Max Merten

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Max Merten , also Maximilian Merten , (born September 8, 1911 in Berlin-Lichterfelde ; † September 21, 1971 in West Berlin ) was a German lawyer and administrative officer of Army Group E in Saloniki with the rank of captain .

Life

After graduating from high school in 1930, Merten studied law at the Friedrich Wilhelms University in Berlin. In 1938 he became a judge and in 1939 a regional judge in the Reich Ministry of Justice. In 1937 he became a member of the NSDAP , which he later denied. At the beginning of the war he was used as a clerk at the Luftgaukommando in Berlin-Dahlem due to an earlier injury. At the end of July 1942 he was appointed war administrator and transferred to Wehrmacht commander-in-chief Saloniki-Aegean in Saloniki . There, as the successor to Karl Marbach with the rank of captain, he headed the “Administration and Economics” department, which was responsible for supplying the troops and the civilian population in Western Macedonia.

Participation in the persecution of Jews in Salonika

Merten signed orders to identify, ghettoise and confiscate the Jews. These measures made it easier for Alois Brunner and Dieter Wisliceny to carry out the mass murder of the Jews of Salonika .

In the autumn of 1942 he had extorted 2.5 billion drachmas and the transfer of the Jewish cemetery from the Jewish community in Saloniki with the promise to release 9,000 men from forced labor before the onset of winter . The tombstones were used for paving work and, among other things, to build a swimming pool for the German occupiers. On February 6, 1943, Merten signed an order from Johannes Haarde , the commander of Saloniki-Aegean Sea, which initiated the labeling and ghettoization of the Jews of Salonika. On February 25, Merten issued the order to expel Jews from professional associations. By order of the Salonika-Aegean commander , an office for the administration of Jewish property was set up in March 1943 . Merten intervened several times in the selection of Greek trustees for the more than 10,000 Jewish houses and 2,300 shops; after the end of the war he was also accused of personal enrichment.

From the spring of 1943, 48,974 Jews from Saloniki were deported to extermination camps in Poland , 37,386 were gassed immediately . Dieter Wisliceny , commissioned by Eichmann with the deportation , later stated that "the action in Saloniki was only possible through close cooperation with the military administration".

Post War and Legal Trial

In 1946 Merten was imprisoned in Dachau. The Americans offered to extradite the Greek government, but the Greek government refused, citing his impeccable behavior during the occupation.

Merten worked as a lawyer in Berlin. In 1952 he was one of the founders of the All-German People's Party .

In 1957 he was arrested on a visit to Greece and in March 1959 sentenced to 25 years in prison by a special military court for the deportation of the Jewish population from Thessaloniki; he was acquitted of charges of reprisals against the civilian population.

The then federal government under Chancellor Konrad Adenauer put pressure on the Greek Prime Minister Konstantinos Karamanlis and tried to link the Merten case with the German-Greek global agreement . On October 23, 1959, the Greek Parliament passed a law that included the suspension of all war crimes proceedings, the dissolution of the national war crimes bureau and the deportation of all detainees. Merten was deported to the Federal Republic a few days later after a total of 30 months in prison.

After his return, Merten claimed, among other things, that he had met Adolf Eichmann in Berlin and Saloniki in 1942 and had negotiated the emigration of 20,000 Jews to Palestine. The then ministerial official in the Reich Ministry of the Interior, Hans Globke , refused to give his consent. In his sworn testimony on the presentation in the Eichmann trial , Merten could not remember the names and persons with whom he wanted to negotiate.

A preliminary investigation against Globke started by the Hessian Public Prosecutor Fritz Bauer in Frankfurt was closed in May 1961 by the Bonn Public Prosecutor, to which the proceedings had been handed over at the instigation of Konrad Adenauer . There was "not the slightest clue for the truth of Dr. Merten's assertions ”. For this, an investigation was initiated against Merten for false suspicion and false testimony. Since Merten did not appear for the main hearing , the proceedings were suspended without result . After accusing the Greek government of collaborating with the German occupiers, Merten was sentenced to four years imprisonment in Greece in November 1961 for defamation in absentia.

