Rudolf Meier (politician, 1901)

Rudolf Meier (born March 23, 1901 in Stuttgart , † August 25, 1961 in Schwäbisch Gmünd ) was a German politician ( NSDAP ). From 1935 to 1945 he was Lord Mayor of Heidenheim an der Brenz .

Life

The son of a businessman attended elementary school in Stuttgart and the Liebig-Oberrealschule in Frankfurt am Main , which he graduated from high school. From 1919 Meier studied economics, social sciences and law at the Frankfurt University . In 1922 he passed the commercial diploma examination; In 1923 he received his doctorate in political science. During his studies he joined a liberal fraternity of the General German Burschenbund . From November 1923 to August 1935, Meier worked for the Heidenheim mechanical engineering company Voith . First he was an accountant, then private secretary of Hermann Voithand finally head of the commercial secretariat. Meier married in November 1927; the marriage resulted in four children.

Meier joined the NSDAP in January 1931 ( membership number 426.542) and in November 1931 the Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur (KfdK). For the NSDAP he was active as a guest speaker, district trainer and district economic advisor; in the KfdK he worked as a local group leader. The SA led Meier in 1938 as an honorary member with the rank of SA storm leader .

Meier was appointed Lord Mayor of the city of Heidenheim on August 10, 1935 at the suggestion of the Heidenheim NSDAP district leader Wilhelm Maier . Meier did not have the qualifications for judicial office or higher administrative service required by the German municipal code, so that his appointment was exceptionally approved by the supervisory authority with reference to his "services to the Nazi movement". During Meier's time as Lord Mayor, 1,000 new small apartments are said to have been built in Heidenheim; the city also received a new sewage treatment plant. According to the local council minutes of October 6, 1938, Meier announced “that Heidenheim's business life will soon be free of Jews .” The last Jewish business in Heidenheim closed on December 31, 1938.

During the Second World War Meier was from January 1941 to December 1942 NCO in a pioneer battalion of the 215th Infantry Division . Initially stationed in Alsace, the unit was part of Army Group North in the German attack on the Soviet Union . From 1943 onwards, Meier was indispensable. Before the forced suicide of General Field Marshal Erwin Rommel , Meier was involved in the fact that statements by Rommel that were classified as defeatist were passed on to the head of the NSDAP party chancellery , Martin Bormann . Towards the end of the war, Meier spread slogans for perseverance, for example on March 1, 1945 before the Heidenheim city council.

On May 11, 1945, Meier was captured by American troops and initially held in Kornwestheim and later in Ludwigsburg internment camp. During the internment he was involved in the publication of a camp newspaper and in legal advice for internees.

In the run-up to Meier's denazification process , statements from the Heidenheim post-war parties were obtained: According to the CDU , Meier was “politically and religiously very intolerant. A real beneficiary. ”The KPD considered him an“ agitator ”; the SPD described him as “completely convinced” and, according to the DVP , Meier “would never have become mayor through his own achievements”. The anthroposophically oriented entrepreneur Hanns Voith declared that he had had many ideological conversations with Meier; Meier's knowledge of his views did not result in any disadvantages. The Judgment Chamber Ludwigsburg classified Meier on March 31, 1948 as "incriminated" and sentenced him to three years in a labor camp , a fine, restrictions on the choice of job and a five-year ban on staying or living in Heidenheim.

Since the time in the internment camp was counted towards the sentence, Meier was released on May 10, 1948. In 1949 and 1950 he worked as an accountant in a metal works in Asperg .

Fonts

• The city of Heidenheim in 1936, in the 4th year of the National Socialist construction: An annual report , Heidenheim 1937.

literature

• Wolfgang Proske: “To each his own”: Rudolf Meier. In: Wolfgang Proske (Hrsg.): Perpetrators helpers free riders. Nazi victims from the Eastern Alb. Klemm & Oelschläger, Münster / Ulm 2010, ISBN 978-3-86281-008-6 , pp. 159–166.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Chronicle of the city of Heidenheim an der Brenz [1]  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
2. ↑ Proske, Everyone's His own , p. 162.
3. ↑ Quoted in Proske, Jedem das Seine , p. 163.
4. ↑ Maurice Philip Remy : Myth Rommel. List, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-548-60385-8 , p. 308.
5. ↑ Quoted in Proske, Jedem das Seine , p. 159.
6. ↑ Proske, Jedem das seine , p. 160.