Werner Best (NSDAP)
Karl Rudolf Werner Best (born July 10, 1903 in Darmstadt ; † June 23, 1989 in Mülheim an der Ruhr ) was a German lawyer , police chief , SS-Obergruppenführer and politician of the NSDAP .
As the “theoretician, organizer and head of personnel of the Gestapo” he played an important role in establishing the Gestapo and establishing the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA). The conception and the initial formation of so-called task forces goes back to him. Within the SS he was at times considered to be the "leading large-scale theorist". He became known as the planner of a failed coup by the NSDAP (1931), later as Reinhard Heydrich's deputy in the leadership of the SD (1934–1940) and as the German governor in occupied Denmark (1942–1945). Less well known is his work as a high officer of the Wehrmacht in the German military administration of occupied France (1940–1942).
After the Second World War he was convicted as a war criminal in Denmark . After his release, he played an important role in the successful attempt to make the prosecution of Nazi perpetrators more difficult by covertly influencing processes and legislation in the Federal Republic . He was largely able to avoid prosecution of his own crimes. He died shortly before the main proceedings against him were opened.
Origin and coinage
Werner Best was born in Darmstadt in 1903 as the eldest son of postal inspector Georg Konrad Best and his wife Karoline, née Noll / Nohl. His brother Walter Best followed in 1905. In 1905, the parents moved from Darmstadt to Liegnitz and in 1912 to Dortmund . The father died as a first lieutenant after a serious wound at the beginning of the First World War in France . The mother then moved with the two children to Gonsenheim near Mainz. Best attended the new humanistic grammar school until he graduated from high school in 1921.
Werner married Hildegard Regner, the daughter of the dentist Dr. Josef Regner. They had five children.
youth
Best was linked to the camp of völkisch nationalism in Germany from an early age . After the end of the First World War, he founded the first local group of the German National Youth Association in Mainz and became active in the German National People's Party . Even as a high school student at the New Mainz High School , he was a founding member of the Mainz local group of the German National Guard and Defense Association .
He first gained national fame when he won a French competition as a schoolboy and then expressly refused to accept the prize from a French occupation officer . The experience of the Allied occupation of the Rhineland and the early death of his father by the French military had a decisive influence on the young Best.
Studies and battle against the Ruhr
From 1921 to 1925, Best studied law in Frankfurt am Main , Freiburg , Gießen and Heidelberg . During this time he also became a member of the strongly anti-Semitic German University Ring, where he first rose to the leadership of the Frankfurter Ring and then to the “Führer Council” of the nationwide association. Within the association he belonged to the radically “racially oriented” direction, which with its positions - such as the rejection of Jews as members - prevailed over the more moderate currents that wanted to allow individual exceptions.
Political activities in the Ruhr struggle and critical distance from the young NSDAP
Against the Franco-Belgian occupation of the Ruhr in 1923, Best was involved in public and underground work parallel to his studies and association work. Government agencies such as the Reich Central Office for Homeland Service of the Reich Ministry of the Interior supported him and his association through loose coordination of activities and irregular cash payments. As head of the so-called Rhineland Office of the German University Ring, Best organized events, wrote for the right-wing Mainz daily newspaper , drafted and published memoranda and traveled to national youth organizations at West German universities, through which he made extensive contacts.
In 1923, Best registered as a so-called time volunteer for the Reichswehr during the winter semester break in order to take part in a crash course in the military. Although he did not take part in acts of sabotage himself, he advocated the transition to armed struggle against the French. He would have accepted a new war. On the occasion of a demonstration against French-supported Rhenish separatism in front of the Mainz emergency money printing facility, he was arrested, imprisoned for a week and, after being released, sentenced to 25 days in prison in absentia.
At that time, Best was still critical of the NSDAP , which was slowly becoming more well-known in the right-wing radical camp , as Adolf Hitler rejected the Ruhrkampf on the side of the Reich government for tactical reasons.
Arrest and conviction by the French occupation authorities
In 1924, Best was re-arrested by the French occupation authorities, but luckily escaped charges of espionage and conspiratorial support for sabotage activities that could have resulted in the death penalty. He was only sentenced to three years imprisonment and payment of 1,000 marks for membership in the university ring and possession of weapons - he had procured some striking weapons for street fights. Best had refused to make a petition for clemency, which increased his reputation in the Volkish camp. However, since his mother submitted a pardon and the Reich government tried to achieve a general amnesty for the "Ruhr fighters" during the London reparation negotiations, Best was released in September 1924 after about six months in prison. He was disappointed that the Reich government gave up passive resistance against the occupation. It was not possible to end the occupation of the Ruhr, and nothing changed about the Allied occupation of the Rhineland.
Exams and specialization in law
In the following consolidation phase of the Weimar Republic , Best concentrated next to his political work now more on his studies, which he successfully completed in 1925 as a “hard-working and ambitious student”. In 1927, he was with a dissertation On the question of the intended tariff inability to Dr. jur. PhD . He completed his legal clerkship at Hessian courts, administrative offices and law firms with very positive marks as one of the “best students of his year”.
In addition, Best tried to increasingly deepen his journalistic work from pure propaganda to theoretical work in order to establish himself as a serious author in the right-wing camp. He made friendly conversations with intellectuals such as Ernst Jünger and Edgar Julius Jung and published various articles in völkisch magazines. For the anthology, War and Warriors , edited by Ernst Jünger , he wrote an essay based on international law entitled War and Law , in which he defended war as an unalterable and affirmative natural condition against what he saw as a Western utopian rejection of war. Best called his attitude in this regard " heroic-realistic ", a formulation that Jünger took up and used in his circle.
Political career in the People's State of Hesse
Professional establishment and advancement in the NSDAP
In 1929 Best became a court assessor at the district court in Gernsheim . In 1930 he married Hildegard Regner in Mainz, with whom he had five children. The couple moved to Darmstadt and Best joined the NSDAP ( membership number 341.338) in the same year . This step now seemed logical to him because, according to his own admission, he did not like the “mass advertising of the NSDAP and its whole style”, but its success in elections “showed the political possibility that something could be achieved in this way”. In addition, the NSDAP's program “practically coincided with all programs in the national or ethnic movement”. It was a decision for a new form of fighting, not a new goal.
Since the NSDAP was able to report a large increase in membership in the People's State of Hesse at this time , but had few suitable and academically trained management staff to show, and Best also succeeded in bringing personally known young academics or friends from the Hochschulring into the party, he decided from the start to within the Hessian NSDAP over a certain house power and belonged as their "legal advisor" since his entry to the management of the NSDAP-Gaues Hessen-Darmstadt. As early as 1931, the Frankfurter Zeitung described him as the “spiritual leader of the National Socialist Party in Hesse”.
On the other hand, Best found his first and fleeting encounter with Hitler (still without personal acquaintance) at a meeting of the Harzburg Front as disappointing: Hitler's appearance and address in a small and elitist group did not impress him. Far from any awakening experience, he saw Hitler more as a “prophet” suitable for the masses than a “statesman” and, above all, in his movement the chance to achieve a “national republic ruled by the best of the nation, by the real leaders”.
In the period that followed, Best tried to formulate and deepen the ideological positions of the NSDAP in essays and newspaper articles. He carelessly set his own accents. In dispute with criticism from circles of the Catholic official church, he denied that the NSDAP was generally convinced of the absolute inferiority of Jews. Instead, he argued: The NSDAP assumed that peoples were the "primordial phenomena of humanity" and could not be hierarchized from outside. Every people must follow its own interests, which is why the anti-Semitism of the NSDAP is not a “ worldview , but political, economic and cultural self-defense”.
Best explained further: "In conflicts we naturally represent the vital needs of our people up to the destruction of the enemy, but without the hatred and contempt that every absolutely judgmental attitude brings towards the enemy". He was convinced of the danger posed by Jews to the Germans : “We only recognize that certain peoples and beings damage our people and threaten their existence, and we defend ourselves. In the struggle against Judaism , too , our goal is freedom from foreign infiltration , proper divorce and alien law for foreigners ”.
Scandal over the Boxheim documents in 1931
In 1931, the NSDAP won a significant increase in votes in the people's state of Hesse and Werner Best was elected as the designated chairman of the parliamentary group in the state parliament. Politically, the election in Hesse was important throughout the Reich because Chancellor Heinrich Brüning wanted to examine cooperation with the NSDAP and coalition negotiations between the NSDAP and the center were therefore initiated in Hesse .
