Maximilian von Herff

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Maximilian von Herff (front right) inspects the suppression of the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto by Jürgen Stroop (1943). In the middle Jürgen Stroop, in the back right Karl Kaleske
Excerpt from a copy of Herff's inspection trip in the Generalgouvernement in 1943: Depiction of the “resettlement campaign” in the Auschwitz concentration camp .

Maximilian Karl Otto von Herff (born April 17, 1893 in Hanover ; † September 6, 1945 in Conishead Priory near Ulverston , Cumbria , Great Britain ) was a German SS-Obergruppenführer and general of the Waffen-SS and chief during the Second World War from 1942 of the SS Personnel Main Office .

Life

Time until the end of the First World War

Maximilian was a son of the general practitioner and later Prussian medical adviser Ferdinand von Herff (* 1864) and his wife Olga, née Sasse (* 1869). He is the cousin of the SS Brigade Leader and Major General of the Police Eberhard Herf . After attending primary school for three years, Herff went to grammar school and graduated from high school.

On August 4, 1914, Herff joined the Prussian Army and served in the Leibgarde Infantry Regiment (1st Grand Ducal Hessian) No. 115 ( Darmstadt ). In the further course of the First World War Herff came to the 5th Lower Silesian Infantry Regiment No. 154 . He was born on Feb. 11, 1915 to lieutenant , and on 18 October 1918 Lieutenant promoted and remained in the unit until 9 November 1918th

Between the world wars

Between March 1 and October 1, 1919 Herff belonged to the Hanover Freikorps Zeitfreiwilligen-Regiment Hanover . During this free corps time, he was taken over as first lieutenant in the Reichswehr on November 9th . Herff married Hedwig von Grolman on August 4, 1920 . In 1926 he was transferred to the 18th Cavalry Regiment in Stuttgart , then on February 1, 1928, he was transferred to the 15th Infantry Regiment in Kassel . On February 1, 1928, he was promoted to captain and on October 1, 1934 to major .

On March 16, 1935 Herff was employed as a staff officer in the staff of the VIII. Army Corps in Breslau , on August 1, 1937 promoted to lieutenant colonel and on January 3, 1939 as an adjutant on the staff of the XVII. Army corps transferred to Vienna .

Second World War

Since November 11, 1940, Herff was in command of the Rifle Regiment 115 ( 15th Panzer Division ). In the period April-May 1941, he was commander of the battle group Herff the German Afrika Korps and the room Bardia Capuzzo- Sollum to protect Tobruk -Front used.

In November 1941, Herff, now with the rank of Colonel of the Wehrmacht , was introduced to Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler by his former regimental comrade Karl Wolff . During this meeting, Wolff suggested to Himmler that Herff be accepted as a colonel in the Waffen SS and that he be appointed head of the SS personnel main office from April 20, 1942 . Before that, Herff had to go through the administration of the SS main offices and should then replace Walter Schmitt as SS personnel chief. A week later, on November 23, 1941, Herff was admitted to the RSHA . He stayed there until December 25th. On December 1, 1941, he retired as a colonel from active service in the Wehrmacht and, on the recommendation of Karl Wolff, who appeared here as Herff's credibility witness, joined the SS with effect from October 1, 1939 (SS-No. 405.894) picked up and transferred to the Waffen SS. Himmler promoted him to SS-Oberführer of the Waffen-SS on December 9, 1941 (with RDA from October 1, 1939).

As discussed with Himmler, Herff now went through some of the main SS offices:

On March 21, 1942, Herff submitted his application for membership in the NSDAP , which he had previously not been allowed to submit as a Wehrmacht soldier. On April 8, 1942, he was accepted into the Berlin-Zehlendorf branch ( membership number 8,858,661). In the period that followed, Herff, who had previously confessed to being a German national, developed into a fanatical Nazi .

After training in the SS Personnel Main Office since April 1, Herff, who had been SS Brigade Leader and Major General of the Waffen SS since April 20, 1942 , was on July 30, 1942 "for the duration of the illness of the chief of the SS Personnel Main Office, SS- Obergruppenführer Walter Schmitt, [...] charged with his representation and with the management of the business ”; on August 12, 1942, he was officially appointed as the managing representative of the SS Main Personnel Office and on October 1, 1942, he was finally appointed as Schmitt's head of the Main Personnel Office.

