Otto Wagener

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Otto Wagener

Otto Wilhelm Heinrich Wagener (born April 29, 1888 in Durlach ; † August 9, 1971 in Chieming ) was German major general , member of the Reichstag (November 1933 to 1938) and Adolf Hitler's economic advisor .

First World War

Wagener was the son of an industrialist and owner of a sewing machine factory. He graduated from high school in Karlsruhe at the beginning of July 1906 and then attended the local cadet school . Then he joined the infantry regiment "Margrave Ludwig Wilhelm" (3rd Badisches) No. 111 of the Prussian Army . After successfully attending war school , he was promoted to lieutenant with a patent on May 22, 1906 . Wagener became adjutant of the 1st Battalion and in 1914 he was assigned to the War Academy . In July 1914 he learned the basics of aircraft observation in a course at the Döberitz Army School . When the First World War broke out , Wagener took part with the Reserve Infantry Regiment No. 55, initially in the fighting in Belgium and later in France. After being promoted to first lieutenant in November 1914, he was employed as adjutant and company commander. As a captain , he led a battalion of the Reserve Infantry Regiment No. 3 from December 1915. In the Stein Army Group , he served in the staff from June 1916, then in the same position in various units. In May 1918 he had to face a court of honor, which decided his dismissal without special recognition.

Weimar Republic

He then joined a volunteer corps on the Polish border in 1919 . In the middle of 1919 he went to the Baltic States and became Chief of the General Staff of the German Legion , which was set up in Mitau on August 25, 1919 and was under the command of Captain Sievert. When this fell the following November, Wagener took command. During the fighting for Kekkau he was seriously wounded by a shot in the leg while working at the front.

After the Baltic region had been cleared, Wagener joined the Freikorps in Upper Silesia , in the Ruhr area and, until February 1922, in Saxony . He also took part in the Kapp Putsch in 1920 , whereupon he was imprisoned in Karlsruhe.

Wagener had started studying economics. After a short course of study, he accepted a position as assistant manager at a factory for pumps and valves. In 1920 he joined his father's company, the “Karlsruhe sewing machine factory”. Soon he became director and board member. To this end, he was appointed to the supervisory boards of several medium-sized companies.

Politically, he remained on the side of the right. From 1920 to 1921 he headed the Baden department of the Escherich Organization until it was banned by the Reich government .

In 1925 Wagner left the sewing machine factory. He went into trade and became a partner in a plywood and veneer business. In 1929 he received an invitation to the NSDAP party congress .

Academic studies and SA member

He also worked from 1922 to 1924 at the TH Karlsruhe and the University of Würzburg , where he held lectures on social and economic policy as part of commercial college courses. In 1923 he became a member of the SA . The University of Würzburg awarded him the honorary doctorate of Dr. phil. hc in 1924. He spent the years 1924 and 1925 with lectures and trips abroad. From October 1, 1929 to December 31, 1930 he was Chief of Staff at Obersten SA-Führer (OSAF) Franz Pfeffer von Salomon .

Career in the NSDAP

After Wagener made first contacts with the NSDAP in July and August 1929, he joined the party on October 1, 1929 ( membership number 159.203) and was a member of the Reich leadership of the NSDAP until July 13, 1933 . From October 1929 to December 31, 1930 he was also Chief of Staff of the SA, and from the end of August 1930 to December 31, 1930, Supreme SA Leader (OSAF). From the beginning of January 1931 to June 1932 he headed the economic policy department of the NSDAP in Reich Organization Department II of the NSDAP . In propaganda for Nazi economic policy, he worked as the editor of the economic policy letters and founded the economic policy press service .

After being promoted to SA group leader in December 1931, Wagener headed Department IV for economic policy at the Reich leadership of the NSDAP from June 1932 to early September 1932. He then served Adolf Hitler until April 1933 as a "consultant for special use".

If the living space of the German people is not sufficient, National Socialism will not shrink from creating new space, even if it is by force.

