Udo von Woyrsch

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Udo von Woyrsch

Udo Gustav Wilhelm Egon von Woyrsch (born July 24, 1895 at the Schwanowitz manor , Brieg district ; † January 14, 1983 in Biberach an der Riss ) was a German politician (NSDAP) , SS-Obergruppenführer and general of the police . Among other things, he was a member of the Prussian State Council for life, a member of the National Socialist Reichstag , Higher SS and Police Leader Elbe, and landowner on Schwanowitz and Pramsen.

Early years

From 1901 Woyrsch received private lessons in his parents' house and in 1905 switched to the grammar school in Brieg . After attending school, he embarked on an officer career and from 1908 attended a cadet institute, where he passed the ensign examination in 1914. He took part in the First World War from August 1914 and was a Russian prisoner of war after the end of the war. After his release, he worked for the Eastern Border Guard from February 1919 . From 1921 he completed an agricultural training and in 1923 took over his father's estates.

Nazi functionary and SS leader

In 1929 Woyrsch joined the NSDAP ( membership number 162.349). He also became a member of the SS in 1930 (SS no. 3,689), in which he quickly made a career. In March 1932 he had already been promoted to SS-Gruppenführer .

In the summer of 1932 Woyrsch succeeded in winning Colonel Walter von Reichenau , chief of staff of the East Prussian military district commander Werner von Blomberg , for the goals of the Nazi movement. From then on, Reichenau worked systematically to win Blomberg for National Socialism. In January 1933, Reich President Paul von Hindenburg appointed him Reichswehr Minister of the Hitler government and entrusted him with the role of a “watchdog”.

From 1932 to March 1933 Woyrsch was a member of the Prussian state parliament . In July 1933 he was appointed a member of the Prussian State Council. In addition, he moved into the Reichstag in March 1933, which he then belonged to until the end of the Nazi regime as a member of parliament for Silesia. As a member of parliament, he voted for the Enabling Act in March 1933 .

At the end of June / beginning of July 1934, Woyrsch, as leader of the SS Upper Section Southeast, was responsible for the regional management of the murders and arrests in the context of the disempowerment of the SA by the National Socialists in the Silesia area. On this occasion, his extreme radicalism earned him the nickname Bloodhound : In Silesia, more individuals were liquidated than in all other provinces of the German Reich - only in Berlin and Munich, the actual centers of the wave of purges, more people were killed. Contrary to Himmler's instructions, Woyrsch had his personal rival Emil Sembach murdered as well as a number of bystanders, some of whom were killed in Silesia after a conscious extension of the instructions coming from Berlin, and others on the initiative of the SS that had slipped out of his control. After these exceedances, Woyrsch, who had been promoted to SS-Obergruppenführer on January 1, 1935 , was removed from all his offices in Silesia on January 19, 1935. Goering dismissed him as a member of the Prussian State Council. He was then assigned to the personal staff of the Reichsführer SS . He became "Schiedmann of the great Schiedhof at the Reichsführer SS" and from mid-October 1938 he worked for the chief of the regulatory police .

Second World War

After the attack on Poland , Woyrsch was entrusted by Himmler on September 3, 1939 with the command of a task force, for example V. for the "radical suppression of the flaring Polish uprising". Although there was no significant resistance, Woyrsch's powers as "Special Commander of the Police" in the area of ​​the 14th Army were extended and Himmler instructed him to disarm "Polish gangs" and carry out executions. In the months that followed, 7,000 Jews and Polish civilians were shot in German-occupied Poland. With these shootings the Holocaust was initiated.

From April 20, 1940, Woyrsch held the office of Higher SS and Police Leader of the SS Upper Section Elbe (HSSPF SSOA Elbe) based in Dresden . On April 15, 1941, he was promoted to general of the police. Since January 30, 1943 he was the holder of the golden party badge of the NSDAP . Due to a lack of suitability, he was released from his post as HSSPF in February 1944 and replaced by Ludolf-Hermann von Alvensleben . After his impeachment, he was exiled to his estate on Himmler's secret instructions. At the end of January 1945 he reported to the Waffen-SS and was in charge of “repatriating the civilian population” at the end of the war. At the end of the war he followed the so-called rat line north to Flensburg .

