Otto Bauknecht

Cologne, police headquarters Office
and residence of Otto Bauknecht

Memorial plaque in front of the former location of the presidium

Carl Otto Bauknecht (born March 7, 1876 in Stuttgart ; died June 2, 1961 in Bad Cannstatt ) was a German administrative officer and from 1926 to 1932 police chief of Cologne . When Bauknecht was recalled in Cologne, the policy of containing the “national camp” ended there. His conservative national successor, the career civil servant Walther Lingens , contributed significantly to the smooth takeover of power by the National Socialists in Cologne through his reorientation against the “political left”.

Life

Origin and career up to 1918

Bauknecht was the son of the carpenter Wilhelm Gottlieb Bauknecht and his wife Anna Barbara Bauknecht, née Keck. After a four-year apprenticeship in lithography , he worked for one year in Switzerland and another in Plunnberg before doing his military service in the Grenadier Regiment "Queen Olga" . He later became union secretary in Cologne and there in 1907 Gauleiter in the association of lithographers, lithographers and related professions in Cologne (graphic trade). Bauknecht probably joined the SPD at a young age .

From 1914 to 1918 Otto Bauknecht took part in the First World War. From June 1915 he belonged to the German units that fought in Russia and advanced with them to Beresina . From June 1916 until the end of the war he was in regiments active there on the Western Front .

1918 to 1926

In the course of the November Revolution he belonged in November and December 1918, like the later Cologne police presidents Paul Runge and Karl Zörgiebel , to the Cologne workers 'and soldiers' council . In the following September 1919, Bauknecht was appointed socio-political advisor to the Reich Commissioner for the Occupied Rhenish Territories , the previous Cologne District President Karl von Starck and, after his departure in 1921, from his successor, Prince Paul Hermann von Hatzfeld-Wildenburg, who was based in Koblenz . Even before the Reichskommissariat finished its work in April 1923 in the hitherto existing form, changed Bauknecht February 1, 1923 as a consultant in the Prussian Ministry of the Interior (appeal on Dec. 1, 1922), where he then March 1, 1923, the appointment as Councilor received.

On July 15, 1922, the Prussian Minister of the Interior, Carl Severing , initiated proceedings to reoccupy the dismissed regional presidents of Koblenz ( Albert Heinrich von Gröning ) and Aachen. Severing proposed Bauknecht to fill the post in Koblenz, with which a second Social Democrat would be installed as President of the Rhine Province . However, there was massive resistance from the center , the German People's Party and the Rhenish Peasant Association . The crisis only resolved on November 1, 1922, with the proposal now to promote the Oberpräsidialrat Paul Brandt from the Oberpräsidium of the Rhine Province in Koblenz to the head of the regional council there.

Police chief in Cologne

On October 15, 1926, Otto Bauknecht succeeded Karl Zörgiebel as police chief in Cologne. Like his predecessors Runge and Zörgiebel, Bauknecht was a social democrat, but only the presidium was under social democratic leadership. This continuity does not allow any conclusions to be drawn about a police force that is social democratic or republican. In practice, shortly after the First World War, the management positions to be re- filled were preferred to former Army and Freikorps officers. The officials loyal to the emperor continued to be in charge. The situation in the Reich will also have fundamentally applied in Cologne.

By the mid-1920s, the Cologne police administration developed into one of the most progressive organizations in Prussia and throughout the entire Reich. In contrast to most cities in the Rhine Province, since the beginning of the 20th century the police in Cologne were no longer subordinate to the commune, but to the Prussian state, which had a direct positive effect on their equipment. Since the 1920s, it also had a differentiated internal organization, which included both a state criminal police station and an independent homicide commission. In this context, the police chief was interested in filling the politically relevant positions with loyal and democratic forces, which was particularly true for state security. The political police in Cologne succeeded in installing informers right up to the top management levels of the NSDAP and KPD , who they informed them at any time and in detail about discussions at all levels.

