leader of the Berlin SA Karl Ernst, with whom he had worked since 1931: for this he organized the Defaka at significantly reduced prices, the equipment for the villa in the Podbielskiallee 83 in Berlin-Dahlem in In 1933, when he got him goods worth 14,000 RM for a price of only 4,000 RM. In the autumn of 1933, Kirschbaum also financed Ernst's wedding. In addition, Kirschbaum organized a sea voyage planned for July 1934 by Ernst and his wife to Madeira on a steamship belonging to the North German Lloyd .

At noon on June 30, 1934, Kirschbaum was arrested as a companion of Ernst and his wife on the occasion of the Röhm affair in Bremerhaven , when the three were about to board the ship with which they were going to undertake Ernst's honeymoon to Madeira. Ernst and Kirschbaum were handed over to an SS command led by Kurt Gildisch , which took them to Berlin by plane. While Ernst was shot in the Lichterfelde cadet institution , Kirschbaum was only taken into custody. Since it could not be proven that he had participated in the alleged revolt of the SA leadership, he was finally released from prison.

In the SA Kirschbaum was released from his position as Obersturmführer z. b. V. in the staff of the SA group Berlin-Brandenburg transferred to SA Brigade 28 (Horst Wessel) in Lichtenberg.

Investigation proceedings against Kirschbaum and departure from the SA (1934 to 1935)

Since the summer of 1934, investigative proceedings against Kirschbaum had been running at the judicial and legal office of the Supreme SA leadership because of his relationships with the disgraced and executed Karl Ernst and his rapid SA career initiated under the protection of Ernst. At the same time, on a report from the Reich Treasurer, the NSDAP was investigated by the public prosecutor's office on suspicion of infidelity against Kirschbaum. As early as the spring of 1934, investigations were carried out against Kirschbaum for fraud and abuse. In the SA disciplinary files, he was characterized as a “bad business man and economic knight” who only joined the SA and party “to do business”. It was also conceded there that there was no evidence of Kirschbaum's involvement in the alleged Röhm revolt.

The questionable behavior of Kirschbaum in economic matters - in connection with the favoring of Ernst and due to other events, the SA group suspected him of "dark financial transactions that look a lot like corruption" - led the SA leadership to him in April 1935 prompted to be released from the SA "at his own request". This happened in the form that on April 13, 1935, he addressed a letter to the SA leadership in which he requested his release from the SA, which was carried out by the SA with effect from April 13 (previously he had been given a Deadline set for submitting such a letter by April 15 or otherwise having to endure the more defamatory measure of being excluded from the SA). This procedure was carried out on a proposal made in March 1935 by the Berlin SA group court (in which Oberführer Waldemar Geyer , Oberführer Hermann Walch , Obersturmbannführer Fritz Hahn and Obersturmführer Fiebig had participated).

Another fate in the Nazi state

In 1936 Kirschbaum tried in vain to get his re-entry into the NSDAP and the SA. Motions on his part to take him back into the party and the party army, which he u. a. addressed to the office of the Fuehrer's deputy were rejected.

However, Kirschbaum managed to get a job with the Gestapo in Cologne . In 1941 he headed the office for the "fight against Marxism".

post war period

After the Second World War, Kirschbaum was often falsely identified as Karl Ernst's adjutant and was associated with the fire in the Reichstag in February 1933 as the alleged accomplice of Ernst's research group around Walther Hofer and Edouard Calic . Researchers such as Fritz Tobias and Uwe Backes, however, see Kirschbaum's involvement as refuted.

family

Kirschbaum had at least one son, Gerhard, who worked as a cook in the Hotel Kaiserhof and then with the State Police Group General Göring, and a daughter, Lieselotte.

estate

Kirschbaum's personnel records have been preserved in the Federal Archives. In particular, the BDC has an OPG file (microfilm OPG F 8, images 1197–1222), a PK file (microfilm PK F 401, images 335–357) and an SA-P file (microfilm SA-P D 137, 485-706).

Web links

• Bernhard Sauer: On the political position of the Berlin security police in the Weimar Republic. (pdf, 87 kB) In: ZfG , 53rd year 2005, issue 1.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Birth register StA Berlin II, No. 646/1888
2. ↑ Death register StA Reinickendorf of Berlin, No. 414/1958
3. ↑ Uwe Backes (Ed.): Reichstag fire, Enlightenment of a historical legend , 1986.