Oskar Wenzky

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Oskar Wenzky (born January 2, 1911 in Breslau ; † July 15, 1980 in Cologne ) was a German lawyer and criminal investigator who headed the criminal police in the German-occupied Netherlands during the Second World War and was involved in Nazi crimes at this post. In the Federal Republic of Germany he first made a career as head of the Cologne criminal police (1952–1959) and then as president of the State Criminal Police Office of North Rhine-Westphalia (1959–1964). Most recently, Wenzky was a consultant in the North Rhine-Westphalian Ministry of the Interior (1964–1971) and as a state criminal director rose to become the highest criminal investigator in North Rhine-Westphalia.

Law degree and detective inspector

Wenzky was the son of a police officer. After passing the baccalaureate at the König-Wilhelm Gymnasium Wroclaw he graduated in 1931 at the University of Breslau, Bonn and Cologne studying law and political science , which he finished in June 1935, the first state examination. This was followed by a legal clerkship, which he broke off in favor of a career in the police force. During the time of National Socialism , he joined the Cologne Criminal Police Office at the beginning of April 1936 as a candidate for a commissioner. After passing the exam at the Charlottenburg Police Institute , he worked from the beginning of January 1938, initially for 14 months as a probationary detective at the Düsseldorf Criminal Police Headquarters. At first he was in charge of the special agency for combating corruption to the detriment of the Wehrmacht, and in the meantime was also entrusted with handling murder cases. From April 1939 he headed the 15th Criminal Police Office in Cologne and in this role was also responsible for the area of ​​what were then known as professional and habitual criminals and thus also for the imposition of preventive detention.

World War II - Head of the Criminal Police in the occupied Netherlands

After the beginning of the Second World War he was employed by the Chief of Civil Administration in Army High Command VI. In this context, from September 1939, he was responsible, among other things, for the fight against venereal diseases, juvenile delinquency and serious traffic accidents, probably as a liaison officer to the criminal police headquarters in Düsseldorf and Cologne in the area of ​​the army high command.

At the end of May 1940 he was seconded to The Hague as the commander of the Security Police and SD (BdS) in the German-occupied Netherlands, where he initially acted as deputy head of Department V (Criminal Police). In addition, he was temporarily responsible for various sections of Department V. At the beginning of 1943, he took over the management of this department there as Hans Maly's successor , which meant that he was responsible for the German criminal police in the occupation apparatus and also supervised the Dutch criminal police. In addition to dealing with original criminal police tasks, Department V was also involved in Nazi persecution measures. He had prisoners from The Hague taken to Cologne, where they were to be taken into preventive detention by the local police. In addition to resistance fighters, homosexual men were also victims of police persecution in his sphere of influence. Furthermore, raids were carried out under his direction to arrest hidden Jews and their deportation was supported. He was also responsible for persecuting Roma and Sinti who, at his instigation, were taken to assembly points inland. This measure later made it easier for them to be deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp .

In mid-December 1937, Wenzky applied for admission to the NSDAP , of which he then became a member. His admission to the SS was approved in January 1945. The frequently mentioned rank of SS-Hauptsturmführer was possibly the result of an adjustment of rank .

Because of his position as a high-ranking police officer, Wenzky belonged to the innermost leadership circle of the security police in the Netherlands. At the end of the war, Wenzky was also adjutant to the commander of the security police and the SD (BdS) in the Netherlands, Eberhard Schöngarth .

Post-war career as a criminal investigator in North Rhine-Westphalia

After the war, Wenzky was interned in the Netherlands from May 1945 to November 1947. Wenzky, listed as a war criminal on international wanted lists, was particularly accused of participating in the “looting and confiscation of Dutch property”. He was interrogated in detail by Dutch interrogators in Scheveningen prison about the organization of the criminal police in the Netherlands, his German and collaborating Dutch employees. Wenzky presented the activities of the criminal police, which was subordinate to him in the Netherlands at the time, as opposed to the Gestapo and the SD as police persecution measures that did not include political offenses.