post war period

After the war ended, Woyrsch was interned by the British. In the course of the Nuremberg doctors' trial , he made an affidavit for the accused Joachim Mrugowsky . In October 1948, Woyrsch was sentenced to a maximum sentence of ten years imprisonment after a court hearing in Hamburg-Bergedorf ; after a revision, prison terms previously served were counted towards the judgment. The judgment chamber based its judgment on his knowledge "of the criminal use of the SS in the persecution of political opponents and the Jews, in attacks in the occupied territories, in the foreign workers program and in the illegal treatment of prisoners of war". He was then transferred to the Esterwegen prison. In 1952 he was released again. In a second trial on August 2, 1957, he was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment by the jury at the Osnabrück district court for his role in the Röhm putsch, but was released again in 1960. Because of his inability to stand trial, further proceedings against him were dropped in 1977.

family

Woyrsch came from an old South Bohemian noble family . He was the son of the royal Prussian chamberlain and landowner Günther von Woyrsch (1858–1923) and his wife, Gertrud Countess von Pfeil and Klein-Ellguth (1866–1956). The Prussian field marshal Remus von Woyrsch (1847–1920) was his uncle.

On June 25, 1924 he married Marie-Eva von Eichborn (* 1902; †?), A daughter of the landowner Wolfgang von Eichborn auf Pischkowitz and the Edelgard von Rosen (House Neudorf) at Gut Pischkowitz in Lower Silesia . This marriage was divorced again on May 19, 1933 in Brieg (Lower Silesia).

On September 21, 1934 Woyrsch married in Bad Salzbrunn (Lower Silesia) Inez Freiin von Tschammer and Quaritz (* 1908; † 2001), a daughter of the landowner Siegfried Freiherr von Tschammer and Quaritz auf Quaritz and Edith von Lieres and Wilkau ( Stephanshain House). From this marriage there were four children.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Joachim Lilla u. a. (Arr.): Extras in uniform. The members of the Reichstag 1933–1945. A biographical handbook , Düsseldorf 2004, p. 740 f.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h Hermann Weiß (Hrsg.): Biographisches Lexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 1998, p. 495 f.
  3. ↑ a b So far from fear, so close to death '. The "Röhm Putsch" or the state murder . In: Der Spiegel , edition 20/1957 of May 19, 1957, pp. 20-29.
  4. ↑ Heinz Höhne: The Order under the Skull - The History of the SS , Augsburg 1998, p. 115 f.
  5. ^ Peter Longerich : Heinrich Himmler. Biography , Siedler, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-88680-859-5 , p. 444.
  6. ^ Peter Longerich : Heinrich Himmler. Biography , Siedler, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-88680-859-5 , p. 444.
  7. ↑ Ruth Bettina Birn: The higher SS and police leaders . Düsseldorf 1986, ISBN 3-7700-0710-7 , p. 168 ff.
  8. ↑ Dieter Pohl: “The murder of the Jews in the Generalgouvernement”, in: Ulrich Herbert (Ed.): National Socialist Destruction Policy 1939–1945 . 4th edition, Frankfurt am Main 2001, ISBN 3-596-13772-1 , pp. 98-122.
  9. ↑ Klaus D. Patzwall : The golden party badge and its honorary awards 1934-1944, Studies of the History of Awards Volume 4 , Verlag Klaus D. Patzwall, Norderstedt 2004, ISBN 3-931533-50-6 , p. 90.
  10. ^ A b c Heiner Wember : Re-education in the camp: internment and punishment of National Socialists in the British zone of occupation in Germany , Klartext Verlag , Essen 1991, p. 331.
  11. ↑ Stephan Link: "Rattenlinie Nord". War criminals in Flensburg and the surrounding area in May 1945. In: Gerhard Paul, Broder Schwensen (Hrsg.): Mai '45. End of the war in Flensburg. Flensburg 2015, p. 22.
  12. ↑ Development tape for microfiche edition: With an introduction by Angelika Ebbinghaus on the history of the process and short biographies of the process involved . S. 139. Karsten Linne (ed.): The Nuremberg Medical Process 1946/47. Verbal transcripts, prosecution and defense material, sources on the environment. Published by Klaus Dörner , German Edition, Microfiche Edition, Munich 1999, p. 157 on behalf of the Hamburg Foundation for Social History of the 20th Century .
personal data
SURNAME Woyrsch, Udo von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Woyrsch, Udo Gustav Wilhelm Egon von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (NSDAP), MdR and general of the German police
DATE OF BIRTH July 24, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Schwanowitz Manor
DATE OF DEATH January 14, 1983
Place of death Biberach an der Riss