According to reports from the District President in Cologne to the Upper Presidium of the Rhine Province in Koblenz, “Bauknecht was fully informed about most of the internal issues of the KPD Central Rhine apparatus”. At least in the period from 1927 to 1929 he had access to confidential information through a functionary in a "leading position". According to Günter Bers, this person, whose identity was not made public, must have been a member of the district management, presumably also a Cologne city councilor or at least a citizen. On the part of the senior executive committee, Bauknecht was personally handed over several times (presumably regularly every six months) amounts of 1500 Reichsmarks each. An accompanying letter to the instruction of October 1927 says: "According to this ... all expenses for the transmission of secret messages of a national political nature including the recruitment and compensation of confidants are to be covered from the transferred funds." According to the files, it is not proven whether the KPD too -Functional was the recipient of at least part of these amounts. The more recent files of the Cologne police headquarters still in Cologne were lost in 1944 as a result of the air raids.

The Cologne police, led by Otto Bauknecht, managed, at least temporarily, to hinder the local National Socialists more strongly. Bauknecht headed the office during the essential years of the NSDAP's rise to a mass movement. They alleged that the police were blind to the left (KPD) eye and that they were particularly vigilant. It was claimed that “the Marxist police chief Bauknecht ... technically and morally the most unsuitable for his office that could be found in Cologne”. The hatred of the National Socialists against what they called the “Bauknecht Police” and the “Bauknecht System” went so far that even the highest representatives were exposed to physical attacks.

Confrontation with Robert Ley

Robert Ley in 1933.

A few months after Bauknecht took up his post in Cologne, his argument with Robert Ley began . Ultimately the trigger was possibly the course of an event in a hotel in Nastatten on March 6, 1927 under the title “The true face of National Socialism or the danger of the nationalist movement”. After learning about the tenor of the lecture, Ley organized SA and SS units from Cologne and the region ( Wiesbaden and Koblenz ) for a joint action trip to Nastätten to hold their own event. Around 4 p.m., 125 National Socialists arrived in Nastätten, after the registered event had already ended. As the premises initially visited threatened to become too cramped, Ley gave a speech in the market square while his followers who had arrived roared through the town shouting slogans and handing out leaflets. During a scuffle that resulted from this, a shot was fired by a harassed gendarme. The Ley sympathizer Wilhelm Wilhelmi died immediately. For their own safety, the gendarmes then fled to the hotel while Ley let his men stand again and brought them under control. When attempting to cross the Rhine near Lahnstein in the further course of the afternoon , the group around Ley was arrested by reinforced police units.

The result of the Nastaeten action was the dissolution of the larger local groups in Cologne and Wiesbaden as well as several smaller ones, such as Ley's own in Wiesdorf , by the civil authorities and the temporary ban on the West German observer . The Cologne branch was banned for more than a year.

Ley then began a campaign of revenge against Bauknecht, which was not dissimilar in intensity to that between Goebbels and Berlin's deputy police chief Weiß . In a complaint letter dated April 8, 1927, Ley accused Bauknecht of disregarding the civil rights of the National Socialists and of undermining the foundations of the state to be protected, "with an energy and a ruthless sense of purpose that put even Metternic methods and police means in the shade." Ley's letter ended with the announcement: “You can be assured that the struggle for the Third Reich will continue without stumbling over police orders.” From then on, the “Bauknechtpolizei” was an object favored by West German observers.

The prohibition imposed by Bauknecht on the Cologne NSDAP local group after the events in Nastaetten circumvented it by founding it in a different way. Otto Bauknecht then wrote to Robert Ley “to avoid doubts” that he saw through this maneuver. Ley replied on November 6, 1927 via an open letter on the front page of the West German observer belonging to him:

“'In order to avoid doubts' you believe that you have to remind us of your prohibitions again and again. Do you think that makes them more effective? On the contrary! You should only fall prey to ridicule earlier. The louder the dog barks, the less it bites. ”Ley continues in his insulting style, in which he tries to compare the former worker Bauknecht with his aristocratic predecessors:

“From your monarchist predecessors you have adopted the social manners and their instinctless methods of oppression. However, you lack the courage and the ability to fill your high office to the last resort.
'To avoid any doubts', we inform you that we will all tirelessly use our constitutional right to spread the National Socialist idea, both verbally and in writing. Morally, constitutionally and legally, the prohibitions are wrong. Prohibit we work! ...
Mr. Police Commissioner, resign, the hour belongs to Young Germany! "

On April 23, 1932 Robert Ley took that a Nazi thugs was accompanied, according to previous repeated provocations in Cologne Weinhaus Brothers Deis to be returned there after a SPD election rally party chairman Otto Wels and accompanying him Otto Bauknecht assaulted on. Ley smashed a wine bottle on Bauknecht's head and seriously injured him. Ley was sentenced to three months in prison for this incident, as was another NSDAP member.

