Richard Hildebrandt

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Richard Hildebrandt

Richard Hermann Hildebrandt (born March 13, 1897 in Worms , † March 10, 1952 in Danzig or March 10, 1951 in Bydgoszcz ) was a German politician ( NSDAP ) and SS leader. Hildebrandt was a member of the Reichstag , SS-Obergruppenführer , general of the Waffen-SS and general of the police . He was executed as a war criminal after World War II .

Early years

Richard Hildebrandt was the son of the ceramic manufacturer Albert Hildebrandt (1866-1939) and his wife Margareta Christina Dost († 1927). He had the brothers Friedrich, Karl (1894–1971), Ernst (* 1895), Wilhelm (* 1898) and Otto (1899–1967). He attended the humanistic grammar school in Worms, Frankfurt am Main and Dorsten. After graduating from high school , which he passed in May 1915, he took part in the First World War as a volunteer until November 1918 , most recently with the rank of lieutenant . This was followed by a traineeship as a businessman in his father's factory. From 1919 to 1921 he studied economics , languages, history and art history in Cologne and Munich, but without completing his studies. He then worked as a foreign correspondent and in banking.

In August 1922 he became a member of the NSDAP . From June 1923 he was a member of the SA . In September 1923 he took part in the German Day in Nuremberg and also in the Hitler putsch . After the NSDAP ban, Hildebrandt belonged to the Bund Oberland , where he acted as district leader.

In the spring of 1928 Hildebrandt emigrated to the United States , where he earned his living as a farmer and craftsman, as well as at an export bookstore in New York . In June 1928 he rejoined the NSDAP - local branch New York - ( membership number 89.221). In May 1930 he returned to Germany. He took on official duties in the NSDAP. Hildebrandt initially worked as a local group leader in Windsheim and soon afterwards as the district leader of the Windsheim district in the Gau Middle Franconia. In February 1931 he switched from the SA to the SS (SS No. 7.088). This was followed by employment as a staff leader and adjutant to Sepp Dietrich .

On June 24, 1931, he was commissioned to serve as Sturmführer in the staff of SS Section I (Munich). Then from August 17, 1931 to October 1, 1932 SS adjutant of Section I (with effect from August 18, 1931). From August 14, 1931 to July 1, 1932, he was at the same time staff leader and adjutant of the SS Brigade South (Munich). In this capacity he was a member of the OSAF staff . On August 17, 1931, he was promoted to SS-Sturmbannführer (with a patent from August 14, 1931), to Standartenführer on October 15, 1931, and to SS-Oberführer on March 31, 1932.

time of the nationalsocialism

On January 30, 1933, Hildebrandt was transferred to SS Group West after a conflict with Julius Streicher . Soon after his appointment as SS-Brigadführer on November 9, 1933, Hildebrandt took over the management of SS Section XXI in Görlitz , which he led from January 12, 1934 to April 15, 1935. During the Röhm putsch , Hildebrandt murdered four citizens of the city of Hirschberg , including the Jewish doctor Alexander Zweig with his “Aryan” wife, as well as two Jewish, allegedly communist workers in Landeshut . In mid-April 1935 he became a full-time leader of SS Section XI in Wiesbaden and at the beginning of January 1937 of the SS Upper Section Rhine.

At the beginning of April 1939, he was finally appointed Higher SS and Police Leader (HSSPF) Rhine, a post he held until October 1939. From 1936 he was a member of the local farmers 'council, rural farmers' thing and the Reichsbauernthing in the Rhine province.

Appointed to the Prussian Provincial Council in 1933 , he was also a member of the National Socialist Reichstag from November 1933 until the end of the Nazi regime in the spring of 1945 , initially for constituency 7 (Breslau) and from 1936 for constituency 19 (Hesse-Nassau).

Hildebrandt was from October 1939 to April 1943 HSSPF of Danzig-West Prussia and in personal union leader of the SS upper section Vistula and in Danzig-West Prussia the commissioner of the Reich Commissioner for the consolidation of the German nationality . Hildebrandt resigned from his position as HSSPF after disputes over competence with Gauleiter Albert Forster . In this function he was largely responsible for the deportation and murder of Jews in this area and from the Baltic States . The Stutthof concentration camp was established at his instigation .

From April 1940 to July 1942 he was also a member of the People's Court . In January 1942 he was promoted to SS-Obergruppenführer and General of the Police . On various occasions, most recently from April 1943 to the end of the Second World War, he was head of the Race and Settlement Main Office of the SS . From December 1943 Hildebrandt was acting HSSPF Black Sea and officiated in Breslau from the end of February 1945 as HSSPF Southeast, where he also acted as liaison leader of the RFSS to Army Group Center . In December 1944 he was given the rank of General in the Waffen SS and Police. In the final phase of the Second World War, in April 1945, he became Higher SS and Police Leader Bohemia-Moravia with his office in Prague .

After the end of the war

Richard Hildebrandt in Allied internment during the Nuremberg Trials

Hildebrandt was arrested on December 24, 1945 in Wiesbaden . In the Race and Settlement Main Office trial of the SS , he was sentenced to 25 years in prison on March 10, 1948 for war crimes , membership in a criminal organization and crimes against humanity .

The criminal activities in which he has been shown to be involved and responsible include kidnapping foreign children, forced abortions on Eastern workers , the removal of children from Eastern workers, illegal and unjust punishment of foreigners for sexual intercourse with Germans, obstruction of procreation for members of enemy states, forced evacuation and resettlement of foreign population groups, forced Germanization of members of enemy states, use of members of enemy states for slave labor.

He was then extradited to Poland , where he was tried together with Max Henze and sentenced to death on November 4, 1949 for his offenses in Danzig-West Prussia . On November 25, 1950, the verdict was upheld by the Warsaw Supreme Court . In an unsuccessful request for clemency, he claimed: "I can assure my honor that my conscience is pure". He was executed on March 10, 1952 .

Awards

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Ernst Klee : The personal dictionary for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Second updated edition, Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 255.
  2. ↑ a b c d e Peter Sandner: Administration of the Murder of the Ill - The Nassau District Association in National Socialism , Gießen 2003, p. 731.
  3. ↑ Isabel Heinemann: “Rasse, Siedlung, deutsches Blut”: The SS Race and Settlement Main Office and the new racial order in Europe , Göttingen 2003, p. 619.
  4. ^ Nuremberg Military Tribunal, Volume 5, p. 161 ( Memento of January 18, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) at www.mazal.org
  5. ^ Quoted from Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Fischer Taschenbuch 2005, p. 255.
  6. ^ Richard Hildebrandt in the database of the members of the Reichstag
personal data
SURNAME Hildebrandt, Richard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hildebrandt, Richard Hermann (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German SS member and war criminal
DATE OF BIRTH March 13, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH Worms
DATE OF DEATH March 10, 1952
Place of death Danzig