Max Hahnel

Max Hähnel (born July 14, 1897 in Freiberg , Saxony; † January 25, 1946 in Chutorok, Soviet Union ) was an SA standard leader . From May 1933 to April 1934 he was camp manager of the Sachsenburg concentration camp .

Life

Max Hähnel was the son of a railway employee. According to his own statements, he belonged to the Wandervogel movement in his youth and saw himself as an anti-Semite . At the beginning of the First World War , the 17-year-old Hähnel volunteered for the military in 1914. He was deployed in various theaters of war, most recently in 1918 as Vice Sergeant in Macedonia . In September 1918 he was badly wounded by a bullet in the chin and neck.

After the First World War, Hähnel continued his education up to the Abitur. He then embarked on an administrative career. In 1920 Hähnel was appointed an official at the Reich Finance Administration. Hähnel completed his training as a tax officer at the Zschopau tax office , where he remained in service until he was appointed concentration camp commandant in 1933.

Hähnel joined the NSDAP and the SA in 1930 . Supported by the SA leader Kurt Lasch , a former colleague of the financial administration, Hähnel had a steep voluntary career in the Sturmabteilung: in January 1932 he became a squad leader in Sturmbann III / 182, in July 1932 a storm leader. After he was appointed Sturmbannführer in October 1932 , he finally took over the Flöha Standard 182 as leader at the end of 1932.

After the Nazi takeover of power in 1933, the NSDAP installed Hähnel as a shop steward ("Commissioner") in the Flöha district chief. In this function he pushed ahead with the alignment of the administration. In addition, the SA leader was hired as an auxiliary policeman. Reports from former inmates of the Sachsenburg concentration camp that Hähnel temporarily headed the early Plaue concentration camp cannot be substantiated.

Camp manager of the Sachsenburg concentration camp

Hähnel was involved in the planning of the Sachsenburg concentration camp from the start . In April 1933 he was appointed head of the " Sachsenburg Protective Custody Camp ". Hähnel seemed suitable for the post, as the newly appointed Standartenführer enjoyed the trust of the regional SA and NSDAP and, as a long-time financial officer, was considered an administrative expert. The tax officer was given leave of absence for his work as a concentration camp director.

After the first prisoners arrived at the beginning of May 1933, the camp was expanded under Hahnel's command to accommodate up to 2,000 prisoners. As camp leader, Hähnel was responsible for the detention conditions of individual prisoners. The guarding of the prisoners took over the Hähnel subordinate Flöhaer SA-Standarte 182, which had been classified as "auxiliary police" troops. Hähnel had an official apartment in the former factory owner's villa , which was on the edge of the concentration camp site.

There is no known prisoner report according to which Hähnel personally used or ordered physical violence in Sachsenburg. Within the SA he was accused of showing too little harshness towards prisoners. Hähnel himself declared in July 1933 that after “the onslaught was over” he refused to “allow defenseless prisoners to be beaten and mistreated in some cattle-like manner for no deeper reason”. However, security guards who were prepared to use violence used Hahnel's absence to mistreat prisoners.

Hähnel believed in winning political opponents for National Socialism through “educational work” and a “reconciliation policy”. He relied on training and propaganda activities by prisoners who had "defected". The former KPD functionaries Walter Otto and Fritz Dasecke committed themselves to National Socialism in a pamphlet , which they dedicated to five Sachsenburg SA leaders, above all Hähnel. However, the prisoners were subject to Hahnel's changing moods: While he often treated them with surprising friendliness, he yelled at them in other situations and made threats.

Exclusion from the Nazi movement and "protective custody"

In April 1934 Standartenführer Hähnel was deposed as head of the Sachsenburg concentration camp. The recall took place before the so-called " Röhm Putsch " and before the camp was taken over by the SS .

The special court of the Supreme SA leadership opened a case against Hähnel. Although he was not expelled from the SA for “unjustified wearing of the Iron Cross ” , he was advised to ask for his release “at his own request”. He complied with this in early 1935. Hähnel was arrested in March 1935 after he had complained in a restaurant about the way the Nazi government dealt with “ old fighters ” of the movement. The former camp manager was in " protective custody " for three months .

After his exclusion from the SA, Hähnel returned to his old job as a tax officer, he worked in a Dresden tax office. He married at the end of 1936 and the marriage resulted in two daughters and a son, who were born in 1938, 1939 and 1942. One of the daughters died in childhood. From the beginning of 1936, Hähnel fought against the decreed exclusion from the NSDAP . In October 1937 the Supreme Court ruled in his favor. At that time, Hähnel was employed in a tax office in Frankfurt am Main , where he took on NSDAP functions. In 1940 Hähnel was re-admitted to the SA.