Deposition in 1932

As a result of the coup-like Prussian strike of July 20, 1932, Bauknecht had to vacate his position as police chief after Reichskommissar Franz Bracht , appointed by Reich Chancellor Franz von Papen , announced a wave of dismissals on the same day. By means of a state telegram dated July 21, 1932, he was put into temporary retirement ; it was to remain the only deposition in the Rhine Province after the Prussian strike. Bauknecht immediately asked for a vacation. In the newspapers one could read at the same time that Bauknecht did not want to oppose the temporary transfer to retirement, "but would protest against the measure while maintaining his legal position." He explained to An von Papen in a telegram, “that I am in a conflict of conscience on the basis of my oath on the constitution until the State Court has finally spoken on the question of the dismissal of civil servants. Against my dismissal, I put in custody and only submit to your order so as not to unnecessarily worry the officials subordinate to me. "

At the same time, he published an “appeal to the Cologne population” in which he asked that one should “keep calm and order” in view of the strong uncertainty that was evident in the Cologne population after his dismissal. In the in-house official announcements of the Presidium, he said goodbye to his employees with a note dated July 22, 1932: "I leave with the conviction that during my tenure the Cologne police performed their duties dutifully and served the Prussian Republic faithfully."

“As far as he could overlook things, the peace and security in Prussia would have been no more and no less disturbed than in the other countries of Germany. One only needed one reason to be able to take indirect action against the social democratic representatives in the government. In his opinion, the National Socialists were the provocative part in the whole of the German Reich when the uniform ban was lifted. "

- Otto Bauknecht on July 24, 1932 at a rally of the Iron Front in Cologne : Kölner Tageblatt, No. 346 of July 25, 1932

The day after Bauknecht's appearance at the rally, the Prussian Ministry of the Interior, headed by Reich Commissioner Franz Bracht after Carl Severing had been deposed, was appointed provisional of his successor Walther Lingens as the new police chief in Cologne on July 25, 1932 .

After 1932

Immediately after his formal release in March 1933, after the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists , Bauknecht was arrested on March 10, 1933 and initially imprisoned in Cologne's city prison, the so-called Klingelpütz . Together with Karl Zörgiebel, they were transferred to the Brauweiler concentration camp around August 20 . Before the "seizure of power", Bauknecht and Zörgiebel had intervened both against the street terror of the SA and against excesses on the communist side, so both sides accompanied them with bitter hostility. On the part of the National Socialists, they were considered to be "those who 'beat down' the 'National Socialist Freedom Movement' '." Other places of imprisonment were the Wittlich prison until April 1934 and the Lichtenburg concentration camp a year later .

On August 21, 1933 , a full-page article by the Essen journalist Herbert Koch appeared in the Essener Nationalzeitung , the local organ of the National Socialists. He had previously visited the Brauweiler concentration camp together with Kriminalrat Maslak, a member of the Political Department of the Essen Criminal Police. In his photo report, Koch mocked the political prisoners imprisoned in Brauweiler, referring to the Zörgiebel and Bauknecht who were not yet in Brauweiler at the time of the visit with the following words: “Unfortunately, we miss a small sensation to get to know this educational work on two people who are special Mr. Zörgiebel and Mr. Bauknecht, who are to be brought in two days after our visit to Brauweiler. To see these bigwigs and traitors standing at attention - we are not so peaceful that we cannot amuse ourselves heartily about it. "

With his release and the lifting of the professional ban, he took up a job in Stuttgart in 1936 in his learned profession, as a lithographer. Meanwhile, in Stuttgart Plieningen resident Bauknecht was on August 23, 1944 as protection prisoner in the Dachau concentration camp spent, from which he returned after a month on September 23 1944th At the end of the Third Reich and the Second World War , Bauknecht finally got involved again politically and in trade unions. Most recently he was district chairman in Stuttgart-Plieningen from 1946 to 1948.