During these promising negotiations, the so-called Boxheimer documents became known. In them - against the background of a fictional communist uprising - a scenario for a takeover of power by the NSDAP was developed. Political opponents should be arrested and murdered. These “documents” written by Werner Best had previously met with little approval within the party, because their urgent tone towards Hitler was perceived as presumptuous. Therefore, they had previously had no practical relevance, but in public they thwarted the NSDAP's "legality course" after publication.
After an internal faction dispute with Best, the Nazi state parliament member Karl Wilhelm Schäfer forwarded the documents to the Hessian police, who were subordinate to the Social Democratic Interior Minister Wilhelm Leuschner, in revenge . A preliminary investigation was then initiated against Best and the press was informed.
Best was suspended from his position as judge in the wake of public outrage. His bourgeois existence was in danger. Since the negative and concerned echo in the media of the NSDAP was inconvenient, there was also a brief threat of an end to his political career. So he went to Munich personally to see Hitler to justify himself. However, he received him in a friendly and understanding manner, so that the internal party consequences feared by Best did not materialize. Hitler merely criticized the inconvenient timing of the publication, while he positively noted the young lawyer’s political harshness and determination. Unexpectedly, Best had made a certain name for himself in Munich with Hitler and those around him.
The investigative proceedings against him for high treason were discontinued in October 1932 on the grounds that the plans were not directed against the legal government, but against any communist revolutionaries in a fictitious situation. With reference to the Boxheim documents, an attempt was made to enforce a ban on the NSDAP at the Reich level. However, members and sympathizers of the NSDAP in the Reich Ministry of the Interior were able to prevent this. However, under pressure from the public and the Reichswehr , which was concerned about the civil war scenario, Chancellor Brüning took a stronger stand against the NSDAP. In Hesse, therefore, no coalition between the NSDAP and the center came about.
Joined the SS and worked in the state parliament
In 1931, Best joined the SS (SS no. 23.377). Its elitist corps spirit - a major difference from the SA , which was much more powerful at the time and aimed at the masses - appealed to him. The SS became for him "in the following period increasingly his actual political home" and remained so until the "end of the Second World War".
Due to the Boxheim scandal, Best was not officially chairman of the parliamentary group, but took the leading position informally. In 1932 Best was also appointed district leader of the NSDAP in Mainz, then Hesse. He shaped the politics of the NSDAP parliamentary group in the state parliament in a predominantly destructive and deliberately confrontational manner for the democratic parties, continuously calling for the resignation of the government under Bernhard Adelung , which was only executive after the loss of its majority . The NSDAP parliamentary group was particularly interested in disempowering the Social Democratic interior minister Wilhelm Leuschner . Another attempt to form a coalition between the NSDAP and the center, sponsored by Chancellor Brüning, failed again. This time it was Hitler's fear that he might fall into the trap of a “taming concept”.
Seizure of power in Hesse
Only after Hitler was appointed Chancellor on January 30, 1933 , was it possible to persuade the Adelung government to dismiss Leuschner through massive pressure from Berlin. After the Reichstag Fire Ordinance was passed, police actions against the KPD also began in Hesse. At the latest with the appointment of a Reich Commissioner - the Hessian National Socialist Heinz Müller was selected - the NSDAP controlled the Hessian police, which immediately proceeded with arrests and house searches against political opponents, especially against communists. Best claimed in public that the results of the house searches had confirmed his Boxheimer documents in essence: "The Bolshevik danger, which the wise philistine smiled at the announcement two years ago, has been fully exposed at the last moment."
Best himself was provisionally appointed "Special Commissioner for Police" by the Reich Commissioner. About a third of the higher Hessian police officers were immediately dismissed for political reasons and replaced by officials weighed in by the Nazi government. On March 13, 1933, Ferdinand Werner was elected in the state parliament as the first National Socialist President of the People's State and on May 15, 1933 was appointed Prime Minister by Reich Governor Jakob Sprenger . Best was “State Commissioner for Police in Hesse”.
State Commissioner for the Police System in Hesse
In this position, Best set characteristic accents. While he had thousands of SA and SS members sworn in as "auxiliary police officers", Best made sure that the SA was always under the command of the police and that no independent actions were taken. For the political terror after the seizure of power, he therefore resorted to government agencies early on. His personnel policy gave preference to apolitical experts over veteran Nazi activists. He also accepted the conflict with Reichsstatthalter Sprenger, who did not agree with this course and the appointment of the new chief of the uniformed police - Best chose a police colonel close to the center. Best disbanded the auxiliary police relatively quickly, but transferred parts of them to the normal police service in Hesse. Thereby he increased the "loyalty in the police apparatus" to him and the new Nazi government.
He subordinated himself to the political police , previously part of the Darmstadt Police Headquarters , and on March 28, 1933, turned it into an independent agency under the name "State Commissioner for Police in Hesse (Central Police Station)". This was renamed “Hessisches Staatspolizeiamt Darmstadt” three months later. This means that even before Prussia , Hesse was the first state in the Reich to have a political police force “as a special authority with extensive powers”, which was organizationally separated from the normal police force. The Osthofen concentration camp built on his orders was similarly groundbreaking ; Its construction began at the beginning of March 1933, a few days after the Nohra concentration camp and before the Dachau concentration camp .
Shepherd murder case and end of career in Hessen
Best's career was in danger when he came increasingly into conflict with the Hessian Reichsstatthalter Sprenger. With effect from July 10, 1933, the latter appointed him "State Police President" and thus made him head of the police department in the Ministry of the Interior, but he was subordinate to a State Secretary of the Reich Governor. Best, however, resisted attempts to smuggle low-qualified Nazi party comrades into the state and police apparatus, and demanded that these also pass appropriate specialist examinations - a demand that contradicted the interests of the more party-oriented Reich governor.
Despite his strong backing in the police apparatus and in parts of the Hessian NSDAP, Best lost the trial of strength with Sprenger in a spectacular and opaque way: On July 18, 1933, the body of Wilhelm Schäfer, the NS member of the state parliament who supported the Boxheimers , was found in Frankfurt, Prussia Documents passed on and thus put Best's career at great risk. Apparently he had been shot dead immediately before, after he had already been taken into “ protective custody ” on the orders of Best in March 1933 and had not been formally released since then.
The public suspicion was naturally directed directly against Best. After the war, Best stated that he had three police officers bring Schäfer across the state border to Frankfurt, where they had released him according to the instructions. Sprenger's people were probably responsible for the murder - without Best's help and knowledge. Investigations by the Frankfurt Public Prosecutor's Office in 1948, however, suggested that SS-Standartenführer Willy Herbert , the police director of Mainz subordinate to Best, was involved in the matter. His car was seen by witnesses near the crime scene shortly after the crime.
Reichsstatthalter Sprenger himself summarized internal investigations against Ferdinand Werner in 1933 in such a way that Best had given the murder order and made mistakes in the planning. As a result, Best became an unacceptable burden. Sprenger took the opportunity to get rid of the competitor, fired Best and cleared the Hessian police and NSDAP of his supporters.
Advancement in the security apparatus
Work for Heinrich Himmler and the SD
The end in Hessen turned out to be an opportunity for Best to move up further. Heinrich Himmler , who was already known to him - at that time Reichsführer SS and "Chief of Police in Bavaria" - brought him to Munich as a police specialist.
Previously, Hitler had probably already made the decision to unify the political police forces of the federal states at the Reich level and, at the same time, to generally enforce the connection between SS and police that Himmler had already established as the “Bavarian model”. This model now had to be implemented against the resistance of the judicial authorities and the general administration and also against the resistance of the SA, which had a number of its own police presidents in the countries.
Himmler offered Best to become head of administration of a nationwide police force under him after he sought to overthrow the other state police forces. Since this had yet to be established, Himmler temporarily assigned Best to the still rather subordinate security service (SD). At the SD, Best was subordinate to Reinhard Heydrich and was supposed to establish contacts with the political police in other countries.
The attempt to gain control of the non-Bavarian political police was initially unsuccessful. It was only pressure from Berlin that gradually moved the Reichsstatthalter to hand over control to Himmler. The noticeably emerging conflict with the SA, whose independence and aggressiveness was feared by the Nazi leadership, the party branches and the ministries alike, was important for the willingness to do so. As the last bastion in April 1934, the powerful "Prussian Secret State Police", now under the leadership of Reinhard Heydrich, was actually added to the sphere of influence of the SS. After Heinrich Himmler was appointed " Chief of the German Police " in June 1936, the various political police forces of the federal states were centralized under the Prussian name "Gestapo".
