Otto Bernhard

Otto Heinrich Bernhard (born June 22, 1880 in Heiligenstadt , † September 20, 1952 in Bremen ) was an engineer, Bremen businessman, politician ( NSDAP and SRP ), member of the Bremen citizenship and senator .

biography

Family, education and work

Bernhard was the son of a tobacco manufacturer in Bremen. He attended the school in Heiligenstadt from 1896 to 1890 and then until 1898 the high school in Weißenfels . He trained as an electrician and then studied at the Technical University of Darmstadt . He then worked for several technical companies in France and the USA , among others , and was interned in the British during the First World War from 1914 to 1918. In 1920 he worked in an American and from 1921 in a Bremen tobacco company. In 1924 he became a partner of the tobacco company Ankersmit & Co and Gerd Heinrich Clausen & Co .

Bernhard, together with the businesspeople Otto Schurig and Ludwig Roselius, played a key role in founding Focke-Wulf-Flugzeugbau AG . In 1926 he became consul of Siam . He was a Freemason and in the Rotary Club .

politics

The conservative Bernhard became a member of the NSDAP in 1930 . He was a member of Bremen's citizenship from 1930 to 1933 . On January 18, 1931 he was elected President of the Citizenship; he resigned after two months because he was unable to control the insubordinate tone of his NSDAP MPs. In 1932 he became chairman of the Nazi party parliamentary group. In May 1932, NSDAP Gauleiter Carl Röver appointed him local group and district leader of the party in Bremen.

When the bourgeois senate of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen was overthrown on March 18, 1933, Bernhard was involved; his role seemed dubious (see main article Bremen at the time of National Socialism ). He became economics senator on March 18, 1933, but lost his position as NSDAP district leader. Despite considerable differences within his party, he remained - a relatively powerless figurehead - a senator until 1945. He was in the SA , last Oberführer honorary. He also held many other offices (including the Bremen Tourist Office) and honorary posts during the Nazi era . In the Second World War he was powerless military economic leader from 1941 , who took over the chairmanship of the supervisory board of Focke-Wulf in January 1945 . He was a vicarious agent for the National Socialists, but is said to have had contacts with the conservative resistance groups around Goerdeler .

Bernhard was interned from 1945 to 1948 and was classified as a follower in the denazification process . In 1951 he ran for the National Socialist - later banned - Socialist Reich Party . Despite being elected to the citizenry, he was unable to exercise his mandate for health reasons. He also had great economic difficulties with his tobacco company.

Since 1945 he was married to Marieluise von Luttitz . The marriage had two children.

literature

• Herbert Black Forest : Bernhard, Otto Heinrich Christoph. In: Historical Society Bremen, State Archive Bremen (Hrsg.): Bremische Biographie 1912-1962. Hauschild, Bremen 1969, p. 35 (column 2) to p. 37 (column 2).
• Herbert Black Forest : The Great Bremen Lexicon . 2nd, updated, revised and expanded edition. Edition Temmen, Bremen 2003, ISBN 3-86108-693-X .
• Bremische Bürgerschaft (Hrsg.), Karl-Ludwig Sommer: The Nazi past of former members of the Bremische Bürgerschaft. Project study and scientific colloquium (= small writings of the Bremen State Archives. Issue 50). State Archive Bremen, Bremen 2014, ISBN 978-3-925729-72-0 .
• Robert Volz: Reich manual of the German society . The handbook of personalities in words and pictures. Volume 1: A-K. German business publisher, Berlin 1930, DNB 453960286 .
• Genealogical manual of the nobility . CA Starke , 1978, p. 221.