Walter Junker (politician)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Georg Heinrich Walter Junker (born August 13, 1905 in Marburg ; † May 24, 1986 in Neunkirchen (Saar) ) was a German politician and propagandist of the NSDAP and mayor and treasurer of the city of Hanau from 1937 to March 1945.

Life

Junker was born in Marburg, but grew up in Hanau, where he graduated from high school in 1925. He then studied economics and law in Marburg and passed his state examination in law in 1933. Until 1935 he worked in various positions in the administrative and judicial service, most recently in the district office of the Gelnhausen district .

Career in the NSDAP

Junker had already joined the NSDAP in May 1929. In 1931 he became a Gauredner . His agitation activities brought him disciplinary proceedings in 1932, which is why he had to interrupt his legal training from April to September 1932. 1935–1937 he was adjutant to Gauleiter Jakob Sprenger in Darmstadt , and subsequently city treasurer and mayor of Hanau.

His work as mayor showed that he initially acted in a relevant manner. Junker pushed the renovation of the old town, the recognition of Hanau as a “city of fine jewelry” and the renovation of the old town hall and its renaming to the German goldsmith's house . For the collections of the Hanau History Association there , he had the prince building of the Hanau City Palace converted into a museum. However, these measures were destroyed in the Second World War by the destruction in January 1945 (City Palace) and on March 19, 1945 , and a large part of the museum's holdings was lost.

The direct involvement in pogroms against the Jews that took place in Hanau under Junker's tenure and that of his predecessor Müller-Starke, during which he acted as treasurer and mayor, cannot be proven. The city administration was not directly involved in the November pogroms of 1938 , but bought the vandalized synagogue in March 1939 for 8,500 Reichsmarks. The mayor and mayor also made clear anti-Semitic decisions such as the ban on the use of the city baths for Jews, the ban on the use of the city crematorium or the burial in Hanau. The city administration also participated directly in the “Aryanization” of Jewish shops and businesses.

In his work he benefited from his high level of education, he was culturally committed; However, the culture had to subordinate itself unconditionally to his National Socialist ideology , so that precisely this made him appear particularly dangerous. The synchronization of the history association, through which it became its only unelected chairman, was followed by the resignation of deserving members such as Dr. hc Hugo Birkner and Dr. Walter Martin Fraeb . At the next meeting of the Führer Council he made reproaches to the committee about “the virtues of the German man”, and he subsequently led the association through orders.

Junker was appointed mayor at the beginning of 1944, on January 30th, since his predecessor Friedrich Müller-Starke (1877-1967) retired on June 30th, 1943. Junker held the mayor's office until the end of March 1945. At the time of deployment, he had already volunteered as a soldier due to an appeal by the Führer, but was now deployed on the “home front”. As a sign that he was now serving administration and national defense at the same time, he often appeared in the Hanau town hall in Wehrmacht uniform.

post war period

Junker had fled to Thuringia in time before the Americans marched into Hanau at the end of March 1945; later they moved to Marburg and Bad Pyrmont . He was of the denazification in the " denazification classified as" Minder-loaded '' and led to the war, a law firm. He died in 1986 in Neunkirchen an der Saar.

literature

  • Gerhard Flämig : Hanau in the Third Reich Vol. III. Published by the City Council of Hanau 1991, ISBN 3-926011-16-5 , pp. 219-224.
  • Karl Ludwig Krauskopf: 150 years of the Hanau History Association. Hanauer Geschichtsblätter 33, 1994, pp. 332–334.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gerhard Flämig: Hanau in the Third Reich, Vol. III. Published by the City Council of Hanau 1991, ISBN 3-926011-16-5 , p. 219.
  2. ↑ Eckhard Meise : Brief overview of the history of the Hanau Jews and their synagogues. In: New Magazine for Hanau History 2010, p. 101.
  3. ↑ Gerhard Flämig: Hanau in the Third Reich, Vol. III. Published by the city council of Hanau 1991, ISBN 3-926011-16-5 , p. 223.
  4. ↑ Overview of the Lord Mayors of Hanau , website of the city of Hanau (as of November 15, 2016); Retrieved February 20, 2017
personal data
SURNAME Junker, Walter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Junker, Georg Heinrich Walter (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (NSDAP) and propagandist
DATE OF BIRTH August 13, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Marburg
DATE OF DEATH May 24, 1986
Place of death Neunkirchen (Saar)