He was later compensated by the German state for his time in Greek custody . In 1968 the Berlin Regional Court closed a preliminary investigation into aiding and abetting the murder of over 50,000 Jews in Greece.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wolfgang Breyer: Dr. Max Merten - a military officer in the German Wehrmacht in the field of tension between legend and truth Mannheim, Univ.-Diss., 2003
  2. ↑ Heinz A. Richter : Atonement for war crimes, reparation claims and the Merten case in Thetis Volume 20, Mannheim 2013, p. 444ff
  3. ^ Devin Naar (Seattle): Saloniki. In: Dan Diner (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Jewish History and Culture (EJGK). Volume 5: Pr-Sy. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2014, ISBN 978-3-476-02505-0 , p. 310 / Document VEJ 14/220 in: Sara Berger u. a. (Ed.): The persecution and murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933–1945 (collection of sources) Volume 14: Occupied Southeast Europe and Italy . Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-11-055559-2 , pp. 553-558.
  4. ↑ Sara Berger u. a. (Ed.): The persecution and murder of European Jews ... Volume 14, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-11-055559-2 , p. 66.
  5. ↑ Sara Berger u. a. (Ed.): The persecution and murder of European Jews ... Volume 14, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-11-055559-2 , p. 67 and document VEJ 14/227.
  6. ↑ Stratos N. Dordanas: The Jewish Community of Thessaloniki and the Christian Collaborateurs: "Those did are leaving and What They are leaving behind". In: Giorgios Antoniou, A. Dirk Moses: The Holocaust in Greece . Cambridge University 2018, ISBN 978-1-108-47467-2 , pp. 221-215.
  7. ^ Mark Mazower : Greece under Hitler. Life during the German occupation 1941-1944 , Frankfurt 2016, p. 287
  8. ↑ Susanne-Sophia Spiliotis: The Merten case and the German-Greek "processing" of the occupation regime in Greece during the Second World War. In: Reconciliation Without Truth? German war crimes in Greece during World War II . Mannheim 2001, p. 69ff
  9. ↑ Susanne-Sophia Spiliotis: The case Merten and the German-Greek "reclamation" of occupation rule in Greece during the Second World War. In Karl Giebeler, Heinz A. Richter, Reinhard Stupperich (eds.): Reconciliation without truth? German war crimes in Greece during World War II Mannheim 2001, p. 69 ff.
  10. ↑ Heinz A. Richter: Atonement for war crimes, reparation claims and the Merten case in Thetis Volume 20, Mannheim 2013, p. 4459
  11. ↑ Susanne-Sophia Spiliotis: The case Merten and the German-Greek "reclamation" of occupation rule in Greece during the Second World War. in reconciliation without truth? German war crimes in Greece during World War II Mannheim 2001, p. 76
  12. ↑ Your uncle Konstantin Der Spiegel 40/1960 of September 28, 1960
  13. ↑ The Testimony of Max Merten Berlin, 30./31. May 1961. The Nizkor Project , accessed September 16, 2016
  14. ↑ Dr. Bauer versus Dr. Globke The Dr. Hans Globke, Fritz Bauer Archive, accessed on September 15, 2016
  15. ↑ Dr. Adenauer against Dr. Bauer The case of Dr. Hans Globke, Fritz Bauer Archive, accessed on September 15, 2016
  16. ↑ Jürgen Bevers: The man behind Adenauer. Hans Globke's rise from Nazi lawyer to Eminence Gray of the Bonn Republic. Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2009, p. 170 f.
  17. ^ Max Merten versus Hans Globke Die Zeit , November 5, 1965
  18. ↑ Reiner Burger : Die Märchen des Max Merten FAZ , April 19, 2015
  19. ↑ Elena Panagiotidis: " It is important that this wound does not continue to fester" , in: Neue Zürcher Zeitung (236), No. 69, March 24, 2015, p. 5
  20. ↑ Reiner Burger : Die Märchen des Max Merten FAZ , April 19, 2015
personal data
SURNAME Merten, Max
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer and perpetrator of the Holocaust in Greece
DATE OF BIRTH September 8, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin-Lichterfelde
DATE OF DEATH September 21, 1971
Place of death West Berlin