Rat line north

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The Mürwik marine sports school, where the last Reich government stayed in May 1945
Airplanes were also used to get to Flensburg. In the last days of the war, numerous planes landed on the Flensburg-Schäferhaus airfield, which was still larger at the time .
Retreating German soldiers who were disarmed at the border near Krusau , a suburb of Flensburg, in 1945

The Rattenlinie Nord denotes the escape route of numerous high-ranking National Socialists to Schleswig-Holstein in the direction of Flensburg in 1945. It is generally viewed separately from other rat lines that led out of Europe .

Reasons for fleeing towards Flensburg

In the last days of the Second World War , a large number of the remaining Nazi leaders did not flee to the alleged Alpine fortress , but instead via the so-called Rattenlinie Nord to Schleswig-Holstein in the direction of Flensburg. In the undestroyed Mürwik district of Flensburg , the Mürwik special area was set up for the last imperial government under Karl Dönitz . The plans for the relocation of the Reich Ministries in the form of working staffs away from Berlin began in February 1945 and were implemented in April 1945 (see Clausewitz case ). A smaller number of the fugitive Nazi decision-makers apparently also hoped to be able to leave for Denmark . But on May 5, Mürwik ordered the partial surrender of the German troops in Denmark. In May 1945, the German soldiers withdrew from Denmark (see Denmark under German occupation ). Furthermore, there was also hope among the fleeing Nazis that the British occupying power, as was common in Great Britain at the time, would waive the reporting requirement . This later proved to be true and thus favored the possibility of long-term immersion.

Refugees and units

The Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler , together with his chief adjutant Werner Grothmann and his personal RFSS staff, which consisted of 150 people, left for Flensburg, which he reached on May 2, 1945. He wanted to be involved in the government of Grand Admiral Dönitz.

The command authorities that moved into the Flensburg area in May 1945, partly on the instructions of Himmler, were:

In addition to these command authorities, the employees of the Gestapo in Schwerin came to Flensburg under SS-Standartenführer Ludwig Oldach and the employees of the Stettin control center under SS-Standartenführer and Police President Fritz Karl Engel .

Office D, which was relocated to Flensburg, included the commandant of Auschwitz concentration camp Rudolf Höß , SS-Hauptsturmführer Karl Sommer , concentration camp doctor Enno Lolling , SS-Sturmbannführer Wilhelm Burger , SS-Standartenführer Gerhard Maurer as well as the concentration camp commanders Hans Bothmann , Arthur Liebehenschel , Anton Kaindl and Paul Werner Hoppe . Other people who came to Flensburg included a. the SS group leader Emil Höring , former BdO of the Warthegau , the major general of the police Walter Gudewill and the Reichsarzt SS Karl Gebhardt . SS generals who were in the Flensburg area at the end of the war were Udo von Woyrsch , Curt von Gottberg , Hans-Adolf Prützmann , Wilhelm Koppe, as well as the SS general and Adolf Hitler's attending surgical doctor Karl Brandt .

SS-Sturmbannführer Kurt Stawizki , a perpetrator of the Holocaust who, after the assassination attempt on July 20, 1944, assumed a leading position in the RSHA's July 20 special commission , also came to Flensburg . The Gauleiter of the NSDAP in East Prussia, Erich Koch , also reached Flensburg, but with a stopover in Copenhagen . In addition, the Reich Minister for Foreign Affairs, Joachim von Ribbentrop, also met in Flensburg at the beginning of May .

When they arrived in Flensburg, the Nazis who had fled moved into inns or public buildings in the city. They camped in the Flensburg police headquarters or went into hiding in the barely manageable Mürwik base . Many units were also stored in the vicinity of the city of Flensburg. It can therefore be assumed that not all refugees and units can still be identified today.

Whereabouts

Members of the last Reich government from Mürwik on May 23, 1945. After their arrest, they get off at the Flensburg ZOB . At the ZOB were the police headquarters and the government courtyard , the central location of the British forces

Even before reaching Flensburg, some units had been dispersed or taken prisoner by the Allies or had left untraceable, so that their superiors who had fled could only register their disappearance. The Nazis who had arrived in Flensburg received papers for new identities after arriving at the police headquarters, which was subordinate to SS-Standartenführer Hans Hinsch as police chief. SS members were declared to be simple field police officers, and NCOs of the Wehrmacht were declared to be mates in the navy. The exact number of false papers issued at the police headquarters is still unclear. It should have been hundreds. It is estimated that around 2,000 to 3,000 incorrectly issued ID documents are issued. In Mürwik, these “new people” were given suitable used uniforms. If there were still missing papers in Mürwik, the commander of the Mürwik Naval School , Wolfgang Lüth , had false Wehrmacht identification cards issued. If the SS members were provided with new papers, they were able to mingle with the soldiers of the Wehrmacht returning from Denmark at Krusau .