As early as November, Herff tried to bring the entire "SS leader corps" together in his main office, which, however, did not meet with the approval of the other main offices. The head of the SS leadership main office, Hans Jüttner , complained in writing on December 9th about the unauthorized and massive interventions by Herff at Himmler. This letter of complaint from Jüttner, in which Jüttner also threatened to resign from his post, resulted in a decree by Himmler in which Herff's area of ​​responsibility was clearly defined: “1. Within the scope of its tasks for the SS as a whole, the Main Personnel Office is solely responsible for a.) All promotions and appointments to leadership ranks, b.) All transfers (transfer commands) of SS leaders, c.) Confirmation of all positions in the leadership positions, [...] 3. All applications for promotions to leadership ranks, appointments, transfers and all requests for filling positions must be sent to the SS-Personalhauptamt via the relevant main offices. "

Herff became SS-Gruppenführer and Lieutenant General of the Waffen SS on January 30, 1943, and SS Obergruppenführer and General of the Waffen SS on April 20, 1944. On March 4, 1943, he resigned from the Protestant Church and described himself as “a believer in God ”.

Between May 4 and 16, 1943, Herff inspected the SS facilities in occupied Poland , and his adjutant, Obersturmbannführer Alfred Franke-Gricksch , wrote the report. On May 12, he visited various SS operations in the Majdanek concentration camp , the Trawniki forced labor camp and the SS garrison in Lublin in the General Government . On May 15, Herff took part in the suppression of the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto by the SS Brigadefuhrer and Major General of the Police Jürgen Stroop as an observer; Stroop put his photo in the "Stroop Report".

At the beginning of May 1945, after fleeing via the Rattenlinie Nord near Flensburg , Herff fell into British captivity and was taken to the northern English prisoner of war camp Grizedale Hall . He died of a stroke in the nearby Conishead Priory Military Hospital on September 6, 1945 and was buried in the Cannock Chase German War Cemetery in Staffordshire .

Military and NSDAP awards

See also

literature

  • Tôviyy¯a Friedman (ed.): The two chiefs of the SS-Personal-Hauptamt. SS-Obergruppenführer Schmitt and SS-Obergruppenführer von Herff. Institute of Documentation in Israel for the Investigation of Nazi War Crimes, Haifa 1996.
  • Andreas Schulz, Günter Wegmann, Dieter Zinke: Germany's generals and admirals. Part V: The Generals of the Waffen SS and the Police 1933-1945. 2nd volume, Biblio-Verlag, Bissendorf 2005, ISBN 3-7648-2592-8 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gothaisches genealogisches Taschenbuch der Briefadeligen Häuser 1907. Justus Perthes, Gotha 1906, p. 302.
  2. ↑ Maximilian von Herff. Retrieved April 30, 2019 .
  3. ^ Andreas Schulz, Günter Wegmann, Dieter Zinke: Germany's Generals and Admirals. Part V: The Generals of the Waffen SS and the Police 1933-1945. Biblio-Verlag, Bissendorf 2005, Volume 2, p. 161.
  4. ^ SS personal files: Schmitt, Walter; von Herff, Maximilian.
  5. ↑ Heinz Höhne : The Order under the Skull - The History of the SS. Bassermann, Munich 2008; Bernd Wegner : Hitler's political soldiers. The Waffen-SS 1933–1945: Concept, structure and function of a National Socialist elite. Schöningh, Paderborn 2010.
  6. ^ Andreas Schulz, Günter Wegmann, Dieter Zinke: Germany's Generals and Admirals. Part V: The Generals of the Waffen SS and the Police 1933-1945. Biblio-Verlag, Bissendorf 2005, Volume 2, p. 162.
  7. ↑ Stephan Link: "Rattenlinie Nord". War criminals in Flensburg and the surrounding area in May 1945. In: Gerhard Paul, Broder Schwensen (Hrsg.): Mai '45. End of the war in Flensburg. Flensburg 2015, p. 21.
  8. ↑ a b c d e f g Ranking list of the German Imperial Army. Mittler & Sohn Verlag, Berlin 1930, p. 147.
  9. ↑ Veit Scherzer : Knight's Cross bearers 1939-1945. The holders of the Iron Cross of the Army, Air Force, Navy, Waffen-SS, Volkssturm and armed forces allied with Germany according to the documents of the Federal Archives. 2nd Edition. Scherzers Militaer-Verlag, Ranis / Jena 2007, ISBN 978-3-938845-17-2 , p. 384.
personal data
SURNAME Herff, Maximilian von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Herff, Maximilian Karl Otto von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer, SS-Obergruppenführer and general of the Waffen-SS
DATE OF BIRTH April 17, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH Hanover
DATE OF DEATH September 6, 1945
Place of death Conishead Priory at Ulverston , England