In 1968 the city of Cologne honored both Otto Bauknecht and Karl Zörgiebel by naming a street in the Seeberg new settlement area , Bauknechtweg ( Lage ) and Zörgiebelstraße.

family

The Protestant Otto Bauknecht married Amalie Storz on June 12, 1902 in Stuttgart (born October 14, 1874 in Stuttgart; died November 25, 1942 in Neuss), the daughter of a master baker. The couple had two sons, the lawyer Otto and the doctor Paul.

Otto Bauknecht, the first-born son, was born on November 29, 1902 in Stuttgart. He studied in Bonn law and was on January 24, 1927 there also with the work The liability of the debtor for assistants in accordance with § 278 BGB with special reference to Art. 101 Switzerland. Law of Obligations for Dr. jur. PhD . Subsequently staying in Berlin during his legal clerkship , he was active within the social democratic movement before 1933, according to his wife Ida Bauknecht, who also had a doctorate in law. At the beginning of the 1930s, both were active as district judges. In 1939 Otto Bauknecht joined the NSDAP . His last promotion to district court director during the Nazi era was not without complications, but his professional qualifications probably helped him take the position. During the occupation of Luxembourg (1940 to 1944) by the German Reich , Bauknecht was employed as a judge at the special court established there . During criminal proceedings against the judges working at this court in Luxembourg in 1948/49, Bauknecht was awarded a 4-year prison sentence, which he did not serve. Rather, Bauknecht was offered the presidency of the Bad Kreuznach district court in Rhineland-Palatinate in 1956, which was established there on January 1, 1950 . On March 12, 1964, he was finally appointed President of the Judicial Examinations Office in Mainz, a position in which he was responsible for supervising the training of young lawyers and which he carried out until his retirement at the end of 1967.

The younger son Paul was born in Stuttgart on January 17, 1907, and after his parents moved to Cologne he attended elementary school in Sülz for four years and then the secondary schools in Lindenthal , Koblenz and Berlin-Schmargendorf . On February 25, 1927, he also passed the certificate of maturity on the latter and then, after the parents moved again, studied medicine at the University of Cologne until the preliminary medical examination was taken. He also completed the first clinical semester in Berlin before taking the others in Cologne. There Paul Bauknecht passed the medical state examination on February 23, 1933 and was awarded a Dr. med. On November 29, 1934 with the elaboration on Contribution to the effect of narcotics on the frog heart. med. PhD.

