Walter Klaus Köbel

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Walter Klaus Köbel (born May 20, 1918 in Darmstadt ; † September 9, 1965 ) was a Hessian politician ( SPD ) and a member of the Hessian state parliament .

education and profession

Walter Klaus Köbel was the son of Adam and Elisabeth Köbel nee Unrath. The father had been a lieutenant in the First World War and had lost his sight during the war. He worked as a tax officer after the war.

Walter Klaus Köbel attended an elementary school in Darmstadt from 1924 to 1927 and switched to a secondary school in Darmstadt in 1927 , where he graduated from high school in 1936. After graduating from high school, between April 4 and September 26, 1936, he served with the Reich Labor Service in Alsfeld . School leavers were obliged to do this service under the RAD Act of June 26, 1935. There was also conscription . Köbel therefore reported for army service, but was initially postponed after two weeks as unfit for duty.

Walter Klaus Köbel joined the Hitler Youth on May 1, 1932 . Since he was still close to his 14th birthday at this point, his membership only took effect three weeks later. On March 19, 1934, he was appointed comrade leader, the lowest leadership rank in the Hitler Youth. From 1938 he was also an employee at Jungbann 115 Darmstadt.

On November 1, 1936, he began studying law and political science at the University of Frankfurt am Main . Because of the death of his father on November 4, 1936, he had to rely on support to finance his studies. His mother only received a small pension. From the second semester onwards, his tuition fees were waived. He found his accommodation in the Comradeship House Langemarck of the National Socialist German Student Union (NSdSB) at Westendstrasse 55. In the context of the Gleichschaltung , the student associations had been banned and became part of the NSdSB. The fraternity houses were now continued as a comradeship house. In addition, he received a scholarship in the form of a cash grant. In the 4th semester he studied at the University of Göttingen , but then returned to Frankfurt.

On January 1, 1937, he was accepted as a member of the NSDAP under membership number 3,031,238 . On August 28, 1939 he was called up for military service. For storing a Notexamenes he was on leave for a few weeks and put on 6 September 1939, the examination office at the Higher Regional Court of Darmstadt first state exam with a grade of "good". He was also given leave of absence from military service for the legal clerkship at the Langen District Court . On November 7, 1940, he enrolled again at Frankfurt University to do his doctorate with Professor Friedrich Giese . He was also temporarily on leave from service in the Wehrmacht for this doctorate . With his doctoral thesis The Legal Form of the Winter Relief Organization , he was promoted to Dr. jur. PhD. In March 1942 he joined the NS- Rechtsswahrerbund (NSRB).

On July 8, 1943, he became a government assessor. From May to October 1944 he was employed in this function at the Poznan Regional Court . Until 1945, apart from a few leave of absence, he was a Wehrmacht soldier with the rank of NCO. His highest rank was that of a sergeant .

From June 1945 to February 1946 he was held as a prisoner of war by the American occupation forces. In April 1946 he was taken on in the administrative service and at the district office of Büdingen he was deputy of district administrator Kurt Mossdorf (SPD). In the American occupation zone it was forbidden to employ administrative staff who had been NSDAP members before May 1, 1937. In the questionnaire of the military government, Köbel made false statements in this regard. In April 1948 he was transferred to the Hessian Ministry of the Interior . In 1948 he was arrested for forging his military government questionnaire and sentenced to nine months in prison. In the questionnaire and also in the registration form for denazification, he had concealed his NSDAP membership. After he was released as part of the Christmas amnesty, he worked as a freelance administrative lawyer from March 1, 1949. From January 1, 1950, he was permanently employed at the Freiherr-vom-Stein-Institut Lindenfels , an institution of the Hessian Association of Towns and Municipalities .

politics

In 1950 Walter Klaus Köbel joined the SPD. On March 4, 1954, he was unanimously elected mayor of Rüsselsheim by the city council. In addition to the majority coalition consisting of the SPD and CDU, the representatives of the Independent Voting Association also voted for Köbel, the KPD abstained. The re-election on January 7, 1960 was also unanimously. The main focus of his political activity as mayor was housing construction and the expansion of the infrastructure. During his term of office as mayor, the non-profit housing association of the city of Rüsselsheim mbH was founded on November 15, 1954 in accordance with the resolution of the city council on September 2, 1954. The construction of the hospital, a swimming pool, schools and old people's homes fell during his term of office. The economic miracle and the success of the Opel company resulted in a strong increase in the city's income and a considerable increase in population.

In 1956 he was elected chairman of the district council of the Groß-Gerau district. From October 18, 1963 until his death he was a member of the Hessian state parliament. He never spoke in the state parliament. He died in Frankfurt on September 9, 1965.

Aftermath

The largest sports hall in Rüsselsheim on Evreuxring , completed in 1972, was named in memory of the late Mayor Walter-Köbel-Halle . Because of Köbel's Nazi past, the city council decided on March 14, 2013 to change the official name of the hall to the large sports hall in Rüsselsheim .

Posthumous discussion of his Nazi past

While his past received no attention during the Nazi era in the 1950s and 1960s, a posthumous discussion about his Nazi past arose from 2010 onwards. His dissertation on the Winter Relief Organization, which Christoph Safferling describes as a “prototype of National Socialist legal interpretation”, contributes significantly to his Nazi burden. In a study published in 2011 by the historian Hans-Peter Klausch on behalf of the Die Linke parliamentary group in the Hessian state parliament , it is pointed out that Köbel submitted the application for membership at the age of 18 and was one of those who “are seen as young victims of years of indoctrination [can] from which they broke away after the war at the latest ”. This thesis is questioned by recent studies commissioned by the city of Rüsselsheim by the contemporary historian Sabine Kühn. In 2013, she stated that Walter Klaus Köbel was - according to the current sources - not involved in National Socialist crimes, but evaluates his role critically: "Köbel is therefore one of the large group of mostly ideologically convinced functionaries who made a significant contribution to this Establish and stabilize the Nazi regime and carry out its policy of terror. ”In 2013, Steffen Jobst addressed Köbel's Nazi past in his play Wolfsangel .

Works

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Large sports hall Rüsselsheim formerly Walter-Köbel-Halle
  2. ↑ Walter-Köbel-Halle renamed - Echo Online. In: echo-online.de. Archived from the original ; accessed on July 31, 2015 .
  3. ^ Safferling: Evaluation of the dissertation, p. 165
  4. ↑ Hans-Peter Klausch : Brown legacy. Nazi past Hessian state parliament member 1st – 11th Electoral term (1946–1987) . The Left Group in the Hessian State Parliament, Wiesbaden 2011, p. 7 ( Download [PDF; 4.2 MB ]).
  5. ↑ Echo online: Study: Former Mayor Köbel was a National Socialist ( Memento from February 3, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) February 1, 2013
  6. ↑ Sabine Kühn: Walter Köbel (1918–1965) and National Socialism - A Biographical Approach p. 89ff, Rüsselsheim 2013.
  7. ^ Citizens' dialogue on Walter Köbel with links to the study and essay by Sabine Kühn
  8. ↑ Stephan A. Dudek: “Wolfsangel” by Steffen Jobst in the Rüsselsheim City Theater Main-Spitze, April 8, 2013
    Janek Rauhe: The "submerged" National Socialist; in: FAZ from April 6, 2013, page 54
  9. ↑ Frank Schuster: Walter Köbel's brown past Ein Karrierist Frankfurter Rundschau, June 16, 2011
personal data
SURNAME Köbel, Walter Klaus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (SPD), MdL
DATE OF BIRTH May 20, 1918
PLACE OF BIRTH Darmstadt
DATE OF DEATH September 9, 1965