Personnel review committee

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In connection with the establishment of the Bundeswehr, the Personnel Appraisal Committee examined all applicants for officer positions from colonels upwards in a secret process for their personal and political suitability in order to propose them to the Ministry of Defense for employment. He also developed guidelines for testing the personal suitability of soldiers from Lieutenant Colonel - including - downwards.

This concerned both those former professional soldiers who were supposed to be re-used according to the law regulating the legal relationships of persons falling under Article 131 of the Basic Law and the soldiers recruited according to the Volunteer Act.

The personnel appraisal committee was appointed by law of July 23, 1955 as a committee independent of instructions. The committee was first convened in Bonn on July 27, 1955. The committee was active until November 1957, but was only dissolved by the law of September 4, 1967.

The provision on the personnel appraisal committee in Section 67 of the Soldiers Act in its original version of March 19, 1956 was deleted when the new version of the Soldiers Act of April 22, 1969 was announced.

Legal text

§ 1

(1) The personnel appraisal committee has the task of 1. examining soldiers who are intended for recruitment with the rank of colonel upwards for their personal suitability, 2. proposing guidelines according to which the personal suitability of the other soldiers is examined. (2) As long as the Personnel Appraisal Committee has not confirmed the suitability of an applicant according to Paragraph 1 No. 1, the applicant may not be hired.

§ 2

The personnel appraisal committee consists of 30 to 40 members. They are appointed by the Federal President on the proposal of the Federal Government. The proposal of the Federal Government requires confirmation by the German Bundestag; there is no debate.

§ 3

(1) The Personnel Appraisal Committee and its members are not bound by instructions. (2) The Personnel Appraisers Committee issues rules of procedure. (3) The Personnel Appraisal Committee must be presented with all personnel documents relating to those mentioned in Section 1, Paragraph 1, No. 1. He has the right to inform himself directly. All departments have to provide the Personnel Appraisers Committee with administrative assistance free of charge and, upon request, to provide it with information and to submit files insofar as this is necessary for the performance of its tasks. (4) The members of the Personnel Appraisal Committee are obliged to maintain secrecy about matters that have come to their attention in their work.

§ 4

The law comes into force on the day after its promulgation.

Members of the staff appraisal committee

The members of the committee were proposed by the Federal Government , selected by the Bundestag and appointed by the Federal President . The committee was not bound by instructions, issued its own rules of procedure and independently defined the "basic guidelines for the assessment and selection of former officers". Refusals did not require a justification and there was no possibility of appeal against a decision. There were a few general reasons for rejection. Generals and colonels of the Waffen SS and members of the former National Committee Free Germany were not allowed to be employed.

Members of this body were 25 men and women from the civilian sector from different political directions and social institutions as well as 13 former professional soldiers of the Wehrmacht who were not intended to be reactivated themselves. The chairman was Wilhelm Rombach .