literature

• Bauknecht, Otto. In: Robert Volz: Reich manual of the German society . The handbook of personalities in words and pictures. Volume 1: A-K. Deutscher Wirtschaftsverlag, Berlin 1930, DNB 453960286 , p. 73.
• Harald Buhlan, Werner Jung (ed.): Whose friend and whose helper? The Cologne Police under National Socialism (= writings of the NS Documentation Center of the City of Cologne. Volume 7). Emons Verlag, Cologne 2000, ISBN 3-89705-200-8 .
• Hermann Daners, Josef Wißkirchen: The Werkanstalt Brauweiler near Cologne in National Socialist times (at the same time writings on the Brauweiler Memorial, Volume 2 and publisher. Landschaftsverband Rheinland : Rheinprovinz. Documents and representations on the history of the Rhenish provincial administration and the Landschaftsverband Rheinland. Volume 22). Klartext Verlag, Essen 2013, ISBN 978-3-8375-0971-7 , image: p. 128 fig. 45.
• Werner Jung: A smooth transition. The Cologne police leadership between the Prussian strike and the seizure of power In: Harald Buhlan, Werner Jung (ed.): Whose friend and whose helper? The Cologne Police under National Socialism (= writings of the NS Documentation Center of the City of Cologne. Volume 7). Emons Verlag, Cologne 2000, ISBN 3-89705-200-8 , pp. 64-144.
• Horst Matzerath : Cologne in the time of National Socialism 1933–1945. (= History of the City of Cologne. Volume 12). Greven Verlag, Cologne 2009, ISBN 978-3-7743-0429-1 (linen) or ISBN 978-3-7743-0430-7 (half leather), pp. 48 f, 54, 71 f.
• Horst Romeyk: Administrative and administrative history of the Rhine province 1914-1945 (= publications of the Society for Rhenish History. Volume 63). Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1985, ISBN 3-7700-7552-8 .
• Horst Romeyk: The leading state and municipal administrative officials of the Rhine Province 1816-1945 (= publications of the Society for Rhenish History. Volume 69). Droste, Düsseldorf 1994, ISBN 3-7700-7585-4 , p. 345.
• Ronald Smelser : Hitler's man on the “labor front”. Robert Ley. A biography. Schöningh, Paderborn 1989, ISBN 3-506-77481-6 .
• Robert Steimel: Cologne heads. Steimel-Verlag, Cologne-Zollstock 1958, column 45.
• Nicola Wenge: Integration and Exclusion in Urban Society. A Jewish-non-Jewish relationship history of Cologne 1918–1933 (= publications of the Institute for European History Mainz, Department for Universal History. Volume 226). Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 2005, ISBN 3-8053-3459-1 (also dissertation, University of Cologne, 2003)
• Josef Wißkirchen: Brauweiler near Cologne: Early concentration camp in the Provincial Labor Institution 1933–34 In: Jan Erik Schulte (Ed.): Concentration camps in the Rhineland and in Westphalia 1933–1945. Central control and regional initiative. Schöningh, Paderborn 2005, ISBN 3-506-71743-X , pp. 65–85, here: p. 72.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k} Horst Romeyk : The leading state and municipal administrative officials of the Rhine Province 1816–1945 (=  publications of the Society for Rhenish History . Volume 69 ). Droste, Düsseldorf 1994, ISBN 3-7700-7585-4 , p. 345 .
2. ^ Nicola Wenge: Integration and exclusion in urban society. A Jewish-non-Jewish relationship history in Cologne 1918–1933 , p. 419.
3. ↑ Horst Matzerath: Cologne in the time of National Socialism 1933-1945. (History of the City of Cologne, 12), Greven Verlag Cologne 2009, pp. 54, 127.
4. ^ Location information according to the Reich Manual.
5. ^ ^{A b c d e} Bauknecht, Otto In: Reich manual of the German society. The handbook of personalities in words and pictures .
6. ↑ Harald Buhlan, Werner Jung (ed.): Whose friend and whose helper? The Cologne Police in National Socialism Emons Verlag, Cologne 2000, ISBN 3-89705-200-8 , p. 69.
7. ^ Horst Romeyk: Administrative and administrative history of the Rhine province 1914-1945 (= publications of the Society for Rhenish History. LXIII), Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1985, ISBN 3-7700-7552-8 , p. 114 f.
8. ^ Horst Romeyk: Administrative and administrative history of the Rhine province 1914–1945 (= publications of the Society for Rhenish History. LXIII), Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1985, ISBN 3-7700-7552-8 , pp. 202–204.