On May 3, 1945, Dönitz had confirmed Himmler, who had fled to Flensburg, as leader of the Waffen SS and chief of the German police; on May 6, he deposed him in his presence during a cabinet meeting. Afterwards it became too dangerous for Himmler in Flensburg; he left the city and retired to the surrounding area. With a few followers, he fled back south on May 11th, where he was arrested on May 21st in Meinstedt , southeast of Bremervörde , and shortly afterwards committed suicide. Just like Himmler, Ribbentrop did not find a connection in the executive government of the Reich . Karl Dönitz also refused him. On May 6, 1945, the Gauleiter and Upper President of Schleswig-Holstein, Hinrich Lohse , was removed from his offices by Dönitz. It was alleged that he and Erich Koch had requested a submarine in order to be able to set off for South America .

Otto Ohlendorf was involved in the government of the Reich, which enabled him to distance himself from Himmler, with whom he remained in contact until his death. The subordinate to him Amt III (SD-Inland) was classified on May 13th as the intelligence service of the Reich government. Basically he also kept his post as State Secretary of the Reich Ministry of Economics under Albert Speer , who was responsible for the “Economy and Production” department in the Flensburg government, but left the actual management of the staff to Ohlendorf. With around 200 employees, the intelligence service made up the majority of the Dönitz Reich government, which consisted of around 350 employees. In 1948 Ohlendorf was sentenced to death in the Einsatzgruppen trial and executed in 1951.

Returning German soldiers are checked at the border near Krusau

With the end of the war, the British Field Security Section began looking for war criminals . The unit reported its first successes from May 13th. At the border, the British also began to check members of the Wehrmacht. Together with the Danes, an interrogation center was set up in the former German internment camp Fröslee .

The arrested in May at Flensburg Propaganda - Broadcasting speaker William Joyce ( Lord Haw-Haw ) during its subsequent transport in an ambulance

Maximilian von Herff was arrested by British soldiers in Flensburg in May 1945. Richard Bliss, head of the inspection of the concentration camps , died on May 10, 1945 in the naval hospital Flensburg-Mürwik by suicide . The Nazi chief ideologist Alfred Rosenberg had been removed from the executive government by Dönitz. He was arrested on May 18, 1945 in the naval hospital. The Mürwik special area was occupied by British soldiers on May 23. Karl Dönitz , Alfred Jodl and ex-armaments minister Albert Speer were arrested and subsequently sentenced in Nuremberg . General Admiral Friedeburg , who also worked for the government, committed suicide on the same day.

On March 11, 1946, the commander of the Auschwitz concentration camp, Rudolf Höß , who had gone into hiding under a false name , was arrested by the British in a courtyard in the village of Gottrupel and extradited to Poland, where he was tried and executed in Auschwitz in 1947.

When after the war the fugitive Nazi euthanasia perpetrator Werner Heyde found out that the position of a sports doctor at the marine sports school was vacant , he applied under the name “Dr. med. Fritz Sawade ”and was employed in 1949. He bought a row house in Walter-Flex-Weg in the Westliche Höhe district , where other Nazis had already settled after the war . Heyde was not exposed until 1959. He fled from the expected arrest to Frankfurt am Main , where he was finally arrested. Before the main trial began, he committed suicide in 1964.

