Walter Seifert (SS member)

Walter Fritz Karl Seifert (born August 19, 1895 in Breslau ; † April 17, 1956 in Kassel ) was a German SS leader.

Life and activity

Walter Seifert's death certificate from 1956.

Earlier career

Seifert was the son of Max Seifert, an employee of the Wrocław university printing company, and his wife Olga, born. Laughman. He grew up with three sisters in Breslau. After attending elementary school, from April 1, 1909 to September 30, 1912, he completed a commercial apprenticeship at a company in Breslau. He then worked as a clerk at the same company. In 1912 Seifert went to Leobschütz as an employee , where he worked for a wine wholesaler from October 1912 to August 31, 1914.

Shortly after the beginning of the First World War , Seifert reported to the 6th Hussar Regiment in Leobschütz, with whom he fought on the Eastern Front until December 1917. In 1917 he switched to the air force, where he was used as a fighter pilot until the end of 1918. During the war he was u. a. awarded the Iron Cross 2nd class .

After the end of the war, Seifert worked again from March 1, 1919 to February 15, 1926 as a commercial clerk (most recently authorized signatory) for the wine company Josef Adler, for which he had worked until 1914. In 1926 he started his own business as a businessman. In 1930 he and a friend opened the Kinder und Seifert liqueur factory and wine wholesaler in Leobschütz, which he ran until 1945.

On August 26, 1928, Seifert suffered a fractured skull in a plane crash - he fell 20 meters with a sports machine.

Career in the NSDAP and SS

On August 2, 1930, Seifert became a member of the NSDAP (membership number 480.343). In November 1931 he was recruited for the Schutzstaffel (SS), at that time a kind of police force within the NSDAP, by the landowner Udo von Woyrsch , whom he knew from the First World War (both had been deployed as hussars in Russia ) (SS no . 29,981).

On behalf of Woyrsch, Seifert subsequently organized an SS storm in Leobschütz and then set up the SS-Sturmbann II / 45. He was officially commissioned with the leadership of this Sturmbann on August 27, 1932. Until 1934 he was successively SS-Untersturmführer (December 1932), SS-Obersturmführer (April 1934) and SS-Hauptsturmführer (May 1934).

On July 1, 1934, Seifert organized the execution of two young SA men in the courtyard of the Leobschütz court prison by members of the SS storm under his control as part of the Nazi government's political cleansing action, known as the Röhm Putsch . The background was that the day before, the two SA men, as leaders of an SA troop that had been entrusted with guarding an SA weapons depot near Leobschütz, had fired some warning shots at members of the state police. They had approached the arsenal to occupy it and to confiscate the weapons stored there. Although no one was injured in the process, Göring ordered that the leader of the SA troops and the guard on duty be executed by duty. After the youths were arrested, the two men who were to be executed were singled out and shot by an SS peloton in the court prison yard. The incident was briefly discussed in 1946 during the Nuremberg Trials . In the 1950s, criminal proceedings against Seifert were initiated because of the incident.

On July 3, 1934, Seifert was praised by Heinrich Himmler in the Secret State Police Office in Berlin for his role in the suppression of the "Röhm Revolt" and he presented him with the SS honor dagger as a token of his recognition and promoted him to SS Sturmbannführer. In 1936 Seifert received his last promotion in the SS to SS-Obersturmbannführer. After handing over the SS-Sturmbann II / 45 in 1938, Seifert was then transferred to the Nippeln branch.

In the 1930s he was also an assessor at the district court in Leobschütz.

World War II and post-war period

1940 Seifert was drafted into the air force , in which he took over the leadership of a supply company and an air base company and was deployed in the west and east. His last rank was that of first lieutenant in the reserve. In December 1944, Seifert was accepted into the Waffen SS with the rank of first lieutenant in the reserve. In January 1945 he was called up to the SS Panzer Grenadier Training and Replacement Battalion 1 in Spreehagen .

In 1945 Seifert fell into British captivity in Schleswig . Fearing that he would be arrested because of his former SS membership and the events of June 30, 1934, he fled to the American occupation zone . In autumn 1945 Seifert went to Gifhorn ; there he was placed as a worker at an English work unit in Wolfsburg . He held this position until 1948. Then he moved to Naumburg . There he became commission representative of the Hans Wuppermann company in Traben-Trarbach in 1950 , for which he worked as a wine traveler until 1956. In 1956, the Federal German judiciary initiated proceedings against Seifert for Nazi crimes at the regional court in Kassel (file number 3 Js 84/56). The subject of the proceedings was the shooting of two young SA men on July 1, 1934, organized by him as the leader of the SS-Sturmbann in Leobschütz. Since Seifert died before the start of the already scheduled trial, the proceedings were discontinued.

family

On September 21, 1921, Seifert married Elisabeth Peschek in Leobschütz. The marriage resulted in four children, of whom only one daughter was alive in the 1950s. A son of Seifert, who was born in 1922, died in 1936.

Promotions

• August 15, 1932: SS squad leader
• October 5, 1932: SS troop leader
• December 24, 1932: SS Untersturmführer
• April 6, 1934: SS-Obersturmführer
• May 27, 1934: SS-Hauptsturmführer
• 4th July 1934: SS-Sturmbannführer
• January 30, 1937: SS-Obersturmbannführer

Archival tradition

An SS personal file on Seifert (SSO microfilm 131-B, images 800-849) and an SS judge file (OPG-Ri microfilm 88) are in the holdings of the former Berlin Document Center in the Federal Archives .

literature

• Heinrich Bennecke: The Reichswehr and the "Röhm Putsch" , Munich / Vienna 1964.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Kassel death register for 1956: death certificate no. 1956/938.
2. ^ Minutes of the Nuremberg Trials: Meeting of March 14, 1946.