9. ↑ Werner Jung: A smooth transition. The Cologne Police Leadership Between Preußenschlag and Seizure of Power, pp. 64–144, here p. 69 f.
10. ↑ Werner Jung: A smooth transition. The Cologne police leadership between Prussian strike and seizure of power , pp. 64–144, here p. 71.
11. ^ Günter Bers: A regional structure of the KPD. The Middle Rhine district and its party congresses in 1927/1929 Einhorn Presse Verlag, Reinbek 1981, ISBN 3-88756-021-3 , pp. 47 and 56, notes 6-11 a.
12. ↑ Werner Jung: A smooth transition. The Cologne Police Leadership Between Preußenschlag and Seizure of Power, pp. 64–144, here p. 72 f. and picture p. 73 Fig. 7.
13. ↑ Ronald Smelser: Hitler's Man on the “Labor Front”. Robert Ley. A biography , Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 1989, ISBN 3-506-77481-6 , p. 55 f.
14. ↑ Ronald Smelser: Hitler's Man on the “Labor Front”. Robert Ley. A biography , Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 1989, ISBN 3-506-77481-6 , p. 56.
15. ↑ Ronald Smelser: Hitler's Man on the “Labor Front”. Robert Ley. A biography , Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 1989, ISBN 3-506-77481-6 , p. 57.
16. ↑ Ronald Smelser: Hitler's Man on the “Labor Front”. Robert Ley. A biography , Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 1989, ISBN 3-506-77481-6 , p. 64 f.
17. ↑ Ronald Smelser: Hitler's Man on the “Labor Front”. Robert Ley. A biography , Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 1989, ISBN 3-506-77481-6 , p. 98.
18. ↑ Horst Matzerath: Cologne in the time of National Socialism 1933-1945. (= History of the City of Cologne, 12), Greven Verlag Cologne 2009, ISBN 978-3-7743-0429-1 (linen) or ISBN 978-3-7743-0430-7 (half leather), p. 48 f.
19. ↑ Werner Jung: A smooth transition. The Cologne Police Leadership between Preußenschlag and seizure of power , pp. 64–144, here p. 75 f.
20. ↑ ^{a b} Werner Jung: A smooth transition. The Cologne Police Leadership Between Prussian Strike and Seizure of Power, pp. 64–144, here p. 76.
21. ↑ Werner Jung: A smooth transition. The Cologne Police Leadership Between Prussian Strike and Seizure of Power, pp. 64–144, here p. 76.
22. ↑ Report from Wilhelm Sollmann to the party executive of the SPD on his mistreatment by SS and SA people in Cologne in 1933 in : News Office of the City of Cologne (ed.): Wilhelm Sollmannn I (Kölner Biographien 16), Cologne 1981, p. 92– 95, here p. 95.
23. ^ ^{A b} Hermann Daners, Josef Wißkirchen: The Brauweiler Laboratory near Cologne in National Socialist times , p. 127.
24. ↑ Gerhard Schulze (edit.): The protocols of the Prussian State Ministry 1817–1934 / 38. Vol. 11 / II. In: Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences (Hrsg.): Acta Borussica . New episode. Olms-Weidmann, Hildesheim 2002, ISBN 3-487-11663-4 , p. 531 f. ( Online ).
25. ^ Josef Wißkirchen: The Brauweiler Concentration Camp 1933/34 ( Pulheim Contributions to History and Local History , Volume 13), Pulheim 1989, ISBN 3-927765-04-X , p. 165 f.
26. ↑ Herbert Koch: This is how a concentration camp looks reproduced in: Josef Wißkirchen: The Brauweiler concentration camp 1933/34 ( Pulheimer contributions to history and local history , Volume 13), Pulheim 1989, ISBN 3-927765-04-X , pp. 166–169 , here p. 169.
27. ^ Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site.
28. ^ Rüdiger Schünemann-Steffen: Kölner Strasseennamen-Lexikon Selbstverlag, 3rd edition, Cologne 2016, Volume 1, p. 93.
29. ↑ Rüdiger Schünemann-Steffen: Kölner Strasseennamen-Lexikon Selbstverlag, 3rd edition, Cologne 2016, Volume 1, p. 853.
30. ^ Braunbuch , special edition Edition Berolina, Berlin 2012, p. 148.
31. ^ Address book Cologne, 1931, Part I, p. 42.
32. ^ Matthias Herbers: Organization in the war. The judicial administration in the higher regional court district of Cologne 1939–1945 ( Contributions to the legal history of the 20th century , 71), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2012, ISBN 978-3-16-151887-4 , pp. 105 f u. Note 70.
33. ^ Matthias Herbers: Organization in the war. The judicial administration in the higher regional court district of Cologne 1939–1945 , p. 24 u. Note 132.
34. ↑ ^{a b} Braunbuch, special edition Edition Berolina, Berlin 2012, p. 117.
35. ↑ Pfälzer Heimat , Vol. 15-17, 1964, p. 77.
36. ^ Paul Bauknecht, Dissertation, Cologne 1935, p. 37 (curriculum vitae).