Ottomar Otto

Ottomar Otto (born February 26, 1892 in Zwickau , † May 3, 1945 in Passau ) was a German criminal inspector and, as SS-Sturmbannführer, head of the Nuremberg State Police Headquarters (by decree of April 13, 1943).

Life

Studies, World War I and Reichswehr

As the son of a university professor, Otto attended elementary school and a humanistic grammar school. In the infantry he served voluntarily for a certain time. In 1910 he began to study law. With the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 he became a soldier and in 1918 he left the army as first lieutenant in the reserve.

After that Otto resumed his studies, but did not finish. When the Munich Soviet Republic came into being, he took part in the fighting against the insurgents. In June 1919 he was taken over by the Reichswehr as a court officer. When the Reichswehr was reduced to 100,000 men, he was still able to serve the Reichswehr on the basis of a service contract. As an intelligence officer, he headed the political intelligence service for the Northern Bavaria region.

From 1921 Otto had contacts with the then State Commissioner Heinrich Gareis , who was entrusted with the same tasks, in the field of combating communism, Marxism and separatism . He became a member of the Nuremberg Police Directorate in November 1923. In this position, too, he became head of the political intelligence service for Northern Bavaria. After the Nazi seizure of power, he headed the subdivision for combating communism and Marxism. Otto became a member of the NSDAP on May 1, 1933 ( membership number 2.614.120).

The murder of Oskar Konrad Pflaumer

Starting in the summer of 1933, Otto organized as chief criminal secretary before the Nazi party rally with the help of the SA staff guard of the SA group Franconia and the SA storm z. b. V. (for special use) a wave of arrests. The SA storm z. b. V. arrested the 29-year-old Oskar Pflaumer on August 16, 1933 under the command of the 24-year-old SA-Sturmbannführer Eugen Korn and his 34-year-old deputy SA-Scharführer Hans Stark and took him to the guard, who was at the Samaritan Guard Hall place 4 was located.

The following night, Pflaumer died at the main police station. When the District Court Judge Hans Teicher had the body opened on August 18, 1933, the forensic doctor found severe abuse, which had been carried out in the most cruel, painful manner with blunt objects . Wounds from the application of a bastinado were also detected. The responsible examining magistrate refused to arrest the accused because there were doubts as to whether they were the main perpetrators. In addition, there is no risk of escape or blackout.

The head of the political police in Nuremberg, Benno Martin , also refused to allow the accused SA men to testify, as they were essential to ensure the security of the Nazi party rally. Even when Justice Minister Hans Frank wanted to discuss the case in the Bavarian Council of Ministers, he could not get his way. The instances of justice, district leadership, the police and the SA leader in Franconia, Hanns Günther von Obernitz, worked together so that this murder could not be tried. The Reich governor in Bavaria, Franz von Epp , finally ordered the proceedings to be discontinued on June 27, 1934.

SS and ascent

In 1935 Otto joined the SS (SS no.250.065). After being promoted to the Kriminalrat in 1938, he took over the position of Deputy Head of the State Police Office (Stapo) in Nuremberg in 1940 after Georg Kiessel was called up for military service. In November of the same year he was promoted to SS-Obersturmführer, from April 1939 to SS-Hauptsturmführer. Finally, in November 1941, he was awarded the rank of SS Sturmbannführer. In 1942 he was promoted to detective director.

Langenzenn prison for foreigners

The Langenzenn Aliens Gestapo Camp (AGL) was established in the west of Nuremberg, where the railway line runs between Nuremberg and Würzburg , after the police prison was destroyed by air raids between 1942 and 1943 . The responsibility of the guard was subordinate to the commander of the protection police Otto Kuschow . The barracks for foreigners were also subordinate to the Nuremberg Stapo. In this function Otto also worked for the segregation of Soviet prisoners of war. When more and more horribly battered foreigners were admitted to the nursing department of the Nuremberg police, Kuschow turned on the chief medical officer Anton Wegner. Wegner taught Benno Martin, who in turn informed the IdS Erich Naumann .

In 1943 Otto was first appointed acting head, then head of the Nuremberg State Police Headquarters. From his staff, Naumann commissioned the investigating officer and court officer for military districts VII and XIII with the further investigations. However, Martin wanted to wait for Münch and had SS-Unterscharführer Konrad Beetz, who was in charge as camp leader, arrested. Otto was removed from his office by him. However, Martin had exceeded his competencies. The deputy head of the main office of the SS court Günther Reinecke handed the investigation into the accusations against Otto to the main office of the SS court zbV in Munich.

Münch did not come to Nuremberg until September 1944. The investigation into the incidents, which also affected Soviet prisoners of war, dragged on until November 1944. No charges were brought against Otto before the end of the Nazi regime. Both Münch and the SS examining magistrate Gerhard Wiebeck stiffened the impression that Martin was withdrawing more and more from the further investigation into the Otto case. Grieser suspected that Otto had knowledge of Martin from his time as a political intelligence officer before 1933 that could have harmed Martin in the Nazi regime.

literature

• Utho Grieser: Himmler's husband in Nuremberg. The Benno Martin case. A study on the structure of the 3rd Reich in the "City of the Nazi Party Rallies". (= Nuremberg work pieces on city and state history. Volume 13) Nuremberg city archive, Nuremberg 1974, ISBN 3-87432-025-1 .
• Klaus Drobisch , Günther Wieland : System of Nazi concentration camps. 1933-1939. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-05-000823-7 .
• Reinhard Otto: Wehrmacht, Gestapo and Soviet prisoners of war in German Reich territory in 1941/42. (= Series of quarterly books for contemporary history , Volume 77) Oldenbourg, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-486-64577-3 .

Web links

• Hearing in Nuremberg on August 15, 1946 on the case of Oskar Pflaumer
• Reference to the foreigner Gestapo camp Langenzenn ( MS Word ; 64 kB; accessed September 2011)