Rudolf Kerner

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Rudolf Kerner (* 21st February 1910 in Saarbrücken , † 1998) was SS - Hauptsturmführer and Chief Inspector and from September 3, 1941 Head of the German Gestapo in Kristiansand ( Norway ).

Career

Rudolf Kerner in custody

Kerner passed his matriculation examination in Saarbrücken in 1938. After training at a technical college in Pirmasens in the Palatinate region and then completing an internship at the company "Ela", he worked from 1932 to 1936 in his parents' shoe store.

After that, Kerner changed his occupational field and was trained by the state police in Saarbrücken. In 1937 he passed an examination at the Forensic Science Institute in Berlin and then went through further training stations in Saarbrücken at the criminal police and the police headquarters. At the beginning of 1938 he took another exam, was seconded to the State Police Office in Linz in March 1939 and later worked as an assistant clerk for the Department Head of the State Police.

On February 1, 1940, Kerner was promoted to detective inspector and given his own department. In July 1940, Kerner, who had been a member of the NSDAP since 1935, was appointed SS-Obersturmführer and deployed in Metz (Lorraine) and Thionville . In September 1941 he received a marching order to Oslo .

Activity in Norway

In 1942 Rudolf Kerner was assigned to Kristiansand as the local Gestapo chief. He held this position until the surrender in 1945.

In the Arkiv, the building of the Kristiansand City Archives, the Gestapo interrogated Norwegians suspected of resistance . There 367 people were mistreated by various Gestapo people; twelve people died as a result. Kerner himself participated in assaults and mistreatment.

His responsibility also includes the killing of 37 Soviet prisoners of war who were tortured and shot without judgment.

Criminal penalties

As the local head of the German security police, Rudolf Kerner was responsible for the reign of terror and the regime of violence. In the course of 1946, Kerner was interrogated several times by the Norwegian police about his work as a Gestapo officer in Norway. The most serious charge was that he himself ordered the torture that resulted in the deaths of two Norwegians. On June 16, 1947, Kerner and some of his co-defendants were sentenced to death by a Norwegian court for crimes against humanity .

The death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 1948 . The important role of West Germany as an ally in the Cold War and its intended rearmament also led to an amnesty for war criminals in Norway. On October 16, 1953, Kerner was released from prison and deported to Germany.

memorial

Museum in the Gestapo building

The Gestapo building was called the “house of horrors” ( Skrekkens hus ) by residents . Today the Arkiv is the only surviving Gestapo quarters in Norway that houses a museum. During the Second World War , around 3,500 Norwegians were arrested by the Gestapo and held in the Arkiv for several days . The names of 162 Norwegian victims who died or were executed in concentration camps are written on a memorial in front of the building.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rudolf Kerner. Stiftelsen Arkivet, accessed October 24, 2012 (Norwegian).
  2. ↑ Torturers in court. Archived from the original on November 25, 2010 ; Retrieved May 1, 2009 .
  3. ↑ Stein U. Larson: Punishing the Unpredictable. The criminal investigation into German war crimes in Norway. In: Norbert Frei: Transnational politics of the past. How to deal with German war criminals in Europe after the Second World War. Göttingen 2002, ISBN 3-892-44940-6 , p. 385.
  4. ↑ Gestapisten in the Gestapo cellar. Retrieved April 14, 2014 .
personal data
SURNAME Kerner, Rudolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German head of the Gestapo in Kristiansand
DATE OF BIRTH February 21, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Saarbrücken
DATE OF DEATH after 1953