Peter von Heydebreck

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Hans Adam von Heydebreck

Hans Adam Otto von Heydebreck , called Peter von Heydebreck and Hans Peter von Heydebreck , (born July 1, 1889 in Köslin , † June 30, 1934 in Munich ) was a German free corps leader , later a politician ( NSDAP ) and SA leader.

Live and act

origin

Hans Adam von Heydebreck was the second son of the Prussian major general Otto Ernst von Heydebreck (born March 15, 1859 in Parnow; † April 7, 1917 in Dresden) and his wife Edda von Blankenburg (1863-1944). His younger brother was the journalist Otto von Heydebreck .

Youth, World War I and Post War

In his youth Heydebreck was given up for education in the cadet corps in Köslin and Lichterfelde . Then he joined the Prussian Army and came to the 2nd Silesian Jäger Battalion No. 6 in Oels . There he was promoted to lieutenant on June 19, 1908 . As such, he took part in the First World War with his battalion . A few weeks after the start of the war, on September 26, 1914, he suffered a gunshot wound from a short range while attacking a French barricade position in the Argonnerwald , shattering his left humerus. As a result, his left upper arm had to be amputated. Later it was repeatedly wrongly assumed that Heydebreck only lost his arm in free corps battles after the war. Since the stump of the arm became “gangrenous”, further “slices” of the arm had to be cut off again and again.

After lengthy hospital stays, Heydebreck returned to the front in the spring of 1916: In the following years he was deployed as a company and battalion commander in front of Verdun, in Romania, Italy and on the Somme. In 1917 he was company commander in the Reserve Jäger Battalion No. 6. From January 8, 1918, he represented the commander of the Goslar Reserve Jäger Battalion No. 23 for one month and from April 14, 1918 he was a replacement for Captain Gustav Stoffleth , commander of the Ratzeburg Reserve Jäger Battalion No. 18 , who was incapacitated by an explosive shell the day before . However, he had to give up the post on April 22nd due to illness. At the end of the war, Heydebreck led a cycling department (Radfahr-Jäger-Bataillon) in France.

After the end of the war and the outbreak of the November Revolution of 1918, Heydebreck, then with the rank of captain , founded the Heydebreck Freikorps named after him from his cycling battalion , a military volunteer association ( Freikorps ) to take part in the fight against the revolution. Heydebreck fought with his Freikorps in Silesia and Upper Silesia until 1923: During the Polish uprisings in Upper Silesia organized by Wojciech Korfanty , Heydebreck's Freikorps was deployed together with the Black Reichswehr to put down the unrest. His successes in the fighting on St. Annaberg - assault on Kandrizin on June 5, 1921 - during the Polish uprising of 1921 led to him being heroized and popular as the "hero of Annaberg".

Weimar Republic

In the Reichstag election on May 4, 1924 , Heydebreck was nominated as a candidate for the Reichstag by the German National Freedom Party (DVFP) on their Reich election nomination list (14th place) . After the DVFP was able to achieve enough votes in the election to help his place on the list gain a mandate, Heydebreck moved into the parliament of the Weimar Republic, which he held for almost six months, from May to December 1924, as a member of the parliamentary group belonged to the DVFP or the National Socialist Freedom Party . Heydebreck left the Reichstag after parliament was dissolved in December 1924. In the new election of the Reichstag on December 7, 1924 , he did not run for election again.

The main reason Heydebrecks ran as a member of parliament was because membership in parliament gave him parliamentary immunity, which protects him from arrest and prosecution for his anti- Weimar activism as a paramilitary activist was. Accordingly, his membership in Heydebreck was only a formality that was of little importance to him: During his membership in the Reichstag, he did not speak once in the plenary and used the premises of the Reichstag for target shooting exercises. For example, the work in the national movement was Heydebreck's main area of ​​activity even while he was a member of the Reichstag: After Ernst Röhm had founded the Frontbann in the spring of 1924 as a reception organization for the banned paramilitary combat units (especially the SA and the Reich War Flag), Heydebreck also joined the new organization on. On the German Day in mid-August 1924, he was given the leadership of the Central Group (Frontbann Mitte) of this organization, which, however, largely disappeared in 1925.

After the re-establishment of the NSDAP in the spring of 1925, Heydebreck joined it in the same year ( membership number 20.525). In 1925 he founded the SA in Upper Silesia. He also took part in the organization of the Upper Silesia Party Gau of the NSDAP.

