Modest Count von Korff

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Modest-Alfred Leonard Graf von Korff (* 21st January 1909 in Godesberg , † 8. May 1997 in Bad Honnef ) was a German jurist, hauptsturmführer and Commander of the Security Police and Security Service in German -occupied France during World War II , the was charged with the deportation of 220 Jews to the Auschwitz concentration camp and was acquitted for lack of evidence.

Origin and professional career

Modest was the son of the Oberkirchenrat Emanuel Graf von Korff (1883–1945) and his wife Emma, ​​née Müller (1879–1964). After graduating from high school, he studied law . In 1928 he became a member of the Corps Saxonia Göttingen . In 1933 he joined the NSDAP and the SS . From 1937 on, he worked for two years as an administrative lawyer in various district offices and regional councils.

Second World War

In May 1940, the convocation was made as a commissioned officer for the Wehrmacht into the German-occupied France, where he initially as war Board of Feldkommandantur in Rennes worked. In June 1942, as SS-Hauptsturmführer, he was appointed commander of the Security Police and Security Service (KdS) of Châlons-sur-Marne . He held this office until May 1943.

After the war

After the end of the war, von Korff was arrested in the uniform of a lieutenant in the Wehrmacht by American troops in Carinthia and, after a two-year internment period, handed over to the French military authorities. In 1947 he was tried in Metz , in which, however, he was only charged with assaults against the French Resistance . The trial ended in an acquittal.

After returning to Germany, von Korff initially worked for the Federal Ministry for Affairs of the Federal Council , later he moved to the Federal Ministry of Economics as a Ministerialrat until he retired in 1974.

Acquittal for lack of evidence

In 1988, von Korff was charged in Bonn as a Nazi homicide criminal (desk crime complex). The subject of the proceedings was his participation in the deportation of Jews from the area of ​​the Sipo branch in Chalons-sur-Marne by ordering their arrest and transfer to the Drancy detention camp, from where they were taken to the Auschwitz concentration camp .

Von Korff had - ostensibly in the belief that the deportation trains were involved in road construction work - also sent old people, the seriously ill, children and infants. The public prosecutor took this as proof that he must have known the real goal, the extermination in Auschwitz. But also in this court case (file number LG Bonn 881117) von Korff was acquitted. In the opinion of the court it was not possible to produce the evidence necessary for an accomplice or aiding and abetting the Holocaust. The pronouncement of the verdict led to expressions of displeasure by Jews who had traveled from Paris and relatives of victims who had been deported from France to Auschwitz by Modest Graf von Korff and gassed there. Following a revision by the public prosecutor's office, the acquittal was confirmed by the Federal Court of Justice on November 30, 1990 (file number 2StR44 / 90).

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kösener Corpslisten 1996, 142 , 796
  2. ^ Trials: 100 frs per Jew. Spiegel Online , March 28, 1983
  3. ↑ Short online edition of the verdict from the University of Amsterdam on the court case against Modest von Korff ( memento of the original from February 26, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www1.jur.uva.nl
personal data
SURNAME Korff, Modest Count of
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Korff, Modest-Alfred Leonard Graf von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German SS Hauptsturmführer; official
DATE OF BIRTH January 21, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH bad Godesberg
DATE OF DEATH May 8, 1997
Place of death Bad Honnef