The members of the personnel appraisal committee
  • Christoph von Auer (* 1887), Colonel a. D., Deputy District Administrator in Kemnath
  • Henry Bernhard (1896–1960), consul and co-editor and editor-in-chief of the Stuttgarter Nachrichten
  • Otto Bleibtreu (1904–1959), lawyer, administrative officer and politician, State Secretary in the Ministry of Justice of North Rhine-Westphalia
  • Georg Bögl (* 1892), Major dRa D., Ministerialdirigent in the Bavarian Ministry of Education
  • Philipp Freiherr von Boeselager (1917–2008), forest association functionary, professional officer of the Wehrmacht and resistance fighter of July 20, 1944
  • Kurt Brennecke (1891–1982), retired infantry general D., Commanding General of the XXXXIII. Army Corps in World War II
  • Lothar Danner (1891–1960), retired police officer D. and politicians of the SPD
  • Elmar Doch (1910–1971), senior magistrate a. D., Lord Mayor of Ludwigsburg from 1949 to 1957 and Lord Mayor of Heidenheim from 1957 to 1968
  • Karl von Elern (1886–1964), Lieutenant Colonel ret. D., board member of the East Prussian Landsmannschaft
  • Günther van Endert (1884–1958), from 1946 Vice-District President in Wiesbaden, Senate President a. D. of the Higher Administrative Court of North Rhine-Westphalia
  • Helmuth von Grolman (1898–1977), Lieutenant General ret. D. as well as politicians and later from 1959 the first defense commissioner of the German Bundestag
  • Walther Hensel (1899–1986), lawyer and city director of Düsseldorf
  • Friedrich Herrlein (1889–1974), retired infantry general D., Commanding General of the LV. Army Corps in World War II
  • Theodor Kampmann (* 1899), director of the Pedagogical Institute of the Paderborn Theological University
  • Ernst Kühl (1888–1972), Regional Councilor i. R., Colonel dRa D. of the Luftwaffe and commander of the 5th Air Division in World War II
  • Max Kukil (1904–1959), persecuted by the Nazi regime, former SPD member of the state parliament in Schleswig-Holstein
  • Adolf-Friedrich Kuntzen (1889–1964), retired General of the Panzer Force. D., commander of the 8th Panzer Division and various army corps during World War II
  • Annedore Leber (1904–1968), publicist, publisher and SPD politician and widow of the Reichstag member and resistance fighter Julius Leber who was murdered by the National Socialists
  • Paul Lemnitz (* 1892), senior councilor a. D., honorary member of the main board of the German Employees' Union (DAG).
  • Richard Meyer (1885–1970), educator, councilor and politician (MVP, later GB / BHE, GDP), Deputy Mayor of Oldenburg
  • Erich Nellmann (* 1895), Attorney General at the Stuttgart Higher Regional Court
  • Günter Olzog (1919–2007), publisher and founder of Isar-Verlag (renamed Olzog-Verlag in 1960)
  • Conrad Patzig (1888–1975), Admiral a. D. of the Kriegsmarine in World War II
  • Bernhard Pier (* 1894), senior teacher, captain a. D. and battalion commander in the 84th Infantry Regiment
  • Franz Pöschl (1917–2011), Lieutenant Colonel ret. D. and battalion commander in World War II, police school councilor and from 1955 as senior government councilor head of the defense department in the Bavarian State Chancellery
  • Viktor Renner (1899–1969), lawyer and politician (SPD), Minister of the Interior of the State of Württemberg-Hohenzollern and Minister of Justice and Minister of the Interior of Baden-Württemberg
  • Wilhelm Rombach (1884–1973), District President, Lord Mayor of Aachen and State Secretary in the North Rhine-Westphalian Ministry of the Interior
  • Fabian von Schlabrendorff (1907–1980), lawyer, reserve officer and resistance fighter of July 20, 1944
  • Maria Schlüter-Hermkes (1889–1971), board member of the Catholic German Women's Association, member of the Executive Council of UNESCO and thus the first representative of Germany
  • Karl Schwend (1890–1968), politician (BVP, CSU), former ministerial director. D. and head of the Bavarian State Chancellery from 1949 to 1954, member of the state executive committee of the CSU
  • Hans-Georg von Seidel (1891–1955), retired General der Flieger. D. and Commander-in-Chief of Air Fleet 10 in World War II, Seidel was active in the personnel appraisal committee until his death on November 10, 1955. A substitute member was not appointed.
  • Fridolin von Senger and Etterlin (1891–1963), retired General of the Panzer Force. D. and commanding general of the XIV Panzer Corps in World War II and in 1950 co-author of the Himmeroder memorandum on the establishment of the Bundeswehr
  • Hans Erich Stier (1902–1979), ancient historian and politician (CDU), member of the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia
  • Franz Weiß (1900–1979), tax advisor, politician (BP, CSU) and member of the Bavarian State Parliament
  • Erich Less (1894–1961), representative of humanities education
  • Ernst-August von der Wense (1899–1966), forest manager and politician (DP), district administrator in the Hadeln district and member of the Lower Saxony state parliament.
  • Franz Westhoven (1894–1983), Lieutenant General ret. D. and division commander of the 3rd Panzer Division in World War II
  • Konrad von Woellwarth-Lauterburg (1916–2003), landowner, lieutenant colonel i. G. a. D.
  • Ernst Wolf (1914–2008), lawyer and professor at the chair for civil law, labor law and legal philosophy at the University of Marburg