During the 1920s, Heydebreck also developed a strong alcohol problem: In order to numb the pain of the wound on his arm that was lost in the war, which never completely healed, Heydebreck got used to drinking increasing amounts of alcohol every day, which ultimately made him an alcoholic be let. His friend Ernst von Salomon reports about this:

“Whether every cell of his tissue was so saturated with alcohol that a single schnapps was enough to get him drunk, or whether he was careful to keep himself intoxicated, he was almost always drunk and when he was drunk it came over him a loud disgust at himself. Then he shot in the mirror and yelled: You drunk pig are still alive! "

After Ernst Röhm took over the leadership of the SA at the beginning of the 1930s, Heydebreck was also reactivated: With effect from April 1, 1932, he was made available to the staff of the Supreme SA leadership, while at the same time conferring the rank of SA standard leader got. After the temporary SA ban in the spring and early summer of 1932, it was again stipulated in Führer's order No. II that Heydebreck should be at the disposal of the OSAF.

Nazi state

After the National Socialists came to power in the spring of 1933, Heydebreck was transferred from OSAF to the staff of SA Upper Group I (Berlin; after renumbering the SA Upper Groups, it was renumbered soon afterwards as SA Upper Group III; office was in Breslau) transferred to Breslau under Edmund Heines . On August 20, 1933 Heydebreck was promoted to SA Oberführer there.

On September 15, 1933, Heydebreck, as Ernst Röhm's old confidante, was entrusted with the management of the SA Group Pomerania (SA Group IV), which in turn was subordinate to SA Upper Group II. After he had proven himself in this position - in the eyes of Röhm - Heydebreck's entrustment with the leadership of the Pomeranian group was made permanent on April 20, 1934, when Röhm appointed him (on behalf of Hitler) as the regular leader of the Pomeranian group on that day and at the same time promoted to the rank of SA Brigade Leader.

As a result of his skyrocketing importance within the SA with his entrustment with the leadership of an SA group, Heydebreck received a mandate as a member of the National Socialist Reichstag in November 1933 . In this he represented constituency 6 (Pomerania) until his death. After Heydebreck's death, Hermann Harbauer continued his mandate for the remainder of the electoral term that lasted until 1936 .

In the early days of Nazi rule, Heydebreck was a highly respected person as a war and volunteer corps "hero". Accordingly, he was showered with numerous public honors in 1933 and 1934: In 1933, for example, the municipal council of the Upper Silesian community Kandrzin decided to rename the place Heydebreck after its “liberator” during the German-Polish territorial battles after the First World War , but refused the Reichsbahn decided to recognize this renaming for the time being. In 1934 the name change was made official by a decree of the Prussian State Ministry , so that on March 16, 1934 the municipality was legally renamed Heydebreck OS .

Arrest and death

On the morning of June 30, 1934, Heydebreck was arrested and shot as part of the Röhm affair .

Most representations state that Heydebreck was personally arrested by Adolf Hitler on the morning of June 30 on the way to an SA leaders ' conference in Bad Wiessee : Heydebreck's car was when it came towards Hitler's motorcade - which had just returned from Wiessee, where Ernst Röhm and several others had been arrested - stopped by members of the police. When Heydebreck answered in the affirmative to Hitler's question whether he was on Röhm's side, Hitler declared him deposed and put him in the back of a bus with the other prisoners. Other versions state that Heydebreck was arrested at Munich Central Station.

Heydebreck was taken to the Stadelheim detention center with the other prisoners . On Hitler's orders, he was shot together with five other high SA leaders ( Hans Hayn , Edmund Heines , Wilhelm Schmid , August Schneidhuber and Hans Joachim von Spreti-Weilbach ) in the early evening of the same day. The shooting of the six men - as well as the group leader Karl Ernst who was executed in Berlin - was announced on the evening of June 30, 1934 in special editions of the newspapers and on the radio.

Just a few days before his death, Heydebreck had told the writer Ernst von Salomon :

“I live for my leader! The thought of him is the only thing that keeps me going. If I could no longer believe in my leader, then I'd rather die! "

Heydebreck was posthumously expelled from the SA with effect from July 1, 1934, by the Fuehrer's Order of the Supreme SA Leadership No. 26 of October 31, 1934, whereby he was relieved of his previous position and his rank was revoked.