Participation in the Röhm murders
In March 1934 Best was appointed head of organization of the SD, which he reorganized and also led operationally in southern Germany. Since Heydrich and Himmler were now officiating in Berlin, Best held a great position of power in Munich.
The SD focused primarily on the activities of the SA, which it reported to Berlin. At this time, plans were taking shape within the Nazi leadership to forcibly overthrow the SA. After Vice Chancellor Franz von Papen's critical speech in Marburg, the same fate was also intended for the German national elites who were still connected to the National Socialists. Lists were drawn up of SA leaders who were classified as oppositional and members of the German national “reaction”. Best presumably kept the lists of those to be murdered in the south personally.
On June 27, 1934, Best flew to Heydrich in Berlin to discuss the details of the imminent action, which later became known as the misleading name of the Röhm Putsch : SS units were to be subordinate to the SD Ober-section leaders on site, who would then carry out the operation to quote. On June 28, 1934, Best was back in Munich and instructed his subordinates. A day later he picked up the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler at the train station in Augsburg and went with her to Munich. From the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior, he and Karl Oberg gave the orders, while his SD officers fanned out to carry out the arrests at the head of SS commandos. Best and Oberg had a telex from Berlin confirm who was to be executed - a total of 28 people were murdered in southern Germany. Best possibly also struck people off the list: Right-wing intellectuals like Ernst Jünger, Ernst Niekisch and Hans Zehrer are said to have owed their lives to him; the rescue of the Munich police chief August Schneidhuber was not successful.
The conservative intellectual Edgar Julius Jung , who was best friend , was murdered as part of the action near Berlin. Immediately after the murders, Himmler appointed Best SS-Obersturmbannführer. At least by now he belonged to the “closest leadership of the SS and SD”.
The SD and SS were able to institutionally expand their power within the polycraticism of the Nazi regime. The SD was designated as the party's only intelligence service and the SS was separated from the SA as an independent formation. Himmler also formally rose to become the chief lord of the political police. A corresponding coordination office subordinate to it was set up within the Prussian Secret State Police Office (Gestapa), so that the Gestapa took over the management of the political police in the federal states. This special role of the SS as a prominent aristocracy in the state and the Nazi movement suited Best's view that the “best of the nation” as “ideological elite corps” should lead the masses.
Roles within the Political Police
Influence on the Gestapo
In the summer of 1934, Best also joined the Prussian Gestapo, exclusively from January 1935. While Himmler, as "Inspector" of the Gestapo, was in charge of the entire Reich, Heydrich was the head of the overall office and main department II (political police). Best became deputy head of the office and head of department I (law, human resources, administration). He was in third place in the hierarchy. His influence on the formation of the office was even greater, however, since Himmler as Reichsführer SS and Heydrich as head of the SD were often used elsewhere. Within a short time, Best became the "organizer, head of personnel, legal advisor and ideologist of the Gestapo".
Protective as a permanent power of attorney of the Gestapo
As such, Best had a formative influence on defending the Gestapo against attempts at containment. From a legal point of view, he worked out that the Gestapo had its own authorization basis and ensured that the previous form of “protective custody” was retained . This was extremely important for the action of the political police, while the justice and interior ministries wanted to subject the protective custody rules.
The Reich Ministry of the Interior stated in a decree that protective custody should not be imposed by the police as a “replacement penalty” in addition to the jurisdiction. Lawyers are generally to be excluded from protective custody. This was based on the idea that protective custody should be a temporary emergency instrument that should be replaced in the future by other procedures, for example through traditional case law. Even the Association of National Socialist German Lawyers protested against the defenselessness of individuals against protective custody, in particular against the restriction of access to lawyers .
Heydrich and Best thought quite differently about it. Best therefore justified protective custody as a police and permanent procedure beyond the law. It is based solely on the interests of the state and political leadership. Contrary to the usual rule of law notions, it is not about formal law, but about expediency. Best demanded that the “procedural forms of the judiciary” which are inadequate for the fight against public enemies should be abolished and replaced by a discretion that was solely justified by the police and politically and therefore not questionable. Hitler confirmed this view by issuing an order from the Fiihrer and prohibited lawyers from accessing prisoners. Accordingly, the courts have now ruled that protective custody as a political measure is beyond judicial review.
Responding to complaints about abuse
Best argued similarly with complaints against the mistreatment of concentration camp prisoners: Based on the “ state of emergency ” and the “National Socialist standpoint of the general public that stands above the individual”, the complaints should be rejected. Because if you grant the prisoner rights, he can use them to undermine the work of the police and thus damage the state. As an individual, however, he is “a member of the state organism. As long as it works, the state supports it. If it turns itself outside of the community, becomes a criminal, it is a pest on everyone and is used by everyone, i.e. H. fought by the state. In this struggle, the state takes the defensive position justified by the right of self- defense. "
In specific cases, Best ensured that, in the early days, the judiciary put down proceedings against particularly brutal Gestapo officials. He went into detail on a complaint brought in by the Berlin cathedral capitular Bernhard Lichtenberg about the conditions in the Esterwegen concentration camp . His answer made it clear that he was familiar with the concrete conditions in the camps.
General authorization of the political police and expansion to the security police
In the third Gestapo law of February 1936, he succeeded in anchoring his ideas to the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Justice as enabling clauses: The Gestapo retained its monopoly of protective custody and was also given the right to independently decide in which areas it wanted to work. The Gestapo was thus established as an “autonomous special authority” and Best had prevailed through constant recourse to Himmler, who in turn presented Hitler.
In June 1936, the general police were placed under Himmler's position, whose striving for power was crowned with success. According to Best's ideas, two “main offices” of the police were created: the main office of the Ordnungspolizei and the main office of the security police , which mainly comprised the previous Gestapo. Best took over the office of administration and law , the office of political police was headed by Heydrich, while the newly added criminal police in the office of criminal police was also headed by Heydrich and his deputy Arthur Nebe .
In a diplomatically sensitive demarcation from the military defense , Best was also entrusted with the task of expanding the Gestapo-owned Abwehr police , which was entrusted with the investigation of treason and espionage , as Division III of the political police and provisionally managing it. Best succeeded in establishing a good relationship with the head of the military defense, Wilhelm Canaris , which also survived the Blomberg-Fritsch affair , in which Best Werner von Fritsch personally interrogated, somewhat unscathed.
Radicalization of the persecution of the Jews
Systematization of exclusion
Best had a great influence on the systematization of the Nazi state's Jewish policy . While he had little interest in spontaneous excesses of violence on the part of the SA, he cared a lot for a systematic segregation of the Jews, based on national and quasi-natural law, for him since the first days of his political activity.
Together with Heydrich, he therefore developed proposals that were partially reflected in the Nuremberg Laws as early as 1935 . Best made their administrative implementation easier because his authority had already created the basis for the implementation of the laws by precisely recording the Jews in a " Jewish card index ". For a long time, the SD and Gestapo assumed the idea of a forced emigration of German Jews (most recently in the Madagascar Plan of 1940), which should be prepared through their public discrimination . In the Central Office for Jewish Emigration under Adolf Eichmann in Vienna, which had been part of the German Reich since the annexation of Austria in 1938, a radical policy of oppression and expropriation against Austrian Jews was conceived. Indeed, she let many of them flee abroad.
In the rest of Germany, this model was viewed as a successful test run. Werner Best, who was also responsible for the Aliens Police, was responsible for expulsions in the Gestapo. However, emigration, which is desirable in and of itself, was made more difficult by the high Reich flight tax : many Jews who were willing to emigrate and who were impoverished by the National Socialist professional bans and " Aryanizations " had to stay. The Polish government tried, for example, to prevent the repatriation of its own impoverished citizens, which prompted the Foreign Office in 1938 to expel all Polish Jews in the Reich territory immediately. This decision was carried out by the Gestapo under Best in the so-called Poland Action . Best had around 17,000 Polish Jews arrested and transported to the border in collective transports. Since the Polish Republic initially refused to accept them, the majority of Jews in the no man's land between Poland and Germany remained imprisoned in improvised camps under very poor conditions.
Exploitation of the November pogroms 1938
Heydrich and Best were taken by surprise by the so-called Reichskristallnacht , since this anti-Jewish action did not originate from the secret police, but from the party and Joseph Goebbels . However, they joined her in improvising insofar as they had to coordinate the behavior and restraint of the equally surprised police. As a result of the pogroms, from November 10, 1938, the security police arrested several thousand wealthy Jews at short notice, but in an effectively coordinated manner, and deported them to concentration camps.