Committee activity

The committee dealt with 553 applications from former Wehrmacht officers who were to be used in the rank of colonel or general. 51 were rejected, 32 withdrew their applications, and 470 were accepted. The personnel appraisal committee's personal documents were destroyed in order to maintain confidentiality and to prevent misuse of the inspection files. On February 13, 1958, the Defense Committee of the German Bundestag was informed of this measure.

The establishment of the personnel appraisal committee and its composition triggered numerous discussions and comments in the public and in the media. Colonel i's refusals were also controversial. G. a. D. Hellmut Bergengruen (previously sub-division II / 5 Army in the Federal Ministry of Defense ), Colonel i. G. a. D. Kurt Fett (Chief of Staff of the Military Department in the Federal Ministry of Defense) and Colonel a. D. Eberhard Kaulbach (previously Department IV C Foreign / Domestic in the Federal Ministry of Defense), Colonel a. D. Wolfgang Ruhsert , military advisor to the German NATO ambassador in Paris., Colonel i. G. a. D. Albert Schindler , Head of Division for Command Planning and Deployment in the Armed Forces Subdivision and Colonel a. D. Hans-Werner Stirius , manager of fundamental questions in the Army sub-department in the Infantry / Military Police department. All persons had previously worked in the Blank office for many years . Colonel i only G. Schindler succeeded in being reinstated in the German Armed Forces through legal action.

In June 1957, members of the Personnel Appraisal Committee criticized the fact that the Federal Government had appointed General Adolf Heusinger as the first General Inspector of the Federal Armed Forces without consulting the committee beforehand. At the time, the Personnel Assessment Committee declared during the Heusinger test that Heusinger was unsuitable.

Federal Personnel Committee

In the summer of 1956, the Federal Personnel Committee was formed in parallel to the Personnel Appraisal Committee . He had to decide about unscheduled promotions. It includes: the President of the Federal Audit Office as chairman, the heads of the personnel departments of the Ministry of the Interior , Finance and Defense as well as three professional soldiers.

As early as August 2, 1956, the Federal Personnel Committee (No. 365/56) decided that former members of the Waffen-SS up to Obersturmbannführer (Lieutenant Colonel) could be hired with their old rank.

Some of the generals or admirals of the Bundeswehr are said to have been convicted by the Allies as war criminals or to have been on Allied war crimes lists. When such allegations surfaced in public, no research was undertaken by the authorities. On the one hand, German courts did not conduct any Nazi trials in the 1950s, and on the other hand, there was a firm will to “draw a line”.

Bundestag President Eugen Gerstenmaier (CDU) replied to a complainant in 1963:

"The Bundestag Committee for Defense has refused to take note of and examine the documents you have submitted on the grounds that the previous behavior of all senior officers in the Bundeswehr was finally checked by a committee of personnel experts created for this purpose."

None of the senior officers later resigned because of their past. However, in response to French protests - the deportation of Parisian Jews to Auschwitz was being prepared and hostages were shot en masse in the vicinity of the German military commander France - as Commander in Chief of NATO's European land forces, Hans Speidel was recalled prematurely. During a state visit, de Gaulle refused to shake hands with this former Wehrmacht general.

Other leading Bundeswehr officers were also accused of knowing about war and Nazi crimes or having participated in them: Adolf Heusinger , Josef Kammhuber , Friedrich Foertsch , Heinz Trettner , Friedrich Ruge and others.

