Walter Schmidt (politician, 1886)

Walter Friedrich Wilhelm Karl Schmidt (born May 10, 1886 in Bützow , Mecklenburg , † April 3, 1935 in Berlin ) was a German politician ( NSDAP ) and SA leader . Schmidt was among other things staff leader of the Berlin SA and a member of the Prussian state parliament. He should not be confused with the NSDAP politician of the same name, Walter Schmidt , who was Lord Mayor of Chemnitz during the Nazi era .

Live and act

Earlier career

Schmidt was a son of Hermann Wilhelm Jacob Schmidt and his wife Friederike Luise Elisabeth, geb. Mandrel. After attending school, Schmidt joined the Prussian Army , where he was made a lieutenant in 1905 . From 1914 to 1918 he took part in the First World War.

In 1919 Schmidt was accepted into the Reichswehr , from which he resigned in 1924 with the rank of major . In the following years he earned his living as a businessman.

Career in the NSDAP and SA

On March 1, 1930, he joined the NSDAP ( membership number 219.259). He also became a member of the Sturmabteilung (SA), the task force of the party, in which he quickly made a career: In 1931 he temporarily led the Berlin SA Standard II. Effective December 15, 1931 Schmidt was promoted to the rank of SA Oberführer was appointed staff leader of the Berlin-Brandenburg SA group , in which he assumed the second highest position in the hierarchy after the leader of the group, Wolf-Heinrich Graf von Helldorff , as the latter's official deputy. He retained this position until the imposition of the SA prohibition issued by the Heinrich Brüning government in April 1932.

In April 1932 Schmidt was also elected as a candidate for the NSDAP in the Prussian state parliament, to which he was a member until 1933.

After the SA ban was lifted and the SA was reorganized in July 1932, the Führer Order No. I of July 1, 1932 entrusted Schmidt with the leadership of the SA sub-group Berlin-West - one of four sub-groups of the Berlin-Brandenburg group . In this position too he belonged - alongside the leader of the group and his staff leader, Achim von Arnim and the leaders of the other three Berlin and Brandenburg subgroups - to the half dozen highest functionaries of the Berlin SA.

Affair and Schmidt's Jewish descent and leaving the NSDAP and SA

Schmidt retained the leadership of the SA sub-group Berlin-West until October 14, 1932. At this point he was deposed as leader of the subgroup and replaced by his staff leader Ernst Pretzel . Soon afterwards it was made available to the Supreme SA leadership by the Fuehrer's Order No. 10 of December 15, 1932 with effect from January 1, 1933 at its own request .

The background to Schmidt's removal from his leading position in the SA was that it was established in autumn 1932 that, according to the National Socialist definition, he was partly of Jewish descent. Political opponents of the NSDAP had found through appropriate research in Mecklenburg baptismal registers that a grandmother Schmidt had been Jewish , which he himself had not known before, and afterwards spread this information with relish.

By decision of the investigation and arbitration committee of the Reich leadership of the NSDAP on December 15, 1932, Schmidt was declared a quarter Jew in accordance with the provisions on membership in the NSDAP, which prohibited Jews from joining the NSDAP (Article 3, paragraph 1 of the statutes of the NSDAP from 1925), excluded from this. In the notice of his expulsion from the party it said:

"Since the assertion of your purely Aryan descent signed by you when you signed your declaration of admission later turned out to be incorrect and the requirement for your admission to the NSDAP association required in Art. 3 of the statutes was found not to have been met from the start, I hereby declare your Admission to the association is invalid. Their deletion from the list of members is ordered. "

In January 1934, by a personal decision by Hitler, who still valued him, as Rudolf Hess informed him in a letter of January 16, 1934, "in view of your special services to the movement during your membership", Schmidt was back on the path of grace accepted into the NSDAP. His deletion from the NSDAP membership file on December 15, 1932, was withdrawn on January 22, 1934 as a result.

The information in a publication of the Institute for Contemporary History , according to which he switched from the SA to the Schutzstaffel (SS) and is said to have held the rank of SS Sturmbannführer in 1934, must certainly be incorrect .

In the NSDAP central file it is noted on Schmidt's card that, according to a report from the Berlin district in 1937, he had already died at this point in time. H. he must have died between 1934 and 1937.

estate

In the Federal Archives , diverse personnel records to Schmidt received. In particular, a file with party correspondence on Schmidt has been preserved in the former Berlin Document Center (microfilm Q 48, photos 1603 to 1630).

Furthermore, there are index cards for him in the NSDAP central index (3100, microfilm P 56 "Schmidt, Wally to Schmidt Walter", image 512) and the NSDAP local index (3200 microfilm U 1 "Schmidt, Richus to Schmidt, Walther", Image 2778).

literature

• Institute for Contemporary History : Adolf Hitler. Speeches, writings, orders. October 1932 to January 1933 , 1998, p. 326.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Fuhrer order of the Supreme SA leadership no. 7 of February 10, 1932, p. 2 ("Walter Schmidt is appointed staff leader of the Berlin-Brandenburg group with effect from December 15, 1931 and promoted to Oberführer.")
2. ^ Fuehrer order of the Supreme SA Leadership No. I of July 1, 1932, p. 3 ("Leadership subgroup Berlin-West: Oberführer Walter Schmidt").
3. ↑ Fuehrer order of the Supreme SA Leadership No. 10 dated December 15, 1932 ("At the disposal of the OSAF is made on own request: Oberführer Walter Schmidt relieved of his position as leader of the Berlin subgroup on January 1, 333.")
4. ^ Institute for Contemporary History: Adolf Hitler. Speeches, writings, orders. October 1932 to January 1933 , 1996, p. 326.