In the follow-up conference on November 12, 1938, with the participation of Göring and Goebbels, Heydrich succeeded in taking over the lead again and in the implementing provisions to tighten the concept already developed by him and Best in 1935, which had already found its way into the Nuremberg race laws : External identification and forced ghettoization of the Jews were now possible. This succeeded because Heydrich, unlike Goebbels, had clear ideas: According to this, Jews should be radically separated from non-Jews in order to force the former to emigrate. Thanks to Best's administrative preparatory work, such a separation seemed to be possible, especially since the security police had already proven their abilities through the rapid wave of arrests.
Consequences of the November pogroms
So many people were arrested that Best had to apply to Reich Finance Minister Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk for more funds for the concentration camps. Overall, the security police's plan worked: of the Jews brought to concentration camps, 10,415 prisoners in the Dachau concentration camp, for example, agreed to emigrate after they had previously had to consent to their expropriation through Aryanization. As the head of the Law and Administration Department, Best himself negotiated the details of the further course of action in several planning conferences with State Secretary of the Reich Ministry of the Interior, Wilhelm Stuckart . The establishment of the Reich Central Office for Jewish Emigration , the law on tenancy agreements with Jews (→ Judenhaus ) and the Reich Association of Jews in Germany were their direct results.
Establishment of task forces
Austria and Czechoslovakia
When Austria was annexed, Best had set up mixed units (from the Gestapo, Kripo and SD) in consultation with Wilhelm Canaris , which arrested opponents (previously recorded in files) behind the advancing Wehrmacht and set up the security police in Austria within a very short time. According to the Munich Agreement , the security units proceeded in a similar manner when they marched into the Sudetenland , although the security police still had to accept the primacy of the Wehrmacht in principle. Two Einsatzgruppen with seven sub-commands followed the Wehrmacht and were coordinated by Best from Berlin, while Heydrich gave the orders on site.
In the interrogation of Czech citizens for Reich citizenship (→ Reichsgau Sudetenland ) that followed in 1939 , Best saw a threat to the basic ethnic idea of National Socialism. However, he protested to Heydrich in vain. In guidelines written specifically for the conduct of his officials in the formerly Czech territory, he forbade any “non-official intercourse with the foreign population”, which he himself saw as a form of ethnic respect.
Procedure in Poland
The concept of task forces practiced in Austria and the Sudetenland was further expanded and perfected during the attack on Poland . In parallel to his planning and coordination functions in this regard, Best also handled the transfer of the security police to the new Reich Security Main Office .
However, a stricter approach to Poland was planned from the outset. On July 5, 1939, Best had proposed four Einsatzgruppen of four hundred men each in a conference and took over the overall planning and general personnel planning, which he carried forward well before the war began. At the beginning of the war there were finally five Einsatzgruppen, commanded by Bruno Linienbach , Ernst Damzog , Lothar Beutel , Emanuel Schäfer and Hans Fischer , all of whom had been thoroughly instructed by Best. On August 29, 1939, at a conference with Quartermaster General Eduard Wagner, he and Heydrich dispelled his concerns about the planned action of the SS units. It was agreed to initially spend up to 30,000 pre-determined Poles in concentration camps, which the Wehrmacht believed to have involved the SS. Best was appointed Heydrich's deputy head of the security police and the SD and took over the organizational management of the operation in Berlin. Heydrich and Himmler went to Poland to take over operational supervision.
After the Bydgoszcz blood Sunday, Himmler tightened the task force's approach significantly. Restrictions agreed with the military were no longer applicable. Extensive hostage shootings and the beginning of a comprehensive deportation of Polish ruling classes were now the hallmarks of the Einsatzgruppen. Despite the protests of the Wehrmacht, Hitler confirmed their actions and independence from instructions from the military. Best was always involved in organizing this process. On September 12, 1939, he had set up a new Einsatzgruppe VI and Einsatzkommando 16, which were designed entirely as mobile firing units from the start.
While the Wehrmacht in the person of Eduard Wagner initially protested against this tightening, in the course of the attack on Poland they accepted that the SS Einsatzgruppen actually operated independently of them and pursued more far-reaching goals of "völkisch land consolidation", which the SS put to the test of strength with the Wehrmacht had won. By early 1940, more than 11,000 people had been murdered in this way. Best himself covered the brutality of his men if it was politically justified. In one case, for example, he investigated whether the SS leader in question, who was responsible for several murders, had acted out of political conviction or private indiscipline and thus disregarded the requirement of “factual coldness”, and only removed him from his post when the latter was established.
Best was also involved in the administrative planning of the decision to deport hundreds of thousands of Jews to the newly founded Generalgouvernement . For those involved, this obviously had the consequence that the massive resettlement of Jews in ghettos in the east, where there was no livelihood for them, created a problem that at some point had to steer towards a cruel solution. Perhaps that was exactly where the calculation was.
End of career in the Reich Security Main Office
Best had made a steep career up to 1940 that had made him the third most powerful man in the security police. Himmler and Heydrich had always encouraged him and greatly appreciated his organizational talent and hard work. With Heydrich, however, Best became increasingly involved in conflicts that shattered their good relationship. They finally fell out on the question of the management staff in the Reich Main Security Office: While Best decidedly in favor of recruiting primarily lawyers in the sense of the traditional legal monopoly (and thus took his own career as a benchmark), Heydrich and Himmler placed the main emphasis on internal training and characterization within the SS. Since Best publicly represented his point of view with the help of a publication in a specialist magazine and thus isolated himself within the management level of the security police, this conflict ended his career within the RSHA.
The real core of the problem was the latent contrast between the members of the SD preferred by Himmler and Heydrich, whose training often appeared to be inadequate, and the lawyers and trained police officers of the Gestapo. As a highly qualified lawyer, Best belonged to the second group, which he had taken into account almost exclusively in his personnel policy, whereby he had preferred lawyers over police officers. Best was noticeably lonely in office after his conflict with Heydrich - the closest collaborator of the almost all-powerful Himmler. He wrote and completed his textbook The German Police on the police , in which he summarized his ideas about the role of the police in the National Socialist state and their organizational dovetailing with the SS, but then left the RSHA at the end of 1940 with the rank of SS brigade leader and volunteered for the armed forces.
Activity after leaving the Reich Security Main Office
In the military administration of France
Werner Best was trained for two months in the replacement battalion of Regiment 15 in Friedberg in Hessen (the same unit in which his father had served and died) - he had almost no serious military knowledge. However, he was not used as a normal officer, but entered the administration of the military commander in France , presumably because of an appointment between Himmler and Stuckart and Canaris . In accordance with his official rank as ministerial director , who had therefore been classified by the Wehrmacht as a so-called "civil servant general" (wearing a general's uniform with a blue instead of a red collar) with the rank of lieutenant general, only a higher position could be considered.
Supervisory administration
Best was appointed head of the administration department in the administrative staff of the French military commander. There was also the economic department subordinate to Elmar Michel . Best and Michel's service title was war administration chief. Best was the almost invisible “over-interior minister of France”, because rule over France was based on the willingness of the French administration, and in particular of the French police, to collaborate with the military commander . The fewer open conflicts arose and the more the French population had to do with “their” administration, the smoother the acceptance of the occupation worked.
Best therefore conceived a kind of "supervisory administration", which was able to exert the desired influence very skillfully mainly through the approval of the French budget and the permanent assignment of high-ranking contacts within the military administration for the French government representatives through material constraints and practiced agreements. He ensured the loyalty of the French police by first having a purge of officers classified as unreliable, but then giving them back extensive powers. For example, he made sure that the 20,000-strong and militarily usable gendarmerie was again equipped with firearms.
Introduction of preventive and police detention
Best even tried to introduce what he saw as the tried and tested instrument of “protective custody” in France. However, since this met with concern in the military administration, they limited themselves to the imposition of the preventive and police detention introduced by decree by the German authorities. The so-called precautionary detention referred to persons who came into the focus of the police through actions or feared future actions. The “police custody” was based on general suspected groups of people regardless of their actions, in fact very often Jews. Detention could be imposed by the field commanders for up to seven days, by the district commanders for up to 14 days, and by the top management of the military commander without a time limit. As these new detention requirements increased the number of detainees, new detention centers were created.
