Nordhav Foundation
The Nordhav Foundation was a foundation established by Reinhard Heydrich in 1939 and belonging to the SS , which handled property transactions for the SS.
Establishment and purpose of the foundation
The foundation, based in Berlin, whose name goes back to an old Germanic name for the North Sea , was set up by Reinhard Heydrich in the summer of 1939. It was officially recognized by State Secretary Wilhelm Stuckart on August 3, 1939. Its statutory purpose was to acquire and maintain rest homes for SS and police members. In addition to this official function, it also served the private interests of Heydrich, who used it to his own advantage, in order to appropriate properties for his private use.
In 1939, Heydrich appointed five foundation directors: Karl Wilhelm Albert , Werner Best , Herbert Mehlhorn , Kurt Pomme and Walter Schellenberg .
Business of the foundation
The foundation's first measure consisted of the purchase of the Katharinenhof on Fehmarn , which Heydrich intended to use as a private holiday home. The purchase of the eleven hectare beachfront facility - which included a barrow , a beach house and stables - was carried out by Schellenberg. Due to the attack on Poland , the foundation was inactive for six months.
The Nordhav's most important financial transaction took place in November 1940 when they bought the property at Am Großen Wannsee 56-58, a manorial villa with a park, for 1.95 million marks from the industrialist Friedrich Minoux . Heydrich's long-term intention was to set up his office and holiday home in this property in the future. For the time being, however, he had the building converted into an SS guest house. This building became famous as the venue for the Wannsee Conference in spring 1942, at which Heydrich and a few others laid down the organizational principles for the so-called “ final solution to the Jewish question ”, i.e. the genocide of European Jews .
Web links
literature
- Johannes Tuchel : The "Nordhav Foundation" and the Wannsee Conference , in: Berliner Geschichte , 1990, p. 89 ff.
- Johannes Tuchel: Reinhard Heydrich and the “Nordhav Foundation”. The activities of the SS leadership on Fehmarn in: Journal for Schleswig-Holstein History , Issue 117, 1992, pp. 199–225.