Reaction in the GDR

In the mid-1960s, government agencies in the German Democratic Republic published a " brown book " in which incriminating documentary material about the Wehrmacht past of many high-ranking Bundeswehr officers was published. This brown book was dismissed in West Germany as propaganda of enemy images and its documents were labeled as forged. A scientific examination was not carried out.

See also

literature

  • Georg Meyer: On the internal development of the Bundeswehr until 1960/61 . In: Military History Research Office (ed.): Beginnings of West German Security Policy 1945–1956, Vol. 3: Die Nato-Option, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-486-51691-4 , pp. 851–1162 (with a detailed description of the historical framework and the activity of the personnel appraisal committee).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Act on the provisional legal status of volunteers in the armed forces (Volunteer Act) of July 23, 1955, Federal Law Gazette I p. 449
  2. ^ Matthias Molt: From the Wehrmacht to the Bundeswehr: Personnel Continuity and Discontinuity in the Development of the German Armed Forces 1955–1966 Heidelberg, Univ.-Diss. 2007, pp. 154 ff., 155.
  3. ↑ Law on the Personnel Expert Committee for the Armed Forces (Personnel Expert Committee Act) of July 23, 1955, Federal Law Gazette I p. 451
  4. ↑ For the historical development up to the formation of the personnel appraisal committee, see Georg Meyer: Zur internal development of the Bundeswehr until 1960/61. In: Military History Research Office (Ed.): Beginnings of West German Security Policy 1945-1956, Vol. 3: Die Nato-Option, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-486-51691-4 , pp. 1020-1055.
  5. ^ Act to repeal the Personnel Appraisers Committee Act of September 4, 1967, Federal Law Gazette I p. 965
  6. ↑ BGBl. I p. 114
  7. ↑ BGBl. I p. 313
  8. ↑ For the composition and internal work of the personnel appraisal committee, see Georg Meyer: Zur Innere Entwicklung der Bundeswehr bis 1960/61, pp. 1084-1092.
  9. ↑ For the legal position and the requirements for an applicant see Georg Meyer: Zur Innere Entwicklung der Bundeswehr bis 1960/61, pp. 1093-1099.
  10. ↑ Detlef Bald / Johannes Klotz / Wolfram Wette: Myth of the Wehrmacht. Post-war debates and maintaining tradition. Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-7466-8072-7 , p. 70 ff.
  11. ↑ Ulrich de Maizière: The Bundeswehr - new creation or continuation of the Wehrmacht. In: Rolf Dieter Müller / Hans-Erich Volkmann (ed. On behalf of the Military History Research Office ): The Wehrmacht. Myth and Reality. Oldenbourg, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-486-56383-1 , p. 1181.
  12. ↑ “Always on the enemy!” - The Military Counter-Intelligence Service (MAD) 1956–1990 . 1st edition. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht , Göttingen 2019, ISBN 978-3-525-36392-8 , pp. 200 .
  13. ↑ Karsten Wilke: The mutual aid community (HIAG) 1950–1990. Veterans of the Waffen SS in the Federal Republic . Schöningh, Paderborn / Vienna 2011, ISBN 978-3-506-77235-0 , p. 25th f., 40 f., 50 (also dissertation, Bielefeld University, 2010).
  14. ^ Previously author of National Socialist " racial studies": Racial Biological Approach to the History of France . Diesterweg Verlag 1935.
  15. ↑ Detlef Bald: Mythos Wehrmacht, p. 72.
  16. ^ Georg Meyer: On the internal development of the Bundeswehr until 1960/61, pp. 1075-1077.
  17. ^ Georg Meyer: On the internal development of the Bundeswehr until 1960/61, pp. 1070-1074.
  18. ↑ Art. Personnel Review Committee. In: Der Spiegel 26/1957. (online at: spiegel.de).
  19. ↑ Quoted from Detlef Bald et al.: Mythos Wehrmacht, 2001, p. 73.
  20. ↑ Armed Forces / Heusinger: The tragic career of Der Spiegel , February 29, 1956
  21. ↑ Detlef Bald et al: Mythos Wehrmacht, 2001, p. 76.