literature

  • Klaus Hesse: "Rattenlinie Nord" - Nazi functionaries who fled to Schleswig-Holstein at the end of the war , in: ders., The 'Third Reich' after Hitler. 23 days in May 1945. A Chronicle , ed. by Andreas Nachama, Hentrich & Hentrich, Berlin 2016. pp. 224-328.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See end of war. Very last use. Der Spiegel from November 17, 2009 and Schäferhaus Airfield. A historical review. On Flensburg-online, accessed on February 8, 2016.
  2. ↑ See Stephan Link: "Rattenlinie Nord". War criminals in Flensburg and the surrounding area in May 1945. In: Gerhard Paul, Broder Schwensen (Hrsg.): Mai '45. End of the war in Flensburg. Flensburg 2015, p. 20.
  3. ^ Imperial capital. In: Andreas Oeding, Broder Schwensen, Michael Sturm: Flexikon. 725 aha experiences from Flensburg! Flensburg 2009.
  4. ↑ Stephan Link: "Rattenlinie Nord". War criminals in Flensburg and the surrounding area in May 1945. In: Gerhard Paul, Broder Schwensen (Hrsg.): Mai '45. End of the war in Flensburg. Flensburg 2015, p. 20.
  5. ↑ Gerhard Spörl: Contemporary history: "There it lies, this beast" . In: Der Spiegel . No. 18 , 2015, p. 46-58 ( Online - Apr. 25, 2015 ).
  6. ↑ Cf. sh: z : 70 years after the end of World War II: The last imperial capital Flensburg and a yellowed piece of history. May 5, 2015; accessed on January 23, 2015.
  7. ↑ Christian Habbe: In the sights of the Nazi hunters . In: Der Spiegel . No. 36 , 2001, p. 146-172 ( online - Sept. 3, 2001 ).
  8. ↑ State Center for Civic Education Schleswig-Holstein (ed.): The downfall 1945 in Flensburg. (Lecture on January 10, 2012 by Gerhard Paul ), p. 10.
  9. ↑ a b Stephan Link: "Rattenlinie Nord". War criminals in Flensburg and the surrounding area in May 1945. In: Gerhard Paul, Broder Schwensen (Hrsg.): Mai '45. End of the war in Flensburg. Flensburg 2015, p. 21.
  10. ↑ a b c d Gerhard Paul: Time lapses: Flensburg comrades. In: Die Zeit vom 8 September 2013, accessed on 23 January 2016.
  11. ↑ a b c d Stephan Link: "Rattenlinie Nord". War criminals in Flensburg and the surrounding area in May 1945. In: Gerhard Paul, Broder Schwensen (Hrsg.): Mai '45. End of the war in Flensburg. Flensburg 2015, p. 22.
  12. ↑ See Stephan Link: "Rattenlinie Nord". War criminals in Flensburg and the surrounding area in May 1945. In: Gerhard Paul, Broder Schwensen (Hrsg.): Mai '45. End of the war in Flensburg. Flensburg 2015, pp. 21, 22.
  13. ↑ Stephan Link: "Rattenlinie Nord". War criminals in Flensburg and the surrounding area in May 1945. In: Gerhard Paul, Broder Schwensen (Hrsg.): Mai '45. End of the war in Flensburg. Flensburg 2015, p. 22; In this context, see also: “Hanged up like slaughter cattle”. Joachim Fest on the Nazi regime's campaign of revenge against the men who wanted to eliminate Hitler . In: Der Spiegel . No. 28 , 1994, pp. 42–53 ( online - July 11, 1994 , excerpt from "Coup. The long road to July 20").
  14. ^ Stiftung Deutsches Historisches Museum : Living Museum Online - Joachim von Ribbentrop 1893–1946 , accessed on February 1, 2016.
  15. ↑ Flensburger Tageblatt : Bus tour through Flensburg: On the trail of contemporary history. January 30, 2012; accessed on January 23, 2016.
  16. ↑ State Center for Civic Education Schleswig-Holstein (ed.): The downfall 1945 in Flensburg. (Lecture on January 10, 2012 by Gerhard Paul), p. 13.
  17. ↑ a b Werner Junge: When the SS criminals came to Flensburg. On www.ndr.de from May 8, 2015; accessed on February 28, 2016.
  18. ↑ Wolfgang Börnsen , Leve Börnsen: From decline to a new beginning. Kiel / Hamburg 2015, p. 146.
  19. ^ A b c Uwe Danker , Astrid Schwalbe: Schleswig-Holstein and the National Socialism. Neumünster 2005, p. 151.
  20. ↑ Stephan Link: "Rattenlinie Nord". War criminals in Flensburg and the surrounding area in May 1945. In: Gerhard Paul, Broder Schwensen (Hrsg.): Mai '45. End of the war in Flensburg. Flensburg 2015, p. 29.
  21. ↑ State Center for Civic Education Schleswig-Holstein (ed.): The downfall 1945 in Flensburg. (Lecture on January 10, 2012 by Gerhard Paul), p. 12.
  22. ↑ State Center for Civic Education Schleswig-Holstein (ed.): The downfall 1945 in Flensburg. (Lecture on January 10, 2012 by Gerhard Paul), p. 15.
  23. ↑ State Center for Civic Education Schleswig-Holstein (ed.): The downfall 1945 in Flensburg. (Lecture on January 10, 2012 by Gerhard Paul), p. 18.
  24. ↑ sh: z civilian clothes, eye patch, new name: But there was no escape for Himmler. May 13, 2015; accessed on January 23, 2016.
  25. ↑ Wolfgang Börnsen, Leve Börnsen: From decline to a new beginning. Kiel / Hamburg 2015, p. 60 f.
  26. ↑ Stephan Link: "Rattenlinie Nord". War criminals in Flensburg and the surrounding area in May 1945. In: Gerhard Paul, Broder Schwensen (Hrsg.): Mai '45. End of the war in Flensburg. Flensburg 2015, p. 26 ff.
  27. ↑ a b Stephan Link: "Rattenlinie Nord". War criminals in Flensburg and the surrounding area in May 1945. In: Gerhard Paul, Broder Schwensen (Hrsg.): Mai '45. End of the war in Flensburg. Flensburg 2015, p. 30.
  28. ↑ Gerhard Paul, Broder Schwensen (Ed.): May '45. End of the war in Flensburg. 2015, p. 215.
  29. ↑ See list of leading National Socialists who committed suicide at the end of the Second World War
  30. ↑ sh: z: Auschwitz Commander in World War II: How Rudolf Höss was arrested in SH. October 5, 2014; accessed on January 9, 2016.
  31. ↑ sh: z: A concentration camp commandant complains - How the British tracked down Rudolf Höß. May 21, 2015; accessed on January 9, 2016.
  32. ↑ Der Spiegel : Nazi investigator Hanns Alexander. The man who hunted Rudolf Höss. August 27, 2014; accessed on January 9, 2016.
  33. ^ A b Flensburger Tageblatt : Nazi euthanasia criminals in Flensburg: Werner Heyde: The doctor without a conscience. September 1, 2015; accessed on January 24, 2016.