Roland Strunk

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Roland Strunk (* before 1914; † October 22, 1937 in Hohenlychen ) was an Austrian officer, German journalist and war reporter for the Nazi daily Völkischer Beobachter and Writer .

Life

Strunk served as first lieutenant of the Dragoons in the Austrian army during the First World War . As a member of the secret service , he was deliberately captured in order to blow up sections of the Trans-Siberian Railway. The attempt failed and he was sentenced to death . Pardoned to life in prison, he found himself free again after the outbreak of the February Revolution ; he managed to get through to the German troops.

After the end of the war in 1918, he emigrated to Germany and served in the Black Reichswehr under General Seeckt . He later became a war correspondent. He accompanied the army of Kemal Pasha , described the Rifkabylen uprising and the operations of the Japanese army in Manchuria . In 1933 he changed the editorial team and went from the German national Scherl press to the Völkischer Beobachter . Soon he was considered number one of the National Socialist military correspondents. He marched with the Mussolini troops to Abyssinia and with the Franco army as far as Madrid. Through the mediation of Gunter d'Alquen , he became a member of the SS in 1937 with the rank of Hauptsturmführer.

Due to an alleged love affair between Horst Krutschinnas , Adjutant Baldur von Schirachs , and his wife, there was a duel on pistols on October 17, 1937 . Strunk suffered a shot through the hip when the bullet was exchanged for the third time and, despite immediate surgery by the referee of the duel, chief physician Karl Gebhardt , died on October 22, 1937 in the Hohenlychen Clinic . The operation revealed a seven-fold intestinal rupture from the gunshot and intestinal tuberculosis.

Duel and death

During his student days in Munich, Himmler himself had been a member of a striking association, but as a Catholic he had not been able to cope with the conflict between church and mensur during the time in the association. After the Röhm Putsch, he replaced the SA honorary regulations for the SS in November 1935 by reintroducing the duel in the SS. This had to take place according to strict rules laid down by Himmler and had to be approved by him as Reichsführer of the SS after previously the ban on duels in the Weimar Republic had already been relaxed by the National Socialists through a corresponding new amendment to the Reich Criminal Code in May 1933.

According to the rules of honor of the SS, satisfaction was to be given with regard to the frivolous relationship, suspected by Strunk, of the adjutant Baldur von Schirach, whom he knew personally, and his wife. Krutschinna, who did not make a statement in the matter even during Strunk's lifetime, agreed to do so and the court of honor recognized a saber duel, which was to go up to the incapacity of one of the timbers. Strunk did not agree with this because he considered the saber to be antiquated, and brought in a medical certificate stating that typical saber injuries due to his malarial disease could not be expected of him. Kruchinna consented to the change of weapons to pistols, which Strunk had brought forward.

The duel took place on the morning of the 17th in the park of the Hohenlychen Clinic. Strunk used his Parabellum 08, which was familiar from the First World War . After the serious intentions of his opponent had become clear in the first two ball exchanges Krutschinna received from two grazing shots, he then hit the opponent fatally. The Hitler confidante, referee of the duel and chief physician of the Gebhardt Clinic operated on Strunk personally, but had to accept the hopelessness of his efforts. Having been informed of this incident, Adolf Hitler immediately forbade any form of duel in the German Reich. Hitler demonstratively sent his Reich Press Chief to the burial at the Hohenlychen forest cemetery with an extremely large bouquet of flowers. Von Schirach also sent a wreath. Hitler's anger over the incident was based not least on the fact that he had lost one of the few internationally recognized German correspondents. Krutschinna had to retire from the service of Schirachs and the Hitler Youth and died in an accident shortly after the end of the war.

literature

  • Herbert Kater: The SS's view of honor, National Socialism and duel. Himmler as a fraternity. The duel between R. Strunk and Horst Krutschinna. In: Einst und Jetzt Volume 38 (1993), pp. 265-270.
  • Herbert Volck : Roland Strunk. The dream of death. Berlin 1940.
  • Short biography in the opening credits of his story "Red Commissioner in Lin-Dsiau-Fan". In: Men look death in the face. Factual reports. Edited by Victor Witte. Berlin: Drei Masken Verlag, 1935, pp. 61–82.

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