At the end of November 1947, Wenzky was transferred to Germany, where he was released from Munster camp in early December 1948. As early as January 1948, Wenzky applied for a position in the civil service, with letters of recommendation from former police colleagues. From the beginning of May 1948 he was employed again in the civil service and was entrusted with the management of the Cologne branch of the State Commissariat for Corruption and Mismanagement . In mid-July 1948 he applied to the Cologne police and was able to return to the police service there in June 1949 after denazification had taken place as a chief inspector. In November 1950 he was promoted to the Criminal Police Board. In 1952, Wenzky succeeded Willi Gay as head of the Cologne Criminal Police Office and remained in this position until 1959. In personal union , he headed the special command to combat gangster violence on the motorways . At the Cologne Criminal Police Office, the files on gypsies that had already been set up during the Nazi era continued to be used and updated. In addition, he kept a file on suspicion of same-sex fornication, in which thousands of people were recorded in the mid-1950s. In the 1950s he acted as an expert for the Federal Constitutional Court regarding a lawsuit to reform Section 175 , where he spoke out in favor of retaining the section. Wenzky was a lecturer in forensics and criminology at the Hiltrup Police Institute. At the University of Cologne , he was in 1958 for Dr. jur. PhD . At the end of the 1950s he was promoted to chief criminal officer.

At the beginning of August 1959, Wenzky was appointed President of the State Criminal Police Office in North Rhine-Westphalia as a proven specialist with teaching experience . From there he moved to the Ministry of the Interior in North Rhine-Westphalia as a consultant in mid-February 1964 and remained in this position until his retirement. In the NRW Ministry of the Interior, he was considered "politically unencumbered" at the time. In the 1950s and 1960s he wrote specialist articles and books on criminal topics and gave lectures at conferences of the Federal Criminal Police Office . At the University of Cologne he also took on lectureships in criminology . At the end of January 1971 he retired as the state criminal investigation director. In March 1971, he was appointed honorary professor at the University of Cologne. Wenzky was not prosecuted because of his activities under National Socialism, but testified as a witness in connection with Nazi violent crimes. Wenzky is listed in the GDR Brown Book .

A study presented in December 2019 by the historian Martin Hölzl on behalf of the LKA North Rhine-Westphalia came to the conclusion that the first four directors of the State Criminal Police Office (including Wensky) were involved in Nazi crimes. State Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU) assessed the result as follows: "From today's perspective, you should never have been allowed to work as police officers."

Fonts

  • The "modus operandi" as a criminal phenomenological element and criminalistic system: Zur Unters. d. Criminal perseverance under consideration. d. English, French u. north america. spec. criminal police. Systems , Cologne, law. F., Diss. V. July 25, 1958
  • To investigate criminal perseverance: (The "modus operandi" as a criminal phenomenological element and criminalist system) , Federal Criminal Police Office, Wiesbaden 1959 (series of publications by the Federal Criminal Police Office; year 1959/1960, 2)

