Walther Lingens

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Walther Lingens (born March 14, 1882 in Aachen ; died January 28, 1940 in Düsseldorf ) was a Prussian administrative officer and from 1932 to 1935 police chief of Cologne .

Life

Origin and education

Walther Lingens was the son of the Aachen cloth manufacturer Heinrich Lingens (1840–1912) and his wife Adelheid Maria Hubertine Lingens, née Bischoff (1856–1904). After attending high schools in his hometown and in Düsseldorf, he was an active officer in the Prussian army from 1902 to May 31, 1920 , from which he resigned as a major . From 1914 to 1918 he was a participant in the First World War .

Walther Lingens was the bearer of the Iron Cross First Class and the Hohenzollern House Order with Swords .

Career

After leaving the Prussian military service, Lingens was accepted into the customs service on July 1, 1920. When he was appointed Police Major on April 15, 1921, he first moved to the High Presidium of Hanover , before taking over as leader of the Cologne readiness department and finally becoming commander of the Aachen police force. Expelled in 1923 by the Interalled Rhineland Commission, Lingens was finally transferred in January 1925 to the position of organizational officer for the Prussian police in the Prussian Ministry of the Interior. This was followed by promotions to chief police sergeant (May 1925), police colonel (January 1, 1927) and leader of the protection police (March 2, 1932) in Essen, although he did not take up the latter position and in the same year to the police commander.

Police chief in Cologne

Just eight days after the previous Cologne police chief Otto Bauknecht was put into temporary retirement on July 20, 1932 as a result of the Prussian strike, Lingens took office on July 28 with his inauguration and provisional appointment of his successor. His definitive appointment followed on October 4, 1932. Lingens only occupied the position until July 1935, when he himself was appointed Landesgruppenführer Rheinland of the Reich Air Protection Association and SA Brigadefuhrer Walter Hoevel was temporarily entrusted with his successor on July 30, 1935. Lingen's last posts were in Berlin, where he found temporary employment in the Prussian Ministry of the Interior from March 2, 1936, and subsequently with his transfer on July 20, 1937, the Düsseldorf government . As early as August 9, 1939, Lingens received notification that he should make himself available in the event that the District President of Düsseldorf was mobilized. When the war began, he was drafted into the Wehrmacht and died on January 28, 1940 in the Düsseldorf reserve hospital.

Walther Lingens, politically rather conservative but independent, quickly adapted to the new circumstances after the National Socialists came to power on January 30, 1933 and tried to give the SA and SS active support in their actions. Therefore, the new rulers did not see his transfer as a priority and only released his deputy, Oberregierungsrat Karl Winkler, from his duties, which was later followed by his dismissal. Also fitting to this view, that shortly after taking office, Lingens was, without exception, responsible for the political acts of violence against the communists.

While Göring issued the shooting decree on February 17, 1933 , which contributed to strengthening the national associations (SA, SS and Stahlhelm) in connection with their subsequent appointment of SA and SS members as auxiliary police , Lingens left this in his role as police chief Issuing police ID cards to groups of people in early March 1933. The auxiliary policemen appeared in the uniforms of their respective organizations and also wore a white armband with the letters auxiliary police. Acting largely independently, these units were formally under the command of the police force.

After the seizure of power, Lingens emerged as a reliable comrade. Evidence of this was given by numerous expressions of loyalty that he showed to the Nazi state, as well as his dealings with subordinates. “The reason for Lingens' ostentatious closeness to National Socialism was apparently the weakness of his position as a career official. Membership and functions in Nazi organizations were unable to erase the stigma of lacking party affiliation. ”When, despite this weakness, he attempted to bring the law into law against the Nazi organizations, the NSDAP party leadership in Cologne issued a public reprimand . In addition to this, the Gaupresseamt ​​made sure that the Cologne newspapers published the article Police and Movement on July 18, 1935 . Print closest cooperation for National Socialism . The subject of the article was the report on a meeting between party and state representatives, among them SA Brigadefuhrer Hoevel, the head of the Prussian political police Rudolf Diels and Lingens, as well as all officers of the protection police. While Lingens was still assuring "increased cooperation with the party" there, his recall had already been decided. On July 24th, Diels suggested "in order to calm down the current situation in Cologne, which had given rise to serious concerns", to the Reich Minister of the Interior, Wilhelm Frick, at the instigation of Josef Terboven and Josef Grohé, the immediate replacement of Lingens, who followed five days later.

family

The Catholic Walther Lingens married Eugenie Piedboeuf (born August 22, 1886 in Düsseldorf; died June 20, 1917 there) on November 8, 1906 in Düsseldorf, a daughter of the manufacturer Louis Piedbœuf and his wife Louise Victoire Piedbœuf, née Dawans and second marriage on March 19, 1925 in Berlin Margarete Peltzer (born October 25, 1897 in Berlin), a daughter of the Ministerialrat, Real Secret Upper Government Council and lecturer in the Ministry of Agriculture, Julius Peltzer (1854-1931) and his wife Clara Peltzer, born Driesen (1859-1918).

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Horst Romeyk : The leading state and municipal administrative officials of the Rhine Province 1816-1945 (=  publications of the Society for Rhenish History . Volume 69 ). Droste, Düsseldorf 1994, ISBN 3-7700-7585-4 , p. 607 f .
  2. ^ Wilhelm Leopold Janssen, Eduard Arens : History of the Club Aachener Casino . Aachen 1937 (2nd edition edited by Elisabeth Janssen and Felix Kuetgens , 1964; 3rd edition Aachen 2000), No. 662.
  3. ^ A b Wilhelm Leopold Janssen, Eduard Arens: History of the Club Aachener Casino . Aachen 1937 (2nd edition, edited by Elisabeth Janssen and Felix Kuetgens , 1964; 3rd edition, Aachen 2000), No. 898.
  4. ^ Horst Matzerath: Lingens, Walther In: Ulrich S. Soénius, Jürgen Wilhelm: Kölner Personen-Lexikon. Greven Verlag, Cologne 2008, ISBN 978-3-7743-0400-0 , p. 328.
  5. ↑ Werner Jung: A smooth transition. The Cologne police leadership between the Prussian strike and the seizure of power In: Harald Buhlan, Werner Jung (ed.): Whose friend and whose helper? The Cologne Police under National Socialism (= writings of the NS Documentation Center of the City of Cologne , Volume 7) Emons Verlag, Cologne 2000, ISBN 3-89705-200-8 , pp. 64–144, here p. 118.
  6. ↑ Horst Matzerath: Cologne in the time of National Socialism 1933-1945. (History of the City of Cologne, 12), Greven Verlag Cologne 2009, p. 87 f.
  7. ↑ Horst Matzerath: Cologne in the time of National Socialism 1933-1945. (History of the City of Cologne, 12), Greven Verlag Cologne 2009, p. 54.
  8. ↑ Horst Matzerath: Cologne in the time of National Socialism 1933-1945. (History of the City of Cologne, 12), Greven Verlag Cologne 2009, p. 67.
  9. ↑ Horst Matzerath: Cologne in the time of National Socialism 1933-1945. (History of the City of Cologne, 12), Greven Verlag Cologne 2009, p. 127 f.
personal data
SURNAME Lingens, Walther
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Prussian officer and police chief (Cologne)
DATE OF BIRTH March 14, 1882
PLACE OF BIRTH Aachen
DATE OF DEATH January 28, 1940
Place of death Dusseldorf