Otto Bender (politician, 1897)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Otto Bender

Otto Bender (born December 17, 1897 in Eichtersheim ; † May 27, 1988 ) was a German politician ( NSDAP ). He was NSDAP district leader in the Wiesloch district , from 1933 to 1945 mayor of the city of Wiesloch, belonged to the state parliament of the Republic of Baden from 1933 until its dissolution and was appointed head of civil administration in Bischheim in 1940 .

Life

Bender was a farmer and a member of the Badischer Landbund . He joined the NSDAP early on and had membership number 32,387. In 1926 he was the founder of the NSDAP local group in Eichtersheim , in 1928 he became district leader and later district leader in the Wiesloch district. In 1933 he became mayor of Wiesloch by forcing his predecessor Albert Groeppler out of office because of his Jewish wife. After the elections of March 1933, he was a member of the Baden state parliament until it was dissolved. From 1936 he headed the Baden agricultural cooperatives, from 1941 also the Alsatian one . From 1940 on he was also head of the civil administration in Bischheim near Strasbourg . In total, he held 16 positions on the supervisory board. From 1941 he was represented in Wiesloch by his deputy, the NSDAP local group leader Hermann Stöckinger. From 1944 he was voluntary in the Wehrmacht until the end of the war. In 1934 he was awarded the NSDAP's Golden Decoration of Honor and later with various other party badges.

After the Second World War , as part of the denazification process , Bender was initially classified as the main victim and, because of the occupational restrictions, hired himself out as an unskilled worker at Rhein-Neckar-Baustoff AG in Mannheim . In 1949 he was in the revision process downgraded in the II. Group of incriminated. In 1951 he asked the Prime Minister of Württemberg-Baden , Reinhold Maier , in vain for further mitigation. It was not until 1959 that Prime Minister Gebhard Müller finally included him in the group of followers for mercy. After the pardon , a protracted legal dispute with the city of Wiesloch followed because of Bender's retirement pension. His predecessor Groeppler wrote a letter of discharge, but the city still saw it as proven that Bender had pushed the more highly qualified Groeppler out of office. Bender, who felt no sense of wrongdoing and mostly portrayed himself as an exemplary and conscientious, but ultimately passive, tool of the Nazi rulers, admitted the accusation against him only indirectly in a manuscript on the history of Wiesloch in 1975.

literature

  • Markus Rupp: Stages on the way to power 1925–1935. The National Socialist takeover and conformity in the Baden district towns of Wiesloch and Bretten. A comparison , master's thesis University of Mannheim, Mannheim 1991, pp. 162–163.
  • Peter Gleber: "Resistance fighters" and "appropriate public servants". Denazification of Nazi mayors in the former Wiesloch district with special consideration of the communities of Baiertal, Schatthausen and Wiesloch , in: Wiesloch - Contributions to History , Volume 2, Ubstadt-Weiher 2001, pp. 305-324.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gleber 2001, p. 313.
  2. ↑ a b Gleber 2001, p. 315.
  3. ↑ Gleber 2001, p. 314.
  4. ↑ Gleber 2001, p. 322
  5. ↑ Otto Bender: Chronicle of the City of Wiesloch - Wiesloch in the period 1933–1945 , manuscript 1975, Wiesloch City Archives A 6849.
personal data
SURNAME Bender, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (NSDAP), NSDAP district leader in the Wiesloch district, mayor of Wiesloch
DATE OF BIRTH December 17, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH Eichtersheim
DATE OF DEATH May 27, 1988