Michael Freiherr von Godin

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Michael Paul Ludwig Richard Freiherr von Godin (born October 8, 1896 in Munich , † 1982 ) was a German police officer. Godin became known as the head of the police unit, which in 1923 during the Hitler-Ludendorff putsch in Munich forcibly dissolved the march of the National Socialists to the Feldherrnhalle and thus brought about the final failure of the putsch.

Life

origin

He was the son of the Bavarian major a. D. and treasurer Reinhard Freiherr von Godin and his wife Marie, née Bals. Like him, his brother Emmerich (1881–1934) embarked on a military career in the Bavarian Army . His cousin was the writer, women's rights activist, translator and Albania researcher Marie Amelie von Godin .

Hitler-Ludendorff Putsch 1923

Godin took part in World War I and joined the Bavarian State Police in 1920 . He was on Nov. 9, 1923 lieutenant of the National Police unit which in the Munich police headquarters Police Commissioner Ernst Pöhner and Wilhelm Frick arrested and at Odeonsplatz armed parade of Nazis during the Hitler coup with firearms scattered.

Godin was from May 1933 to January 1934 and the end of May 1934 at the Dachau concentration camp in protective custody taken. His cellmate Erwein von Aretin recalled:

“Godin, who lived across the border near Reutte in Tyrol, drove in his car to his in-laws in Steingaden that Sunday and was arrested at the border on the way back to Tyrol. The reasons for the arrest were obvious: they were of course not political, but arose from the need for revenge for the fact that Godin, as an officer in the Bavarian State Police, had led the department at the Feldherrnhalle on November 9, 1923 that fired at the approaching train had scattered it at a speed that the history of National Socialism cannot cover up even with the heroic songs. - Of all the cellmates I had ever had, Godin was undoubtedly in the worst condition. That really wasn't to blame him. First, he had to reproach himself for driving into Bavaria with this 'burden', where he was lucky enough to live in Austria, and then he knew his opponents well enough to know with what joy they would make up for the defenseless person with proof of the courage they failed to give ten years ago. "

Godin was released from Dachau in January 1934.

At the beginning of 1938, before the annexation of Austria , he escaped to Lucerne , where he researched the German exile community for the Office of Strategic Services on the mediation of Gero von Schulze-Gaevernitz and Allen Welsh Dulles .

In 1939 the German Reich revoked his citizenship.

post war period

On June 6, 1945 Godin returned to Munich from Switzerland in an American jeep together with Wilhelm Hoegner - who later became the Bavarian Prime Minister . On June 29, 1945 it was ordered that the Bavarian State Police should be re-established in a decentralized and democratic manner. Godin was appointed president of the Bavarian State Police for life - as the previous chief of the regional police in Upper Bavaria.

On April 24, 1946, Godin was the first President of the then State Police of Bavaria, after approval by the Bavarian Prime Minister and the American military government, to put the organizational principles of the State Police in the Free State into force. Until 1959 he was at the head of the Bavarian State Police.

In 1963 he was awarded the Bavarian Order of Merit .

In the Munich address book for 1966, Godin is listed with his residence at Galeriestraße 28.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b According to the Große Bayerische Biographische Enzyklopädie, Munich 2005, Volume 1, p. 656, Godin was in protective custody from May 1933 to January 1934, while the BBKL ( Memento from June 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) states that he was at the end of May 1934 been taken into protective custody.
  2. ↑ Erwein von Aretin: Crown and Chains. P. 219 f. Süddeutscher Verlag. Munich 1995.
  3. ↑ a b We'll beat the bastard again . In: Der Spiegel . No. 47 , 1980, pp. 118 ( Online - Nov. 17, 1980 ). , Jose Raymund Canoy, The Discreet Charm of the Police State : The Landpolizei Transformation or Bavaria 1945–1965, 2007, p. 62
  4. ↑ www.bundesarchiv.de ( Memento of the original from October 7, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. - Files from the Nazi era @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bundesarchiv.de
  5. ↑ Bayerns Polizei (employee magazine), issue 2/2016
  6. ↑ Ed .: Rudolf Vierhaus, DBE, p. 877
  7. ^ Address book for Munich for 1966, p. 299.
personal data
SURNAME Godin, Michael Freiherr von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Godin, Michael Paul Ludwig Richard Freiherr von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German policeman, head of a police unit that stopped the Hitler-Ludendorff putsch in 1923
DATE OF BIRTH October 8, 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich
DATE OF DEATH 1982