Intensification of the persecution of the Jews in France
In 1940 the Vichy regime had already issued individual anti-Semitic measures (lifting the ban on anti-Semitic propaganda, reviewing the naturalization of Jews) and in a so-called "Jewish statute" defined Judaism no longer as a religion, but as a race . Even foreign Jews were taken to French internment camps from the end of 1940. Best, in conjunction with Otto Abetz from the Foreign Office, proposed further tightening, which should result in a complete expropriation of the Jews in the German occupation zone and their subsequent removal. He was thus able to assert himself within the military administration without significant resistance. On September 27, 1940, Best issued the so-called “First Jewish Ordinance”, which banned the entry of Jews and instructed the French prefects to create a register of Jews that recorded people and their property. From then on, Jewish shops and businesses had to be marked as such. In the second ordinance, a compulsory registration was introduced for all Jewish companies. Within a few months, under Best's influence, the legal foundations of the persecution of Jews had developed in France that had previously lasted several years in Germany.
Popular politics concepts
The increasing requisitions of French cultural goods and art treasures under Otto Abetz on instructions from Joachim von Ribbentrop, however, met with resistance and outrage in the military administration. When Rosenberg and Göring also began seizures, Best responded with sharp criticism.
On other issues, too, Best resolutely opposed individual aspects of Nazi politics in France. He found the expulsion of Alsatian French to France by Gauleiter Josef Bürckel and Robert Wagner to be absurd from a national point of view, since, as he himself saw it, they convinced the French that their biological origins were valuable Germans and precisely because of that they were culturally valuable would have to be Germanized again. In contrast to the anti-Semitic Wagner-Bürckel campaign , the expulsion of French people of German origin contradicted Best's convictions, and he also indirectly risked a conflict with Hitler, whose position was entirely in line with the two Gauleiter. Best also saw the expulsions as a burden for his trouble-free cooperation with the French administration. His concerns as well as his willingness to conflict with the Nazi leaders in the military administration and in the Foreign Office earned him sympathy.
Best's preferred approach towards France was not aimed at open humiliation and enrichment without a long-term perspective, but rather, according to his basic ethnic conception, at the division of the French nation into regional ethnic groups . He was amazed to see the differences between the Basques , Bretons and Provençals (→ Occitan language ) and took the view that in the long term the occupation policy should promote their particular interests rather than looking at what he believed to be an artificial French state nation as a reference point for the administration. Best therefore viewed the strengthening of the centralized structure of France, on which the military administration was based, with unease. Rather, care should be taken to promote particular nations in Western Europe by means of a “national center” and to treat “urban mixed centers” - Best thought of Paris in particular - separately, with the aim of “extinction of the urban mixed population”. For these ideas, however, he found no hearing anywhere, neither in the military administration nor in Berlin. They were alien to the military and far removed from everyday administration. The SS as an institution, however, had no particular interest in France, but looked to Eastern Europe.
Expert discussion in Reich - Volksordnung - Lebensraum
Instead, Best discussed his ideas in the legal journal Reich, Volksordnung, Lebensraum, which was published in 1941-1943 and co-edited by him . Journal for national constitution and administration (RVL), which played a not unimportant role for an attempted intellectualization of National Socialism and therefore especially for academics from the ranks of the SS. In 1942, Best wrote the essay Herrenschicht or Führervolk for the RVL , which was published anonymously due to its explosive nature. The explosive factor lay in the fact that Best paralleled the National Socialist German Empire with the Roman Empire , which, according to Best, perished because it incorporated foreign people as working lower classes, which led to racial mixing instead of simply seeing itself as a leading people.
Best also saw such a danger for the German Reich. For Best, however, real leadership is not limited to a “brief maniacal madness”, but is never conceivable without the “will of those being led”, who must therefore be won over. Best did not rule out a failure of the German Reich because of this - more than unusual for an SS brigade leader, which he was meanwhile. In addition, with reference to the National Socialist European plans , he stated that the Germans could "destroy entire peoples of this metropolitan area in their entire living substance or remove them from the ruled metropolitan area", which he also displayed unusual openness. The magazine's editors included Wilhelm Stuckart and Gerhard Klopfer , two participants in the Wannsee Conference . Another publisher was best friend Reinhard Höhn .
Dealing with attacks by the Resistance
From mid-1941 onwards, groups of the Resistance increasingly attempted assassinations against the German occupying power, which shook Best's concept of supervisory administration, because Hitler himself was now calling for extensive retaliatory measures from Berlin . Around 4,000 civilians - typically all Jews - had been arrested as a preventive measure, and the military commander Otto von Stülpnagel had three imprisoned communists shot. However, Hitler demanded that one hundred hostages be shot for every German shot, which the military administration, including Best, considered counterproductive. When, after tough negotiations between the military administration and Berlin, 98 hostages were actually shot in October 1941, there was great bitterness among the French public and accordingly also in the French administration. More assassinations followed and - demanded by Hitler - further shootings. The development ultimately led, after months of escalation, to the protest and resignation of the military commander in chief Stülpnagel on February 12, 1942.
Best's position in this escalating conflict was identical to that of the military administration. He did not see the shootings as a suitable means of containing the resistance, on the contrary: he assumed that the resistance would be strengthened. The military administration and Best therefore increasingly tried to replace the shootings by deporting hostages to camps in Germany or further east of Europe. Jews in particular came into question for this, regardless of whether they had contact with the resistance or not, especially since their capture and arrest was easy thanks to Best's preliminary work. Best tried to give the Vichy government the lead in the arrest of French Jews, but was put off by it, which is why German authorities ordered the arrests apart from the principles of supervisory administration.
In the meantime, Helmut Bone , the BdS in France, had already proposed further tightening up against Jews to Best, and Best had almost 4,000 Jews with non-French citizenship interned. The arrests were carried out by the French police under the supervision of German officers. Further actions followed in which French Jews were interned. Otto Abetz asked Himmler for permission to deport 10,000 interned Jews to the East, which Himmler immediately approved. Best organized the details with his department, and on March 24, 1942, the first rail transport left for Auschwitz . The conflict with Hitler ended with the defeat of the military administration. In fact, hostages were shot as well as deportations, which were originally intended to replace these shootings.
End of career in France
Best's position had deteriorated significantly with the defeat of his agency. The weight of the military administration, and thus also that of Best, was weakened after the military commander resigned when he came under increasing pressure from the SS, which now wanted to expand its influence in France. Best was a high-ranking SS officer himself, but he was still in disgrace with Heydrich. When Karl Oberg, a Higher SS and Police Leader, was appointed to France, to whom the police supervision previously exercised by Best's administrative staff was transferred, Best saw himself downgraded to a subordinate position and consequently gave up his post. Best's activity on the military commander's administrative staff officially ended after two years on June 10, 1942, with the military commander being available for special tasks for another six weeks. Attempts to move to the Reich Ministry of the Interior or the Foreign Office were initially unsuccessful, as Heydrich vetoed a transfer to Best.
A personal attempt at contact with Heydrich assumed by Best had completely failed. Heydrich had officially inaugurated Best of the ongoing “ final solution to the Jewish question ” during his visit to Paris on the occasion of Oberg's appointment in a service conference , but had shown no interest in reconciliation and harshly rejected him. It was not until Heydrich's death on June 4, 1942 that Best's isolation within the SS broke out again. Himmler, who had never been as angry with Best as Heydrich, called him over and, after briefly speaking as Heydrich's successor at the RSHA, offered him a move to the Foreign Office. Best accepted, was “finally” promoted to SS-Gruppenführer and, as ambassador subordinate to the Foreign Office , succeeded Cécil von Renthe-Fink in occupied Denmark .
Authorized representative in Denmark
Denmark's special role
Denmark was a special case in Nazi-occupied Europe: the country had been under military occupation since April 1940, but otherwise the occupying power had only very little influence on the parliamentary system of government of a constitutional monarchy . In contrast to Norway and the Netherlands, German interests were represented vis-à-vis the Danish government not by a Reich Commissioner , but by a “Reichsbevollmächtigte”, the previous envoy Cécil von Renthe-Fink . The all-party government formed after the occupation was even led by a Social Democrat ( Thorvald Stauning ) until May 1942 . The king, parliament and administration worked largely autonomously and not even the (weak) Danish military had been disarmed. The press was largely free and merely followed self-censorship coordinated by the Danish government. International correspondents from the world press were also on site.
The external impact of the Denmark model on German propaganda, as well as on Allied fears that other countries might join the Danish practice, was considerable. Through its agricultural exports the country played an important role in supplying Germany, and from a military point of view the coast of Jutland was of eminent importance for the defense of northern Germany. With only a few officials, the Foreign Office - Denmark's sovereignty was formally recognized - steered Danish politics indirectly and through negotiation. Even with Heinrich Himmler, Denmark as a north Germanic country enjoyed sympathy, and so he also supported the rather mild course of the Foreign Office.
