Walther Schieber

Walther Schieber or Walter Schieber (born September 13, 1896 in Beimerstetten near Ulm , † June 29, 1960 in Würzburg ) was a German chemist and operator. During the National Socialist era , he held a position as a multifunctional manager in various companies and supervisory boards . Essential functions were his duties as NSDAP - Gau Economics Adviser and as head of the Armaments Delivery Office in the Reich Ministry of Armaments and War Production (from February 1942), where he also deputy Albert Speer was. As a National Socialist economic manager, he advocated the linking of large-scale industrial technologies with basic scientific research and centralized control of chemical and biological industrial research. He played a key role in the development of industrial production in the German concentration camps , but in doing so also came into conflict with key SS circles . He was investigated for corruption in 1944. He lost his positions and was expelled from the NSDAP. After the war he worked temporarily for the Americans and was released from internment in 1948 without serving a sentence.

Life

Studies and career

The son of a carpenter and later owner of a spinning mill in Bopfingen took part in the First World War as a volunteer from August 1914 after graduating from high school in June 1914 . Most recently in the rank of lieutenant d. At the end of 1918 he was taken prisoner by the Russians, from which he was released on April 30, 1919. He studied chemistry in Jena and at the TH Stuttgart and received his doctorate in 1922 in Stuttgart. For knowledge of colloidal mercury, he was awarded a doctorate in engineering.

Schieber worked for IG Farben and successively became a company chemist, authorized signatory and ultimately operations manager at various company locations in Wolfen , Bobingen, Rottweil , Premnitz and Dormagen . In 1935, Schieber was hired by Hans Kehrl to set up the Schwarza cellulose wool factory . He moved to Thuringia and also became the main clerk in the office of the regional economic advisor of the NSDAP Thuringia, Otto Eberhardt .

Even though he did not join the NSDAP until June 1931 , Schieber was considered an " old fighter ". In June 1933 he joined the SS with membership number 161,947. He made a steep career there, to which his membership in the Freundeskreis Reichsführer SS contributed, and in June 1942 he achieved the rank of SS brigade leader . As an SS-Sturmbannführer , he was awarded the SS sword of honor in 1938. On April 29, 1942, he was accepted into the personal staff of the Reichsführer SS and in 1942 took part in several dinners at the Führer Headquarters . From 1935, Schieber was also a member of the DAF and NSBDT .

Multifunctional in the "Third Reich"

In 1937, Schieber became a consultant for the textile industry at the Thuringia Gauwirtschaftsberater and at the Ministry of Economics. After Eberhardt's accidental death, Schieber took over his functions. Even after his removal from office as a regional economic advisor in September 1944, Schieber headed the Thuringian Chamber of Commerce, held the position of a Thuringian State Council (until April 12, 1945) and headed the Thuringian Representation in Berlin, the "Thuringian House", until its dissolution at the end of March 1944. . Gau economic advisor to the NSDAP in Gau Thuringia . In the successor to Eberhardt, Schieber also took over the chairmanship of the board of directors and the management of the Wilhelm Gustloff Foundation in Weimar , the chairmanship of the Thüringische Zellwolle AG in Schwarza, the Zellstoff- und Papierfabrik AG in Lenzing and the Westfälische Zellstoff AG Alphalint Wildshausen near Arnsberg . Schieber was chairman of the Deutsches Zellwollering e. V. in Berlin and also chief executive of the successor organization created in 1941. In this function he became supervisor of the Zellwollwerke in Roanne from 1940 and from July 1, 1941 also chairman of the Zellgarn-Aktiengesellschaft Litzmannstadt . Overall, the multifunctional Schieber held more than 40 official positions. His influence on Dresdner Bank was important , and he joined the board of directors in 1943 when the SS wing was strengthened. He was also a member of the working committee there. He was said to have good relationships with the chairman of the supervisory board, Carl Goetz .

In February 1942 Schieber became head of the Armaments Supply Office in the Ministry of Armaments and War Production; there he was also responsible for poison gas. From February 1942 to November 1944 he was Albert Speer's deputy in the Reich Ministry for Armaments and War Production . In this function he played a key role in building up industrial production in the concentration camps. For the Wilhelm Gustloff Foundation, he initiated the establishment of an armaments factory in the Buchenwald concentration camp , in which 4,500 prisoners were to work. He initially initiated the relocation of carbine production to the concentration camp, but with his concept of the use of labor came into conflict with the SS, which wanted to build up its own economic empire.

