Rudolf Jordan (politician)

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Rudolf Jordan (1933)
Rudolf Jordan with Himmler at the Heinrichs Celebration in Quedlinburg (July 1, 1938)

Rudolf Jordan (born June 21, 1902 in Großenlüder , † October 27, 1988 in Munich ) was NSDAP Gauleiter of Halle-Merseburg and Magdeburg-Anhalt in the National Socialist German Reich .

Life

Jordan came from a rural environment, his father was also a merchant. After attending primary school , Jordan worked as a worker in the armaments industry between 1916 and 1918 . He earned so much money that he was able to start training as a teacher in Fulda after the end of the First World War . Nevertheless, he showed himself to be militarily committed, so that he was accepted as a volunteer in the Reichswehr from 1920 to 1922 . In 1922 Jordan became a member of the Freikorps Oberland and in 1924 completed his training as a primary school teacher.

During the period of great unemployment he did not succeed in finding a job as a teacher, so that until 1927 he pursued various jobs as a worker, employee and freelancer - among others at publishing houses and in companies in the advertising industry. In 1927 he was able to gain a foothold as a teacher and also worked at the Army College for Economics and Administration in Fulda.

As early as 1924, Jordan acted as a speaker for the Völkisch-Soziale Block and the Deutschvölkische Reichspartei , but without becoming a member of either party. It was through these nationalist groups that Jordan came into contact with the NSDAP , which he joined in May 1925.

In November 1929 Jordan moved into the provincial parliament of Hessen-Nassau for the NSDAP and was elected the only NSDAP city councilor of Fulda in December of the same year. Because of this appointment, he was released from teaching a few days later. Also in December 1929 Jordan founded the party newspaper Fuldaer Beobachter (the title was based on the Völkischer Beobachter ). In 1930 Jordan was appointed editor of the NSDAP weekly newspaper Der Sturm , which had its seat in Kassel .

From January 19, 1931 Jordan was appointed NSDAP Gauleiter in the Halle-Merseburg Gau and began a steep career within the party. Between April 1932 and October 1933 he was a member of the Prussian state parliament and in 1933 was appointed Prussian State Council and SA group leader. Under his leadership, the Eisleber Bloody Sunday took place on February 12, 1933.

In the same year began the publication of the Central German daily , which Jordan himself directed. On April 10, 1933, he was unanimously elected as plenipotentiary of the Province of Saxony in the Reichsrat and in November 1933 he was elected a member of the Reichstag . According to the deputy regulation , according to which a deputy Gauleiter could not be appointed Gauleiter in the same Gau, Jordan was appointed Reich Governor in Braunschweig and Anhalt and NSDAP Gauleiter in person from Adolf Hitler on April 20, 1937 after the death of Wilhelm Friedrich Loeper Gau Magdeburg-Anhalt appointed. The new Gauleiter of Halle-Merseburg was the deputy and since 1935 acting Gauleiter of Magdeburg-Anhalt, Joachim Albrecht Eggeling . In 1937, Jordan's promotion to SA-Obergruppenführer took place.

In 1939 Jordan became head of the Anhalt state government and Reich Defense Commissioner (RVK) in military district XI. On November 16, 1942 - after the RVKs were each assigned a Gau - Jordan became RVK in his Gau Magdeburg-Anhalt. On April 18, 1944, Jordan's last step up the career ladder took place when he was appointed President of the Province of Magdeburg .

In the last days of the war, Jordan was initially able to go into hiding with his family under an assumed name. However, he was arrested by the British on May 30, 1945 and extradited to the Soviets by the Western Allies in July 1946 .

At the end of 1950 - after four years in prison in the Soviet occupation zone - Jordan was sentenced to 25 years in a labor camp in the USSR. After Chancellor Konrad Adenauer's visit to Moscow , many German prisoners of war and forced deportees were able to return to Germany, including Jordan, who was released on October 13, 1955 as part of the “ Return of the Ten Thousand ”.

In the following years he worked as a representative and finally as a clerk at an aircraft manufacturer.

See also

Honors

In Halle (Saale) , the former Thielenplatz was renamed Rudolf-Jordan-Platz on October 19, 1933 by a resolution of the municipal authorities.

Fonts

  • Scientific socialism , 1925.
  • Germany as a Wall Street colony , 1925.
  • The meaning of this war . Central publishing house of the NSDAP, Franz Ehler Nachf. GmbH, Berlin 1941.
  • Experienced and suffered. Path of a Gauleiter from Munich to Moscow. , 1971.
  • On the stand of history. Answers on the subject of Hitler. , 1974.
  • June 30, 1934. The so-called "Röhm revolt" and its consequences from the perspective of an experience witness. , 1984.

Movie

  • Resumes. Rudolf Jordan and Albrecht Eggeling - The Gauleiter of the NSDAP in Saxony-Anhalt. Documentation, Germany, 2007, 45 min., Script and direction: Ernst-Michael Brandt, production: MDR , first broadcast: November 11, 2007, table of contents ( memento from January 2, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) from MDR

literature

  • Henrik Eberle: The Martin Luther University in the time of National Socialism. Mdv, Halle 2002, ISBN 3-89812-150-X , pp. 454f
  • Dieter Lent: Jordan, Rudolf . In: Horst-Rüdiger Jarck, Günter Scheel (ed.): Braunschweigisches Biographisches Lexikon: 19th and 20th centuries . Hahnsche Buchhandlung Verlag, Hannover 1996, p. 306. ISBN 3-7752-5838-8

Web links

Commons : Rudolf Jordan (politician)  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ University of Magdeburg : Biography of Rudolf Jordan
personal data
SURNAME Jordan, Rudolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (NSDAP), MdR, Gauleiter
DATE OF BIRTH June 21, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Grossenlüder
DATE OF DEATH October 27, 1988
Place of death Munich