Cooperative occupation
Best quickly adapted to these conditions in Denmark. He went far behind the tried and tested concept of “supervisory administration” in France and relied solely on indirect requirements, the implementation of which he negotiated with the freely elected Danish government without compromising. Conflicts arose mainly with the military commander Hermann von Hanneken , who competed with Best, as his purely military function without political power was insufficient for him. The problem for Best was that Hitler had set Hanneken on rather harsh measures against Denmark. Best's instructions, on the other hand, came from Himmler, who, in contrast to the erratic Hitler, wanted the Danes to be led only loosely.
At Best's entry into service, Denmark was ruled by an all-party coalition led by the social democrat Vilhelm Buhl . This was not acceptable to the Nazi leadership under Hitler. Best was urgently requested to replace Buhl and, preferably, to entrust the DNSAP, the Danish National Socialist Workers' Party , with forming a government. Best, who quickly saw through the isolation of the DNSAP in the Danish population, thought nothing of that. After he himself had forced the DNSAP to renounce it, he managed to elect Erik Scavenius as prime minister at the head of the tried and tested all-party coalition. In Berlin, Best presented this choice as what Germany wanted.
Further cooperation with the Danish government and the Danish administration and police, who are loyal to it, initially ran smoothly. To the astonishment of the Foreign Office, Best even had regular democratic parliamentary elections held on March 23, 1943, which confirmed the cooperative, but also independently acting government - an unprecedented process in occupied Europe and a great success. The fact that the elections were actually free and democratic was confirmed by the performance of the DNSAP, which won just two percent of the electorate. After Berlin he proudly announced that everything was going well in Denmark. He even impressed Hitler with this, and Goebbels praised him in his diary. Best's contacts to Danish people, for example from politics and the resistance movement, are provided by his own calendar notes in the period 1943–1944.
State of emergency in Denmark
The harmony ended when, in the course of 1943, under the impression of increasing German defeats in the east and in Italy, the Danish resistance (with the support of British arms deliveries and agents ) became increasingly active and carried out acts of sabotage on port facilities and traffic routes. Wild strikes made it clear that the Danish government's policy of accepting German rule out of an understanding of the balance of power was losing support among the population. There was a gradual deterioration in the situation, which Best wisely withheld from Berlin.
Instead, he tried not to respond with excessive force to the increasing resistance, which had previously not claimed any human lives. The Danish police and the local courts should act independently against the resistance. Politically, however, this became increasingly difficult for the Danish authorities due to the change in mood that was taking place. Even more urgent was Best's new problem that Hitler, who had meanwhile understood that Best had embellished his reports to Berlin, intervened and demanded a tough approach.
On August 29, 1943, a state of emergency was imposed in Denmark on Hitler's personal orders and against Best's opposition. The Wehrmacht under Hanneken disarmed and interned the Danish military, with armed Danish resistance and deaths, and took over command of the country. Soon after, Hanneken found himself faced with the problem that he did not know how to govern Denmark without Danish involvement. There was no independent German administration, and the Wehrmacht was not prepared to take its place. The Danish administration offered tenacious and hesitant resistance and made it clear that they only intended to receive orders from a Danish authority that was legitimized in some way. The government, however, had just been ousted by the state of emergency without formally resigning. To make matters worse, when the Danish military was disarmed, parts of the Danish fleet sank themselves (→ self- sinking of the Danish fleet ), which severely weakened the coastal defense against the British navy and was not conducive to Hanneken's reputation in the high command of the Wehrmacht .
Best moved back to the center of the action and tried to find a new form of Danish co-administration. A return to the cooperative administration before the state of emergency was no longer possible, which is why he adapted his approach to the changed reality. In doing so, he himself resorted to police means when he had 400 prominent Danes arrested on August 29 to bring them to Germany. He prevailed over Hanneken by securing an order from Hitler with Himmler's help that clarified Best's political leadership role. In order to strengthen his own position between the Danes and the Wehrmacht, he called on units of the security police in Berlin and suggested that he himself be made HSSPF with his own police troops and his own SS court. Himmler signaled approval; the Foreign Office, which feared that it would lose its role entirely to the SS, contradicted it. So it was not Best HSSPF, but Günther Pancke , whose subordinates performed his duties in the function of the BdS. Best was promoted to SS-Obergruppenführer “for the sake of form” at the same time as Pancke, but his power came under long-term pressure from this side.
Endangering and saving the Danish Jews
The state of emergency opened up possibilities for the German occupying forces that were previously closed. Best took advantage of it and sent a telegram to the Foreign Office on September 8, 1943, demanding the arrest and deportation of the Danish Jews.
For this purpose, police units were relocated from occupied Norway to Copenhagen . Since there was still no register of Danish Jews, unlike in France, where Best had been able to arrange for such a record through his direct access to the French police, civil status documents from the Jewish community were confiscated. The Danish public noticed this, as did the newly arrived police units, and rumors of a coming wave of arrests made the rounds.
The date for the arrests was set for October 2, 1943 and was betrayed to the Danes by Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz with tolerance of Best. On the Swedish radio - the Swedish ambassador to Denmark had been informed by the disempowered Danish government - it was announced that every Danish Jew could find refuge in Sweden. Thereupon the Danish resistance organized, in covert cooperation with the Danish administration, a rescue operation in which the majority of Danish Jews were evacuated across the sea. Whether by chance or not, the German navy had interrupted the coastal protection for a few days to maintain their boats, and the police units, presumably not from Best but from BdS Rudolf Mildner , had received the order not to use force during the raids to penetrate into the apartments, so that the evacuation proceeded without problems and only 481 of the total of about 7,500 Danish Jews could be arrested and deported.
Best's role in the rescue operation seems vague on the whole: years later he presented his telegram as if he had wanted to prevent a deportation precisely through their bad planning, for which he would have had to request it first. This portrayal saved his life in Danish courts. It is now considered more likely that he initially planned a comprehensive deportation and that it was only the circumstances that led him to refrain from it. The unexpected horror in the Danish population and the resistance of the Danish government and administrative bodies are likely to have been decisive. The international attention he received from the correspondents of the world press, who are accredited in Denmark, could have changed his mind, especially since success had become impossible after the leakage of the plans and with recognizable restraint on the part of the Danes.
In the matter of the Jews who were nevertheless deported, the pressure of the Danish administration, which demanded the integrity of their citizens, subsequently proved to be uncompromising, and since the action made waves in the world press, it was also successful: Their deportation ended in Theresienstadt and not in Auschwitz. They were well looked after and attended by representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross . In order to make room for them, those previously imprisoned in the Theresienstadt camp were moved to Auschwitz, where they were murdered instead of the Danish Jews. Of the 481 Danish Jews arrested, 52 died in German concentration camps, an unprecedented low number in occupied Europe.
Best himself reported to Germany that Denmark was “free of Jews” as desired - a representation that was satisfied with.
Cooperation in the escalation
Break with the Danish government
The Danish government, which had been on hold until then, finally refused to cooperate after the shock of the arrest. It considered itself formally dissolved by the state of emergency and categorically ruled out a new legal government.
The Danish resistance formed in the so-called "Freedom Council", which as a nationwide network formed a kind of underground government and had the support of broad circles of the population and the administration.
Denmark's precarious leadership by Best
In contrast, Best relied on a committee of the Danish heads of administration, who made it clear, however, that they were only willing to cooperate under pressure and without their own responsibility. Against this background, the support of the Danish administration seemed increasingly precarious and had to be won again and again by Best in a mixture of threats and advertising. In fact, the Danish administration followed Best's orders, where it could not be avoided, but was only willing to cooperate to a limited extent. In their interest in sparing Denmark from war and avoiding German coercive measures, nothing changed, so that Best could continue to control Denmark to a limited extent.
The Freedom Council, on the other hand, intensified its activities and now also started assassinations on collaborators and German military personnel; As a signal to Best, his chauffeur was also shot in the course of the campaign. Best countered this escalation with his police action potential, which has meanwhile been significantly expanded by the SS and police units, in cooperation with Danish courts, the SS court and the Wehrmacht jurisdiction. In addition to precise prevention by arresting opponents while simultaneously, but not consistently, sparing their lives, he tried to keep the situation calm.
Conflict with Hitler and Himmler
Hitler's demand to go over to massive hostage shootings in Denmark, too, was resolutely refused by Best even at personal appointments at the Fuehrer's headquarters, where he openly contradicted Hitler. Best also rejected the demand to carry out counter-terrorism through covert murders instead of shooting hostages - with which he also opposed Himmler, who had advocated this.