From 1943 the production of artificial foods, with "mycelium" and "biosyn", which were supposed to arise from a by-product of cellulose production , a protein mass , began in the Lenzing plant and in other cellulose works . Schieber had artificial "Biosynwurst" produced in the Westphalian Zellstoff AF in Wildshausen near Arnsberg for concentration camp prisoners, with which Ernst Günther Schenck carried out nutritional experiments in the Mauthausen concentration camp on the orders of Himmler . From autumn 1944 there was also a women's subcamp of the Mauthausen concentration camp in Lenzing, the inmates of which were doing forced labor. If "foreign workers" had been working in Lenzing since the end of 1939, their share and the share of prisoners of war in the workforce rose to over 50% by the end of the war.

At times Schieber was involved in nuclear research in the German Reich and he was the managing director of Ventimotor GmbH , which dealt with the use of wind power.

Disempowerment

Schieber was overthrown by influential circles in the NSDAP and SS, in particular Ernst Kaltenbrunner and Otto Ohlendorf , because he had turned against the policy of the SS when the conflict between industry and SS over the issue of the use of concentration camp prisoners in industrial production, to expand the concentration camps economically. Schieber advocated a more rational handling of foreign workers, without, of course, advocating humane treatment of the forced laborers . He was under surveillance, and in 1944 he was eventually brought to a court of honor for corruption. On September 2, 1944, Schieber was expelled from the NSDAP and in November 1944, Speer released him from the Reich Ministry. Except for his chairman of the board in Lenzing, he lost almost all of his offices. The corruption proceedings were not completed by the end of the war. After the war, however, Schieber used the procedure to portray himself as a persecuted person rather than a perpetrator.

After the war

Schieber was arrested and interned by US troops in Munich on May 13, 1945 . He appeared as a witness in the Nuremberg trial of the major war criminals . Allegedly he was interned in Neustadt in 1947/48 to compile reports on the German war economy. In fact, he was apparently busy with other German chemists developing the nerve gas sarin for the US armed forces. It was supposed to be smuggled into the USA by the US secret service in 1948 . Schieber was denazified on March 11, 1948 as an "incriminated person" and sentenced to two years in a labor camp, which was considered served due to the internment. Before the Central Arbitration Chamber in Hesse he was reopening the proceedings, as a result of which the classification in Group II was revoked on November 13, 1950. Until his death in 1960, Schieber worked as a co-founder and co-owner of a chemical laboratory for the production of synthetic fibers in his home town of Bopfingen.

literature

• Art. Schieber, Walter . In: Ernst Klee: The personal dictionary for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 , Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 3-98114-834-7 , p. 533 f.
• Bernhard Post and Volker Wahl (eds.): Thuringia manual. Territory, constitution, parliament, government and administration in Thuringia from 1920 to 1995 . Böhlau, Weimar 1999, p. 625 f.
• Roman Sandgruber : Dr. Walter Schieber. A National Socialist career between business, bureaucracy and the SS . In: Reinhard Krammer (ed.): The researching look. Contributions to the history of Austria in the 20th century. Festschrift for Ernst Hanisch for his 70th birthday Böhlau, Vienna 2010, pp. 247–276.

Web links

• Rüdiger Stutz : "Which development projects and corporate cultures did the economic advisors of the NS-Gaueitung Thuringia support between 1936 and 1945?" ( Memento from December 24, 2004 in the Internet Archive )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Wolfgang Benz , Barbara Distel (ed.): The place of terror . History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps. Volume 4: Flossenbürg, Mauthausen, Ravensbrück. CH Beck, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-406-52964-X , p. 389 f.
2. ↑ Paul-J. Hahn, Rainer Karlsch: Ronald Richter and the beginnings of fusion research . In: Rainer Karlsch, Heiko Petermann (eds.): For and against "Hitler's bomb", studies on atomic research , Waxmann, Münster 2007, ISBN 978-3-8309-1893-6 , pp. 201 ff.
3. ↑ Christian Gerlach: The company J. Topf & Sons, the extermination policy and the "East" as a field of action for small and medium-sized companies. A factory site as a place of remembrance? In: Aleida Assmann, Frank Hiddemann, Eckhard Schwarzenberger (eds.): Topf & Sons - manufacturer of the ovens for Auschwitz. A factory site as a place of remembrance? , P. 50ff. New York / Frankfurt a. Main, Verlag Campus, 2002. ISBN 3593370352
4. ^ Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , p. 534.