World War II and death in captivity

In 1940 Hähnel was drafted into the Wehrmacht during World War II . From spring 1941 he was deployed in the east, where he was promoted to first lieutenant in May 1941 . From the end of 1943 he was apparently on military service in Norway before his unit was finally transferred to the Vistula via what is now Estonia and Ukraine . At war's end Haehnel came on 8 May 1945 at Pízek in Czechoslovakia in Soviet captivity . In August 1945 he was sent via various camps to prisoner-of-war camp 148/5 in Novorossisk on the Black Sea . There he fell seriously ill, which is why he was transferred to special hospital No. 5459 in Khutorok in December 1945. Hahnel died there on January 25, 1946 and was buried in the cemetery of the hospital .

reception

Max Hähnel's life path was largely unknown until the publication of Hähnel's biography in the anthology published in 2018 on the Sachsenburg concentration camp. Published reports by former prisoners painted the picture of an unusual concentration camp leader who was murdered in the course of the " Röhm Putsch ". The former Sachsenburg prisoner Bodo Ritscher said in a lecture in 2008: “Much has been written about the Sachsenburg camp leader at the time, SA leader Hähnel, his capers, his speeches and escapades. As is well known, he was arrested after the overthrow of the SA Röhm's chief of staff, and his trace disappeared. ”The thesis of the Hahnel murder found its way into scientific publications, although Otto Urban had already written in a report published in 1934 in exile in Czechoslovakia that Hähnel had been relieved and transferred as warehouse manager.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Volker Straehle: "Great practitioner in the treatment of prisoners". Max Hähnel, the first camp manager of the Sachsenburg concentration camp. In: Bert Pampel; Mike Schmeitzner (Ed.): Sachsenburg Concentration Camp (1933-1937) , Series of publications by the Sächsische Gedenkstätten Foundation, Volume 16, Sandstein, Dresden 2018, ISBN 978-3-95498-382-7 , pp. 96-113.
2. ↑ Strähle, Großer Praktiker , p. 100.
3. ↑ Strähle, Großer Praktiker , p. 101.
4. ↑ Anna Schüller: The origin and development of the Sachsenburg concentration camp from 1933 to 1937 . In: Bert Pampel; Mike Schmeitzner (Ed.): Sachsenburg Concentration Camp (1933-1937) , Series of publications by the Sächsische Gedenkstätten Foundation, Volume 16, Sandstein, Dresden 2018, ISBN 978-3-95498-382-7 , pp. 49–73, here p. 51 .
5. ↑ Schüller, Origin and Development , p. 55.
6. ^ Strähle, Großer Praktiker , p. 104.
7. ^ Udo Grashof: Opportunism and defectors in the Sachsenburg concentration camp in 1933 . In: Bert Pampel; Mike Schmeitzner (Ed.): Sachsenburg Concentration Camp (1933-1937) , Series of publications by the Sächsische Gedenkstätten Foundation, Volume 16, Sandstein, Dresden 2018, ISBN 978-3-95498-382-7 , pp. 262–276, here p. 268 .
8. ^ Strähle, Großer Praktiker , p. 104.
9. ↑ Strähle, Großer Praktiker , p. 111.
10. ↑ Strähle, Großer Praktiker , p. 112.
11. ↑ Strähle, Großer Praktiker , p. 112.
12. ↑ Strähle, Großer Praktiker , p. 112.
13. ^ Carina Baganz: Education for the "Volksgemeinschaft"? The early concentration camps in Saxony 1933-34 , History of the concentration camps 1933-1945, Volume 6, Metropol, Berlin 2005, ISBN 978-3-938690-02-4 , p. 251.
14. ↑ Enrico Hilbert / Lagerarbeitsgemeinschaft Sachsenburg (ed.), Sachsenburger Mahn Ruf, annual publication 2012 , p. 27.
15. ↑ Strähle, Großer Praktiker , p. 98.

literature

• Volker Straehle: "Great practitioner in the treatment of prisoners". Max Hähnel, the first camp manager of the Sachsenburg concentration camp , In: Bert Pampel; Mike Schmeitzner (Ed.): Sachsenburg Concentration Camp (1933-1937) , Sandstein, Dresden 2018, ISBN 978-3-95498-382-7 , pp. 96–113.

Web links

• Website for the future Sachsenburg Memorial