Waldemar Ernst

Waldemar Wilhelm Adolf Ernst (born April 27, 1909 in Mannheim ; † May 13, 2002 in Heidelberg ) was a German lawyer and administrative officer. During the Second World War he was a senior war administrator and SS-Sturmbannführer . From the 1950s he held various managerial functions in companies, including as chairman of the supervisory board of Dyckerhoff-Zementwerke AG in Wiesbaden, member of the supervisory board of Vereinigte Elektrizitäts- und Bergwerks-AG in Herne and Südwestdeutsche Salz AG in Bad Friedrichshall .

Life

Background and career until 1939

Born the son of a pharmacist, Ernst went to the humanistic grammar schools in Mannheim and Heidelberg. As a schoolboy he became a member of the Young National Federation in 1924 . He studied law , modern history and economics in Heidelberg, Munich and Halle . During his studies he became a member of the Frankonia Heidelberg fraternity in 1927 . During his student days he was involved as a representative of the Greater German student community in the student committee of the University of Heidelberg and worked as a functionary for the German fraternity . After exam in 1931 and dissertation as Dr. iur. In 1932, he went abroad for a long time. In 1935 he passed his assessor exam and subsequently joined the Baden interior administration.

After becoming a member of the NSDAP in 1932 (membership number 1.207.704), he became a member of the SS in 1938 . At the beginning of 1938 he became the administrator of the police department and shortly afterwards in June at the age of 28 police director in Baden-Baden .

In World War II

During the Second World War , Waldemar Ernst was drafted as an artillery officer in 1940 and was active as such in the administrative staff of the 5th Army in Lille . In November of the same year he was transferred from Lille to the administrative staff of the Military Commander-in- Chief (MBF) in Paris . There he headed the "Group V (pol)" (for police) as a senior war administrator and was responsible, among other things, for overseeing the French police. After an interlude as senior government councilor in the personnel department of the Reich Ministry of the Interior from March to September 1941, he returned to the MBF in October 1941 as a senior war administrator and stayed there until May 1942. As part of this activity, 1,100 Jews were arrested on December 2, 1941 under Waldemar Ernst's joint responsibility and deported on March 27, 1942. In a letter dated December 19, 1941, Ernst requested the commandant of the Compiègne internment camp to draw up lists of captured Jews who were to be deported according to the orders of the MBF and ordered in a further letter of the same day, “those arrested on December 14, 1941 To examine Jews (the Jewish intelligentsia of Paris) for their suitability for forced labor in the East ”.

Following his work as a senior war administrator in France, he became district administrator in the Waldshut district in the second half of 1942 . In January 1943 he was drafted into the Wehrmacht again with deployments in France and the Soviet Union , from which he returned wounded. 1943/1944 Ernst was SS-Sturmbannführer with the SD -führer in Strasbourg.

Post war career

In 1945 Ernst was relieved of his district office and was interned from 1946 to 1948. In 1949 he worked as an employee at the Heidelberg district office, and in 1950 at the Tauberbischofsheim district office . Then he became head of the Baden state debt department and the state main treasury in Karlsruhe , whose director he became in 1951. In 1953 he served as Chairman of the Board and as Chief Executive of the Swabian metallurgical plants GmbH in Wasseralfingen operates. He later became chairman of the supervisory board of Dyckerhoff-Zementwerke AG in Wiesbaden, member of the supervisory board of Vereinigte Elektrizitäts- und Bergwerks-AG in Herne and Südwestdeutsche Salz AG in Bad Friedrichshall . In 1963 he became Vice President of the General Assembly of the Heidenheim-Aalen Chamber of Commerce and Industry . He was also on the board of directors of the Württemberg-Badischer Metallindustrielle association in Stuttgart and was involved in numerous other associations.

In 1983 the public prosecutor in Cologne accused him of assisting the murder as "head of Group V (pol)" in the administrative staff of the military commander in France in 1940/41 by supporting the arrest and deportation of 1,100 Jews. The proceedings were transferred to the Stuttgart Public Prosecutor's Office, which finally closed it in 1987 because Ernst had acted “only according to orders” and was therefore out of the question as a perpetrator. “This finding,” summarizes the historian Bernd-A. Rusinek , "joins the chronique scandaleuse of the persecution of Nazi perpetrators in the Federal Republic".

Publications

• The Baden police ordinance and police disposition law. With special consideration of the amendment of February 26, 1931. Dissertation University of Heidelberg 1932.

Awards

• 1972: Large Federal Cross of Merit

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume I: Politicians. Volume 7: Supplement A – K. Winter, Heidelberg 2013, pp. 299-300.
2. ↑ Bernd-A. Rusinek: The Greifeld Case, Karlsruhe - Science Management and the Nazi Past (= publications from the archive of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology; 5). KIT Scientific Publishing, Karlsruhe 2019, pp. 211–212.
3. ↑ Bernd-A. Rusinek: The Greifeld Case, Karlsruhe - Science Management and the Nazi Past , p. 212 u. Pp. 215-216.
4. ↑ Bernd-A. Rusinek: The Greifeld Case, Karlsruhe - Science Management and the Nazi Past , p. 212 u. Pp. 215-216.
5. ↑ Bernd-A. Rusinek: The Greifeld Case, Karlsruhe - Science Management and the Nazi Past , pp. 212–213.

literature

• Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume I: Politicians. Volume 7: Supplement A – K. Winter, Heidelberg 2013, ISBN 978-3-8253-6050-4 , pp. 299-300.
• Bernd-A. Rusinek : The Greifeld Case, Karlsruhe - Science Management and the Nazi Past (= publications from the archive of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology; 5). KIT Scientific Publishing, Karlsruhe 2019, ISBN 978-3-7315-0844-1 . On Waldemar Ernst there, in particular, the chapter A Closer Look: Greifeld's Parisian comrade Dr. jur Waldemar Ernst (born 1909) , pp. 209–217.