Wagener supported the " Kampfbund für dem industrial Mittelstand ", which demanded the immediate communalization of the large department stores and their leasing at cheap prices to small businesses in accordance with the party program of the NSDAP. On March 18, 1933, the trade tax for department stores was doubled; on March 21, Wagener forced the resignation of the presidium of the "Association of German Department Stores". Its economic policy objectives were the priority of retail and craft and the protection of the middle class from industrial competition.

At the beginning of April 1933 Wagener took over the management of the "Main Economic Policy Office of the NSDAP". On April 1, 1933, Wagener occupied the headquarters of the Reich Association of German Industry (RDI) with an SA troop . Under threat of violence, Wagener forced the resignation of Ludwig Kastl , the managing director of the RDI, and the removal of the deputy chairman of the association, Paul Silverberg , who was of Jewish origin. The remaining management had to take a "pledge of absolute loyalty" and was then formally allowed to retain their offices. The German national economics minister Alfred Hugenberg , who was still in office at the time, had to come to terms with Wagener's approach and subsequently legitimized the coordination of the RDI by appointing Wagener and a DNVP member as "Reich Commissioners for the Economy". From April to July 1933 he was the government commissioner for the management of the RDI.

Otto Wagener was seen by his supporters as the future Reich Minister of Economics from May 1933. When Alfred Hugenberg resigned on June 26, 1933, Wagener called on numerous supporters to intervene in his favor. Shortly before the hoped-for appointment, Hermann Göring revealed the extent to which Wagener had stirred up his supporters in order to exert pressure on the Fiihrer by means of many intercepted telephone calls. The career leap failed because Wagener fell out of favor with Hitler. Hitler, who had actually wanted to offer him the appointment of "State Secretary in the Ministry of Economics", accused him of his behavior as an intrigue to obtain the post of Minister of Economics. Some of Wagener's employees who were involved in the matter were then arrested. Wagener himself passed an arrest, but then lost his political influence with Hitler. Joseph Goebbels noted in his diary on June 29, 1933:

“With Hitler. Thick air. Wagner [sic! correct: Wagener] sent telegrams to the boss. Want to be Minister of Economics. Boss angry. ... [illegible] against the ... [illegible]. Wagner's [sic!] Stupid face. [...] Economy Schmidt [sic! right Schmitt] Good. The whole situation was discussed. "

Otto Wagener had to give up his function as Reich Commissioner for the Economy , which he had exercised since April 24, 1933, on June 30, 1933, possibly also due to an intervention by the more planned economy-oriented new Reich Minister of Economics, Kurt Schmitt . Schmitt revoked Wagener's title of Reich Commissioner and declared all of his measures to be invalid.

Wagener was interned in the course of the Röhm affair ; allegedly he only escaped his intended shooting by accident. He then retired to his father- in -law's stud in the Ore Mountains .

Second World War

Wagener on May 8, 1945 at the handover of the Dodecanese in Symi (first from left)

Since he had meanwhile lost all previous offices, he rejoined the SA in 1937 with a new application. b. V. classified. At the beginning of the war, Wagener served as a captain and orderly officer at Army High Command 6 from April 1, 1940 . From May 12 to the end of August 1940 he was in command of the Army General Staff as an assistant to the First General Staff Officer (Ia) and was then appointed Ia of the 232nd Infantry Division . In this position, Wagener rose to major on March 15, 1941, and to lieutenant colonel on June 1, 1942 . In January 1943 he was appointed commander of the 117 Security Regiment and on August 1, 1943 he was promoted to colonel . From February 12 to May 6, 1944 Wagener was entrusted with the management of a security division.

Command in Rhodes

From July 20 to the end of 1944 he was appointed Commander East Aegean and Military Governor of the Dodecanese archipelago within the framework of the Marita company . On December 1, 1944, he was promoted to major general. He was in command of units with a total crew strength of 6,000, including the Penal Division 999 (officially euphemistically referred to as Probation Unit 999 ). When he was trapped by the British fleet on the island of Rhodes , he declared the island a besieged fortress. He also had the Kallithea concentration camp and internment camp built in the village of Kallithea . Under his command in 1820 Jews were deported and Italian prisoners of war shot.

