Richard Chaff

Richard Spreu (born August 3, 1896 in Bralin , district of Groß Wartenberg ; † December 24, 1969 in Fredeburg ) was a German politician of the NSDAP and district administrator of the districts of Habelschwerdt in the province of Lower Silesia and Freudenthal in the administrative region of Opava .

Life

Richard Chaff was the son of a postal worker. After attending elementary schools in Groß Wartenberg , Striegau and Breslau , he continued his education at the Matthias Gymnasium in Breslau , which he left in 1913 with secondary school leaving certificate. In 1914 he joined the Reichspost , where he was promoted to postal inspector. After years of service in Neumünster , he was transferred to Bad Landeck in the County of Glatz . For his services in the First World War, in which he served as an intelligence soldier, he was awarded the Silesian Eagle Order II. Class and the Front Fighter Cross. After returning to Bad Landeck he was press attendant for the steel helmet there until 1928 . On July 1, 1928, he founded the first NSDAP local group in the County of Glatz in Landeck , a year later he became a NS city councilor in Landeck, in 1930 district leader of the Habelschwerdt district and in 1933 mayor of Landeck. In 1931 he took part in an SA meeting in Braunschweig, in 1929, 1933, 1934, 1935 and 1936 he attended the Nazi party rallies in Nuremberg. He also took part in training courses and district leader meetings, in which he familiarized himself with the work of the party and was able to make connections. On May 1, 1937 he became Obersturmführer of SA Standard 38 in Glatz , in 1941 he rose to Hauptsturmführer , in 1943 to Sturmbannführer .

On September 1, 1933, Richard Spreu was appointed provisional district administrator for the Habelschwerdt district, and his final appointment took place on May 1, 1934. He held all of the district's important Nazi offices. After the death of the great dean Franz Dittert , Chaff turned against the appointment of the Glatzer town pastor Franz Monse as his successor. In 1940/41 he commissioned an employee to observe the youth pastor of the County of Glatz, Gerhard Hirschfelder , who was also a chaplain in Habelschwerdt, and to take note of his sermons. In 1941 he signed the arrest warrant with which Hirschfelder was taken to the Glatz prison and finally to the Dachau concentration camp , where he died in 1942.

On May 22, 1944, Richard Spreu was transferred to Freudenthal as district administrator for the Freudenthal district . After the end of the war, he returned to the Habelschwerdt district on May 8, 1945. Three days later he was arrested by the Red Army in Kunzendorf an der Biele . On February 10, 1950, he was first taken to the Buchenwald special camp and then to the Waldheim correctional facility , where he was sentenced to 20 years in prison on April 26, 1950. On April 21, 1954, he was transferred to the Bautzen special camp and released from prison on July 12, 1954. A short time later he was allowed to leave for Dahlhausen in Westphalia . On December 24, 1969, he died in Bad Fredeburg in the Sauerland .

literature

• Horst-Alfons Meißner: The district administrators of the County of Glatz during the Nazi era . In: The County of Glatz between 1918 and 1946 . Aschendorff Verlag 2012, ISBN 978-3-402-12896-1 , pp. 59f., 113, 155-164, 166 and 302.

Web links

• Persons - administrative history, persons and district administrators on the website territorial.de (Rolf Jehke), as of October 25, 2013.