It was only after further pressure that Best accepted this approach, which, as he expected, led to more attacks by the Danish resistance. Thereupon Best ended the covert shootings on his own initiative and - after he had granted himself the right to order and pardon himself by issuing new court regulations, which had been expressly forbidden in Berlin - went back to the judicial trial of resistance fighters, mostly before the SS - were brought to court and sentenced to death in serious cases. With this he did not succeed in suppressing the uprising. He hoped, however, to slow it down and let it run in a non-arbitrary way, since the terror of the SS was usually directed against actual perpetrators and not indiscriminately against the population.
General strike in Copenhagen
However, this concept was only successful to a limited extent in the long term. The Danish resistance increased in strength and now switched to military attacks on industrial plants during the day. When members of the Danish Schalburg Corps - a unit composed by Best of Danish volunteers (→ Danish SS units and Christian Frederik von Schalburg ) - then blew up parts of Tivoli and executed several imprisoned resistance fighters in Copenhagen , the workers and employees left held a comprehensive general strike in Copenhagen at the end of June 1944.
On June 30, the city was under siege , orders to shoot were given and Air Force planes were equipped with incendiary bombs to bomb the insurgent parts of Copenhagen. However, Best shied away from this last stage of escalation and took the opportunity to convince the Danish administration with reference to the alternative of calling on the population to end the strike. When the strike actually ended on July 3, 1944, Best had won one last partial victory.
Temporary partial disempowerment
Best was quoted about the situation in Denmark about Hitler, who accused him in an angry conversation that he was to blame for the escalation because he had preferred judicial convictions to covert retaliatory murders. Hitler expressly forbade him to continue to rely on court judgments instead of undercover executions.
Best was now temporarily disempowered in police politics. On September 19, 1944, the entire Danish police force was disarmed by the SS and police units stationed in Denmark. 2,235 police officers were deported to the Buchenwald concentration camp without Best having been informed of the action beforehand. Hitler and Himmler had given the HSSPF appropriate instructions overhead. Best immediately flew to Hitler to submit his resignation, but was not admitted and returned to Denmark. He stayed in office only at the request of the Foreign Office and the Danish administration.
However, he regained his leadership role. After attacks against Danish shipyards, Himmler and Hitler issued orders to take Danish shipyard workers and their families into kin and bring them to Germany - which Best openly refused to do. Because this - according to Best - is the safest way to shut down the shipyards, as the Danish resistance would only have to undertake a few more attacks, after which the SS would do the rest of the work by arresting the irreplaceable workers. His protest was successful - not because he had convinced Hitler and Himmler, but because the continuing decline of the German Reich after the completely failed Ardennes offensive had made Denmark unimportant. When Best, contrary to orders, set up a special court under his sole responsibility and did not care about the restrictions imposed on him, Hitler only commented that Best should do what he wanted.
End of war and career in Denmark
In Denmark, too, the approaching defeat of the war was felt. The refugees from East Prussia and Pomerania were evacuated to Denmark - as far as possible - on their flight from the Red Army . The plan was to place two million East Germans in Danish families. Best considered this to be completely out of the question in view of the anti-German mood and the limited Danish resources. Instead of in houses, he tried to accommodate the expelled Germans primarily in makeshift camps, where they could be protected if necessary. Here, too, development overtook him. In the end, 500,000 Germans fled via Denmark, of whom around 250,000 stayed in Denmark for several months and, contrary to Best's initial plans, also found refuge in Danish private quarters.
A possible final battle in the north, which had been considered by Karl Dönitz with the support of Josef Terboven - Best's counterpart in Norway - was denied by Best together with the Gauleiters of Hamburg, Karl Kaufmann , and Schleswig-Holstein, Hinrich Lohse .
post war period
After the surrender of the Wehrmacht in the north and north-west on May 4, 1945, Best surrendered to the Danish authorities in the morning hours of the following day, who placed him under guard. Initially, he was able to stay at his place of residence with his family. On May 21, 1945, he was officially arrested and taken to the Copenhagen Fortress prison.
Witness for the defense in Nuremberg
Best was brought to Germany in March 1946 to testify before the International Military Tribunal in the Nuremberg trials . As a witness for the defense, he managed to keep the prosecutors and judges in the dark about the actual circumstances in the RSHA and in particular to conceal the relationship between the SS and the political police. He portrayed the Gestapo as a purely police authority which, like any police force, only had to implement the state's political guidelines without any involvement or interest. He kept quiet about his own role in building the RSHA and the ideological foundation of the security police.
Best personally enjoyed the closeness to the Nazi greats interned with him; he was particularly impressed by Goering's unspoiled demeanor and conviction. However, to indict Best as the accused in one of the follow-up trials in Nuremberg was rejected. Instead, he was released in Nuremberg on February 27, 1947, brought back to Denmark and brought to justice there - after France had shown no interest in extradition and even denied knowing its former German head of administration at all. Best naturally had very precise knowledge of the extent of the collaboration in France.
Trials and detention in Denmark
Best reacted to the Danish imprisonment with a deep depression in which he repeatedly threatened doctors and his family with suicide and went on to claim that he was treated worse than the concentration camp prisoners of the German Reich.
The Copenhagen City Court sentenced him to death in the first instance at the Great War Crimes Trial on September 20, 1948 . On appeal, however, the sentence was commuted to five years in prison, four of which he had already served. Best's defense had managed to attribute him a very favorable contribution in saving the Danish Jews and thus saving his life in spite of the hundreds of Danes who had been murdered under his political responsibility and whose relatives were demanding atonement. In the Danish Supreme Court, Best was eventually sentenced to twelve years in prison after furious public protests against the second sentence. From June 1950 until his release he was housed in Horsens State Prison ( Horsens Statsfængsel ).
In Germany German pressure, and after the first work-up phase of the Nazi occupation in Denmark a final stroke debate followed, Best was released early and on August 24, 1951 from prison deported to Germany.
Professional new beginning in the Federal Republic
After his expulsion to the Federal Republic of Germany, Best quickly found a job in Essen as a lawyer (without a license to practice law) in the law firm of Ernst Achenbach , who worked as a lawyer and politician for the rehabilitation of Nazi perpetrators.
Best got his first involuntary contact with the West German judiciary through investigations by the Frankfurt public prosecutor's office, which reopened the 1934 Schäfer murder case. Although the prosecutors found him guilty, the proceedings were dropped because there was insufficient evidence to be charged and a more thorough gathering of evidence no longer seemed possible after the long period. Investigations by the Munich public prosecutor's office into Best's involvement in the "Röhm Putsch" were even more dangerous. Here the evidence was significantly better and was not limited to a few only indirectly incriminating testimonies.
Ernst Achenbach, however, addressed himself personally in various letters to his FDP party friend Thomas Dehler , who was Federal Minister of Justice at the time , and demanded that he exert direct influence on the proceedings. Achenbach emphasized in this connection that the National Socialist German Reich had amnestied for the murders of 1934, that fundamental trust in the effectiveness of amnesties should not be shaken and that the persecution of Nazi perpetrators was only a matter of pure "revenge". Dehler responded with a request to the Bavarian judiciary. This then came to the conclusion that without Best's express admission, a conviction would not appear certain enough. She dropped the case after a brief interrogation of Best.
Campaign for a general amnesty
After Best had escaped criminal prosecution, he worked intensively in the Achenbach law firm, both legally and publicly, on the rehabilitation of victims of Nazi charges, with special attention to Gestapo and RSHA officials. He took over the coordination of the campaign for a general amnesty, which the Achenbach law firm sought to promote through numerous press releases that were sent to editorial offices every month and personal influence on decision-makers in the German Bundestag .
In July 1952, however, the American High Commissioner John McCloy strongly opposed a general amnesty. The German Bundestag rejected the amnesty in September 1952, but spoke out in favor of benevolent judgment practice in the joint review committees for war criminals' judgments run with the Americans, so that these passed over to extensive pardons. Best and Achenbach could rate this as a partial success of their work.
Naumann scandal and switch to the private sector
Political influence also became apparent in the West German party system. In the environment of the North Rhine-Westphalian FDP , various National Socialist functionaries from the middle to upper level around Werner Naumann , in the state association and above all in its full-time administration, managed to gain a foothold. From there this National Socialist team tried to infiltrate the politics of the Federal Republic with open and covert support from Ernst Achenbach.