Captivity, condemnation and use of Adenauer

He was in British captivity until January 1947; in January 1947 he was extradited to Italy. An Italian court martial sentenced him to 15 years in prison on October 18, 1948 for the crimes against Italian prisoners of war. Eyewitnesses testified during the negotiations that there had been mistreatment and shootings in Rhodes under Wagener. The magazine Der Spiegel reported in an article on February 14, 1951 about the situation at the time: In March and April 1945, 1,300 death sentences were carried out [...] Even the theft of a cabbage or a thoughtless critical statement cost one's life .

In 1951, Bishop took Alois Hudal with Chancellor Konrad Adenauer a Bittstellung that Adenauer and others for the release Wagener Reich German officers should use. Wagener was released from prison on June 4, 1951.

In 1946 Wagener wrote down his memoirs under the title Hitler from close quarters , also about the early history of the NSDAP; they were published in 1978 by the historian Henry Ashby Turner .

Awards

Fonts

  • Outlawed by the homeland . Belser, Stuttgart 1920.
  • Basics and goals of the National Socialist economic policy . Rather , Munich 1932
  • National Socialist economic concept and professional structure . Wirtschaftspolitischer Verlag, Berlin 1933.

literature

  • Ernst Klee : Personal Lexicon for the Third Reich . Frankfurt 2003.
  • Ernst Klee: Persil notes and false passports. How the churches helped the Nazis . Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt 1992, ISBN 3-596-10956-6 .
  • Herrmann AL Degener : Who is who? Berlin 1935.
  • Joachim Lilla : extras in uniform . Düsseldorf 2004.
  • Daniela Kahn: The control of the economy by law in National Socialist Germany . Frankfurt 2006.
  • Henry Ashby Turner : Otto Wagener: Hitler's forgotten confidante . In: R. Smelser et al .: The brown elite II . Darmstadt 1993.
  • Henry Ashby Turner (Ed.): Hitler at close range. Confidante's Notes 1929-1932 . Ullstein, Berlin 1978, ISBN 3-550-07351-8 . With an introduction and comments by Turner.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Henry Ashby Turner (ed.): Hitler at close range. A confidante's notes 1929–1932 . Ullstein, Berlin 1978, ISBN 3-550-07351-8 , p. II f.
  2. ↑ Wagener's indirect citation. Source: Dirk Stegmann: Central Europe 1925 to 1934. On the problem of the continuity of German foreign trade policy from Stresemann to Hitler. In: Bernd-Jürgen Wendt (ed.): Industrial society and political system. Bonn 1978, p. 218.
  3. ↑ Heinz Höhne : The time of illusions. Hitler and the Beginnings of the Third Reich 1933–1936 . Econ, Düsseldorf 1991, ISBN 3-430-14760-3 , pp. 81-99.
  4. ^ Henry Ashby Turner Jr.: Otto Wagener: The forgotten confidante of Hitler. P. 250f.
  5. ↑ Heinz Höhne: The time of illusions . P. 116.
  6. ↑ Ralf Georg Reuth (Ed.): Joseph Goebbels Diaries. Munich 1992, ISBN 3-492-21412-6 , Volume 2: 1930-1934, p. 818. (Entry from June 29, 1933)
  7. ↑ Ernst Klee: Personal Lexicon for the Third Reich . Frankfurt 2003, p. 649.
  8. ↑ Reinhard Stumpf : The Wehrmacht Elite. Structure of rank and origin of the German generals and admirals 1933–1945. (Military history studies). Harald Boldt Verlag, Boppard am Rhein 1982, ISBN 3-7646-1815-9 , p. 91.

Web links
personal data
SURNAME Wagener, Otto
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wagener, Otto Wilhelm Heinrich (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German major general and politician (NSDAP), MdR
DATE OF BIRTH April 29, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Durlach
DATE OF DEATH August 9, 1971
Place of death Chieming