Otto Hofmann (SS member)

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Otto Hofmann (born March 16, 1896 in Innsbruck , Tyrol , Austria-Hungary , † December 31, 1982 in Bad Mergentheim ) was a German SS-Obergruppenführer , general of the Waffen-SS and general of the police . He was also from 1941 to 1943 head of the SS - Race and Settlement Office and participated in the Wannsee Conference in part.

Life

youth

Otto was the son of the businessman Adam Hofmann and his wife Hermine, née Rosmanith. In his youth he attended elementary school and then a grammar school in Munich . In between he was given lessons in his step-grandfather's house.

First World War

After the outbreak of World War I , he volunteered and on August 23, 1914 , he joined the 9th Field Artillery Regiment of the Bavarian Army in Landsberg am Lech . In January 1915 Hofmann came to the front with the Reserve Field Artillery Regiment 8. In March 1917 he was promoted to lieutenant and at about the same time assigned to an Austrian aviation company as a liaison officer. Shortly afterwards, in June 1917, he was shot down by a Russian fighter plane. As a result, he fell into Russian captivity , from which he was able to escape after five weeks. After his return to Germany he was trained as a pilot.

Weimar Republic

In March 1919 Hofmann was released from military service. From April to September 1919 he was then a member of the Axthelm Volkswehr battery in the Bavarian East Markets border guard. During the war, Hofmann married the daughter of the wine wholesaler Carl Giessing on July 16, 1918 in Nuremberg. The marriage was divorced again in 1925. From 1920 to 1925 he worked for the Giessing wholesale company in Nuremberg, most recently as an authorized signatory. In 1925 he went into business for himself and took over the representation of larger wine companies in the wine-growing regions at home and abroad. He married again on January 6, 1927.

In the post-war period, Hofmann became politically active in circles of the extreme political right: In April 1923 he joined the NSDAP for the first time . On August 1, 1929, he finally joined the NSDAP, which was newly founded in 1925 ( membership number 145.729). On April 1, 1931, he also became a member of the SS (SS No. 7.646).

In the SS, Hofmann acted as leader of the motorized squadron of the 3rd SS standard from December 21, 1931. On September 9, 1932, he then took over the business of Motor-Oberstaffelführer of SS Section IX.

time of the nationalsocialism

Hofmann speaks to men of the Dutch SS , the Waffen SS and leaders of the labor service . Holland, July 1942

Shortly after the National Socialists came to power in the spring of 1933, Hofmann became a full-time SS leader. As a result, he held a number of leading functionary posts in the SS: On May 11, 1933, Hofmann was appointed SS leader z. b. V. of the SS group south. Soon afterwards, on October 26, 1933, he was given the task of taking over the business of Staff Leader of the SS Group Northwest. On January 20, 1934, he was officially appointed Staff Leader of the SS Upper Section Northwest. On March 9, 1934, he was appointed leader of the 21st SS standard, before he was appointed leader of the 28th SS standard on March 28, 1935. A little later, on May 25, 1935, Hofmann was entrusted with the management of SS Section XV (Hamburg). On December 17, 1936, he was appointed leader in the Race and Settlement Main Office. In March 1933 he had also run unsuccessfully in the Reichstag election.

On January 12, 1939, Hofmann was appointed head of the clan office to the SS leader in the staff of the race and settlement main office. On December 16, 1939, in addition to his function as head of the clan office, he was entrusted with maintaining the business of the head of the race and settlement main office. Also in 1939 Hofmann had become co-editor of the journal Der Biologe , which had recently been taken over by the SS-Ahnenerbe .

Following his appointment as head of the Race and Settlement Main Office of the SS on July 9, 1940, he was in charge of this institution until April 20, 1943. In this function he was involved in a leading position in the implementation of the Germanization policy on the territory of Poland and the Soviet Union : He was responsible for organizing “race tests”, as a result of which residents of the occupied territories were expelled from their land and Germans were resettled there , for the deportation of Polish children to Germany and for the "SS clan care". As a participant in the Wannsee Conference of January 20, 1942, which the so-called final solution of the Jewish question , d. H. the regulation of the deportation and killing of all Jews under the rule of the National Socialists included, Hofmann also called for the sterilization of " half-breeds " with "Jewish blood".

In April 1943, Hofmann became the leader of the SS Upper Section Southwest and at the same time Higher SS and Police Leader in Württemberg , Baden and Alsace . In addition, he took over the function of commander of the prisoners of war residing there in Wehrkreis V. In his capacity as Higher SS and Police Leader, he handed over, as he admitted after the war, Eastern workers who had forbidden sexual intercourse with Germans to the Reich Governor of Württemberg. According to his estimates, these were "15 to 25 cases" that were then hanged or transferred to a concentration camp.

post war period

Otto Hofmann as a defendant in the Nuremberg Trials (around 1947)

At the end of the Second World War , Hofmann was taken prisoner by the Allies. After a long internment, he was indicted as one of the main defendants in the trial against the Race and Settlement Main Office and sentenced in March 1948 to 25 years in prison for crimes against humanity and war crimes .

The criminal activities in the context of the Germanization policy, for which he has been proven responsible, include kidnapping foreign children, forced abortions on Eastern workers , the removal of children of Eastern workers, illegal and unjust punishment of foreigners for sexual intercourse with Germans, and hindrance to the reproduction of relatives of enemy states, forced evacuation and resettlement of foreign population groups, forced Germanization of members of enemy states, use of members of enemy states for slave labor. Only the guilt for the looting of private and public property could not be proven.

On April 7, 1954, he was pardoned and out of the prison Landsberg dismissed. Then he was a commercial clerk in Württemberg.

Awards

literature

  • Ruth Bettina Birn : The Higher SS and Police Leaders. Himmler's representative in the Reich and in the occupied territories. Droste publishing house. Düsseldorf 1986.
  • Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Fisherman. Frankfurt am Main 2007.

Web links

Commons : Otto Hofmann  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hofmann testimonies (PDF; 7.8 MB) p. 65.
  2. ↑ a b Ernst Klee: The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. 2005. p. 266.
  3. ↑ IFZ Zeugenschrifttum Otto Hofmann, p. 60 (online p. 62): affidavit dated September 9, 1947 (PDF; 7.8 MB).
  4. ↑ NUERNBERG MILITARY TRIBUNAL: Volume V · Page 160.
personal data
SURNAME Hofmann, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German police officer, head of the SS Race and Settlement Main Office during the Nazi era
DATE OF BIRTH March 16, 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH Innsbruck , Tyrol , Austria-Hungary
DATE OF DEATH December 31, 1982
Place of death Bad Mergentheim