Walter Salpeter

Walter Salpeter (born July 31, 1902 in Berlin , † February 1947 in Mingetschaur ) was a German lawyer and SS leader .

Life

Salpeter, whose father was a businessman, completed his studies in law at the University of Berlin and the University of Halle . From 1928 Salpeter belonged to the National Socialist German Student Union . After passing the first state examination in law, Salpeter worked commercially for various companies. During his clerkship wrote Salpeter the dissertation forbidden and immoral transactions in tax law and a doctorate in July 1933 for Dr. jur. Salpeter passed the second state examination in law in September 1934.

At the beginning of November 1933, Salpeter became a member of the SS (SS number 150.729) and later, retroactively from May 1, 1937, of the NSDAP ( membership number 3,958,913). In the SS, at the end of January 1944, Salpeter rose to become SS-Oberführer of the Reserve of the Waffen-SS .

Immediately after the assessor exam, Salpeter joined the SS administration as a full-time employee. From 1935 Salpeter worked as head of the legal department and for welfare matters in the SS administration office in Munich and then made a career in the administrative hierarchy of the SS. In the main office for administration and economics, he headed Amt III A (economics) from 1939 and became a founding partner of several SS companies. This was also the case at Deutsche Erd- und Steinwerke GmbH (DEST) in April 1938, where Salpeter became managing director. The DEST operated quarries in the vicinity of several concentration camps , in which thousands of concentration camp prisoners perished as a result of the inhumane working and supply conditions. In addition, Salpeter was also the managing director of the German equipment works GmbH. With the establishment of Deutsche Wirtschaftsbetriebe GmbH in 1940, Salpeter's influence steadily decreased. Up to this point in time he was Oswald Pohl's most important collaborator in economic and legal matters. In autumn 1941, Salpeter resigned from the main office for administration and economics at his own request and was employed by the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Economic Staff in the German-occupied part of the Soviet Union . There, saltpeter was involved in the economic exploitation of the occupied territories. In mid-September 1943, Salpeter was again Head of Office in the restructured Main Economic and Administrative Office and headed Office A III (Legal Office) in Office Group A and temporarily Office W VIII (Special Tasks) in Office Group W. Salpeter carried out these functions until the beginning of May 1945.

In the course of the Battle of Berlin , saltpeter was taken prisoner by the Soviets. Salpeter died due to illness in February 1947 in a hospital for prisoners of war in the Soviet Union.

literature

• Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich . Who was what before and after 1945 . 2nd Edition. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 .
• Jan Erik Schulte : Forced Labor and Extermination: The Economic Empire of the SS. Oswald Pohl and the SS Economic Administration Main Office 1933-1945. Paderborn 2001, ISBN 3-506-78245-2 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Walter Salpeter in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Jan Erik Schulte: Forced Labor and Destruction: The Economic Empire of the SS. Oswald Pohl and the SS Economic Administration Main Office 1933-1945. Paderborn 2001, p. 163ff.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 519.
3. ↑ Walter Salpeter on www.dws-xip.pl