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Date of birth according to: Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 669
  2. ↑ Place of birth according to: Kristof Balser, Mario Kramp, Jürgen Müller, Joanna Gotzmann (eds.): "Heaven and Hell". The life of Cologne homosexuals 1945 to 1969 , Emons-Verlag, Cologne 1994, ISBN 3-924491-54-2 , p. 167
  3. ^ Year of death after: Stefan Noethen: Old comrades and new colleagues: Police in North Rhine-Westphalia 1945-1953 , Essen 2002, p. 329
  4. ↑ Life data according to the State Criminal Police Office of North Rhine-Westphalia (ed.): Short version of the report on the Nazi past of the first six heads of authorities at the State Criminal Police Office of North Rhine-Westphalia , Düsseldorf, December 2019, p. 8ff.
  5. ↑ Ben Witter : A daily ration of murder . In: Die Zeit , issue 9 of February 28, 1969
  6. ↑ Martin Hölzl: Expert opinion "Nazi past former head of the State Criminal Police Office of North Rhine-Westphalia " on behalf of the State Criminal Police Office of North Rhine-Westphalia (publisher), presentation at the press conference on December 16, 2019, long version, p. 52f.
  7. ↑ a b c d e Günter Grau: Lexicon on the persecution of homosexuals 1933–1945. Institutions - People - Areas of Activity, Berlin 2011, pp. 325f.
  8. ↑ a b c d e f g h North Rhine-Westphalia State Criminal Police Office (ed.): Short version of the report on the Nazi past of the first six heads of the North Rhine-Westphalia State Criminal Police Office , presentation at the press conference on December 16, 2019, Düsseldorf 2019, P. 8ff.
  9. ↑ Martin Hölzl: Expert report "Nazi past former head of the State Criminal Police Office of North Rhine-Westphalia " on behalf of the State Criminal Police Office of North Rhine-Westphalia (ed.), Presentation at the press conference on December 16, 2019, long version, p. 58
  10. ↑ Martin Hölzl: Expert opinion "Nazi past former head of the State Criminal Police Office NRW" on behalf of the State Criminal Police Office North Rhine-Westphalia (publisher), presentation at the press conference on December 16, 2019, long version, p. 58ff.
  11. ^ Stefan Noethen: Old comrades and new colleagues: Police in North Rhine-Westphalia 1945-1953 , Essen 2002, p. 329
  12. ↑ Martin Hölzl: Expert opinion "Nazi past former head of the State Criminal Police Office NRW" on behalf of the State Criminal Police Office North Rhine-Westphalia (publisher), presentation at the press conference on December 16, 2019, long version, p. 65f.
  13. ↑ Martin Hölzl: Expert opinion "Nazi past former head of the State Criminal Police Office of North Rhine-Westphalia " on behalf of the State Criminal Police Office in North Rhine-Westphalia (ed.), Presentation at the press conference on December 16, 2019, long version, p. 66ff.
  14. ↑ Martin Hölzl: Expert opinion "Nazi past former head of the State Criminal Police Office NRW" on behalf of the State Criminal Police Office North Rhine-Westphalia (publisher), presentation at the press conference on December 16, 2019, long version, p. 76
  15. ^ Stefan Noethen: Old Comrades and New Colleagues: Police in North Rhine-Westphalia 1945-1953 , Essen 2002, p. 329f.
  16. ↑ Mario Kramp: The sinful harbor district: "Black soul of hilligen Cologne": The harbor district in the post-war period ( Memento of the original from October 16, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In: Umweltmed - Hygiene - Arbeitsmed 19 (4), 2014, p. 350 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ecomed-medizin.de
  17. ↑ Martin Hölzl: Expert opinion "Nazi past former head of the State Criminal Police Office of North Rhine-Westphalia " on behalf of the State Criminal Police Office North Rhine-Westphalia (publisher), presentation at the press conference on December 16, 2019, long version, p. 80
  18. ↑ Kristof Balser, Mario Kramp, Jürgen Müller, Joanna Gotzmann (eds.): "Heaven and Hell". The life of Cologne homosexuals 1945 to 1969 , Emons-Verlag, Cologne 1994, ISBN 3-924491-54-2 , p. 167
  19. ↑ Dieter Schenk: Blind in the right eye. The brown roots of the BKA , Cologne 2001, p. 290f
  20. ↑ National Council of the National Front of Democratic Germany - Documentation Center of the State Archives Administration of the GDR (ed.): Braunbuch - War and Nazi Criminals in the Federal Republic and in West Berlin , State Publishing House of the German Democratic Republic, Berlin 1968, p. 121
  21. ↑ Several former LKA bosses were Nazi criminals . In: Spiegel Online . December 16, 2019 ( spiegel.de [accessed December 16, 2019]).
  22. ↑ Thomas Grimm: Press conference on the National Socialist past of former LKA directors. LKA NRW, December 16, 2019, accessed on December 16, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Wenzky, Oskar
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer and criminal investigator
DATE OF BIRTH January 2, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Wroclaw
DATE OF DEATH July 15, 1980
Place of death Cologne