Heydebreck's position as leader of the SA group Pomerania was transferred in July 1934 by the new SA leadership Hans Friedrich , the previous leader of the SA subgroup Pomerania-West.

The renaming of the place Kandrzin in Heydebreck OS after Peter von Heydebreck was not reversed by the Nazi state despite his execution and ostracism after June 30, 1934, but existed until the incorporation of Silesia into the Polish state in 1945.

Promotions

  • April 1, 1932: SA Standartenführer
  • August 20, 1933: SA Oberführer
  • April 20, 1934: SA Brigade Leader
  • Heydebreck did not achieve the rank of SA group leader until his death , although he had held the position of leader of an SA group from 1933 onwards .

Archival material

  • Party correspondence on Heydebreck (Federal Archives: Holdings PK Film E 193 Heusner, Lieslotte – Heydebreck, Max. Pictures 2979–2984)

Fonts

  • We Wehr-Wolfe , 1931.

literature

  • Helmut Neubach: From the Freikorps to the SA. Peter von Heydebreck and his memories "We Wehrwolfe". in: Oberschlesisches Jahrbuch. 20 2004, pp. 125-149.
  • Hans-Gerd Warmann: 75 years ago: The consequences of the 'Röhm revolt' of June 30, 1934 in Pomerania. In: Stettiner Bürgerbrief. No. 35, 2009, ISSN  1619-6201 , pp. 36-41.
  • Erich Stockhorst: 5000 people. Who was what in the 3rd Reich . Arndt, Kiel 2000, ISBN 3-88741-116-1 (unchanged reprint of the first edition from 1967).
  • Martin Schumacher (Hrsg.): MdR The Reichstag members of the Weimar Republic in the time of National Socialism. Political persecution, emigration and expatriation, 1933–1945. A biographical documentation . 3rd, considerably expanded and revised edition. Droste, Düsseldorf 1994, ISBN 3-7700-5183-1 .

photos

  • Genealogical handbook of the nobility , vol. 66 of the complete series, 1977, plate 3.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Heydebreck: We Wehr-Wolves. 1931, p. 15.
  2. ↑ Herbert Michaelis (Ed.): Causes and consequences. Vol. 10, p. 175.
  3. ↑ Uwe Backes: The Reichstag fire. P. 130.
  4. ↑ Gustav Stoffleth: History of the Reserve Jäger Battalion No. 18. Bernard & Graefe publishing house. Berlin 1937
  5. ↑ The Goslar Jäger in the World War. III. Volume: Walter Holste: The Reserve Jäger Battalion No. 23. With appendix: The Association of Former Goslar Jäger. Lax printing works, Hildesheim 1934.
  6. ^ Brill: Heydebreck , p. 223.
  7. ↑ Leader Order of the Supreme SA Leadership No. 9 of April 15, 1932, p. 1.
  8. ↑ Fuehrer order of the highest SA leadership No. II of September 9, 1932, p. 3.
  9. ↑ Leader Order of the Supreme SA Leadership No. 14 of June 1, 19343, p. 4.
  10. ↑ Leader Order of the Supreme SA Leadership No. 17 of September 1, 1933, p. 3.
  11. ↑ Leader's order of the Supreme SA Leadership No. 18 of October 1, 1933, p. 11.
  12. ↑ Fuehrer's order of the Supreme SA Leadership No. 24 of May 2, 1934, p. 5.
  13. ↑ Wolfram Selig : “Murdered in the name of the Führer. The victims of the Röhm putsch in Munich ”, in: Winfried Becker / Werner Chrobak (eds.): State, culture, politics. Contributions to the history of Bavaria and Catholicism. Festschrift for Dieter Albrecht's 65th birthday , Kallmünz / Opf. 1992, pp. 341-356.
  14. ↑ Ernst von Salomon: The Questionnaire , 1951, p. 438; Claus Heinrich Bill: Von Heydebreck , 1999, p. 215.
  15. ↑ Cf. Fuehrerbefehl der Oberste SA -führung No. 26 of October 31, 1934, p. 11, where it is noted that at the time of his death he still held the rank of SA Brigade Leader.
personal data
SURNAME Heydebreck, Peter von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Heydebreck, Hans-Adam Otto von; Heydebreck, Hans Peter von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German officer, Freikorps and SA leader, politician (NSDAP), MdR
DATE OF BIRTH July 1, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Koslin
DATE OF DEATH June 30, 1934
Place of death Munich