Right-wing circles within the Ruhr industry around Edmund Stinnes supported this concern with financial donations, which made the North Rhine-Westphalian FDP association the richest state association of the entire party. Werner Best became the official "legal advisor" of the regional association in the Hessian NSDAP, like many years before. It is possible that Best saw the party work (without, however, formally joining the FDP) as the start of a political career in the young Federal Republic. He was considered to be the co-author of a strictly nationally oriented "German Program", which the North Rhine-Westphalia state association was supposed to present at the Bad Ems party congress in 1952 as an alternative to the election manifesto of the FDP. It called for “national rallying”, lamented “Germany's deepest humiliation” and rejected the “judgments of the Allies, with which our people, and especially their soldiers, were to be discriminated”.
The North Rhine-Westphalian constitutional protection and above all the British secret service became aware of these infiltration attempts and registered them with great concern. After Konrad Adenauer had also been informed of the services' findings by the British High Commissioner Ivone Kirkpatrick , he signaled full support and political backing for breaking up the Naumann group. Thereupon the British military police arrested Naumann and seven of his employees, including best old acquaintance Karl Kaufmann , on January 15 and 16, 1953, with great excitement among the West German public, which had no longer expected direct claims to Allied occupation rights . Organizationally, Best had only been on the fringes of the Naumann group and escaped arrest.
For Ernst Achenbach, however, breaking up the Naumann group turned out to be a serious obstacle to his career. From then on, the liberals within the FDP gained the upper hand over the nationalists and were able to oust Achenbach at least temporarily. In order to be able to remain in the FDP as a prominent politician, Achenbach gradually gave up his nationalist positions and parted with old companions, including Werner Best.
This created problems for Best. His application for readmission as a lawyer was rejected on the grounds of his past and the lack of denazification ; his work for Achenbach's office ended at the end of 1953. Attempts to return to the civil service - Best was thinking of a new position for the Foreign Office in the rank of ministerial director and had submitted an application for resumption - initially failed (and finally in 1958) same reason.
At Hugo Hermann Stinnes' suggestion, Best joined his company and finally switched to the private sector. As a legal advisor and member of the board of directors of the parent company of the Stinness companies ( Hugo-Stinnes Industrie- und Handels GmbH ), he quickly rose to the top of the bourgeoisie. Although he was not actually interested in commercial law , he quickly familiarized himself with the topic, which was unfamiliar to him. His economic circumstances improved noticeably, he became wealthy over the years.
Influence in the background
However, Best was not satisfied with having regained a professional footing. With the consent and support of Stinnes, he continued to strive for many years to provide legal support to former colleagues and employees of the Gestapo.
The gateway was Article 131 of the Basic Law , which made it possible to reinstate former civil servants in the civil service if they had been "ousted" from their posts (→ 131 ). Originally created for those politically and racially persecuted by the Nazi state as well as for officials expelled from the Eastern Territories and the Soviet Zone , officials who had been dismissed by the Western Allies after 1945 because of their Nazi burden were also taken back into service.
This also included former officers of the Gestapo, the Ordnungspolizei and the RSHA - but only if they had been classified as “fellow travelers” or if they could prove that they had been transferred to the Gestapo. Up until the 1960s, Best made hundreds of affidavits attesting to former Gestapo officials that they had come to the Gestapo by transfer and without any particular National Socialist conviction. In this way, he made it possible for them to be reinstated or at least to be paid compensation for the loss of their jobs. At meetings of the mutual aid community (HIAG), Best gave guest lectures as a legal expert. He assisted lawyers who represented former members of the Gestapo and the police in reinstatement proceedings with suggestions for arguments.
When public opinion, which at the beginning of the 1950s had been more against the persecution of Nazi perpetrators, turned against former Gestapo officers with increasing indignation in the wake of the Ulm Einsatzgruppen trial, Best's task became more difficult. With Stinnes' approval, he increasingly used his business office to function as a kind of "subsidiary office" for Nazi trials. In particular, the central office of the state justice administrations for the investigation of National Socialist crimes in Ludwigsburg caused headaches for the former Gestapo officials. Not only did they endanger hires that had not yet been completed, they also threatened those who had already been hired or otherwise established Nazi perpetrators with criminal prosecution, which, in contrast to previous investigative proceedings, were now carried out much more knowledgeably and with greater determination. Hundreds of preliminary investigations have been launched. Best's "subsidiary law firm" at Stinnes coordinated the defense, which consisted of creating legally viable strategies and uniform language regulations, be it through ordered incorrect, but irrefutable exonerations.
Journalistic self-defense
In addition, Best was concerned with defending his National Socialist past from himself and society. He wrote a work entitled Philosophy of Nonetheless , in which he referred to “doctrines of salvation” such as Christianity , communism , Western individualism and National Socialism as being morally outdated and expressed the assumption that former National Socialists were (like himself) - due to the realization of the futility of their past political actions - particularly suitable to take over the leadership again. With this view he at least found applause from Armin Mohler and Ernst Jünger , who both praised the font.
It was made clearer in a defense letter for the RSHA, which he called The Gestapo . Here he defended his old authority as a purely factual instrument in the hands of the state, which had been entrusted with the extermination of Jews as a "non-police task" within the framework of administrative assistance and which could only be described as criminal insofar as every police force was criminal as soon as it was their state lost a war. Even where there were crimes , these were carried out in an “ emergency ” and not attributable to the officers involved.
denazification
Best himself, however, failed when attempting to use Article 131 of the Basic Law for himself. His reinstatement had been refused with reference to the lack of denazification, compensation payments for his imprisonment in Denmark were refused with reference to an ongoing West Berlin arbitration chamber proceedings for denazification (in West Berlin proceedings under Allied supervision were much stricter and were opened late) , which ended 1958 with the classification Best in the category of the main culprits and sentenced him to a fine of 60,000 DM .
Thanks to good contacts with the North Rhine-Westphalian FDP, which provided the state finance minister, Best succeeded in restricting execution to an old Berlin account with a credit balance of DM 118.45. The North Rhine-Westphalian finance minister Willi Weyer had issued instructions forbidding the tax offices to collect West Berlin claims from denazification proceedings. A re-entry into the civil service was now definitely out of the question.
RSHA trials and cold amnesty
In 1963, Best's role in the RSHA came into the focus of Berlin public prosecutors. Investigations were initiated against hundreds of former RSHA employees - employees that Werner Best knew well from his time in office. Their conviction was to be expected due to the public prosecutors' improved knowledge through the preparatory work of the Ludwigsburg central office . This meant that Best would also be targeted by the judiciary at some point. For years, Best had been running an archive of Nazi files, which he strategically made available to the defense lawyers as opportune in Nazi trials. Best's services, which in the meantime consisted of an excellently coordinated network and extensive document support, threatened to reach an insurmountable limit with the equally well-informed public prosecutors, who were now able to evaluate the work of the RSHA and were no longer confused by the interference of the lawyers.
This is where Best's efforts to obtain a cold amnesty came to the rescue, the precise circumstances of which appear nebulous: Since the mid-1950s, a commission of lawyers, initiated by Thomas Dehler , had subjected criminal law to a general revision. One result of this work was hidden between a large number of other changes that liberalized criminal law as a whole: the proposal to assign the actions of murder assistants to the statute of limitations for aiding and abetting and to shorten this to 15 years. The commission was headed by Eduard Dreher , a specialist civil servant - during the Nazi era a public prosecutor at the Innsbruck Special Court - who had been in close contact with Best's old sponsor Ernst Achenbach and with him years before - albeit unsuccessfully - the possibility of an amnesty for NS Had discussed the perpetrator.
The Commission's proposals were passed in 1970 in the Bundestag and came into force in 1975 as part of a criminal law reform, with one exception: the changed statute of limitations for aid and the assignment of assistants to it were presented to parliament as early as 1968 and decided by it. This happened hidden in a law on administrative offenses (Introductory Act to the Law on Administrative Offenses , EGOWiG). Any proceedings against those accused of National Socialism, who, even according to the new legal situation, were only guilty of aiding and abetting, had to have been opened before January 1, 1965, which usually did not include the RSHA proceedings.
Since it was mostly impossible, as now required by law, to prove the perpetrators of the RSHA with personal motives and murder characteristics (in order to extend the statute of limitations), a large part of the preliminary investigation was discontinued and the accused released from custody. A large part of the further possible proceedings against Nazi perpetrators in the Federal Republic were prevented forever, so that "no other law or amnesty requirement in the post-war period had such far-reaching consequences for the impunity of high-ranking Nazi perpetrators as this". In 1969 the Federal Court of Justice also confirmed the shortening of the statute of limitations in a trial, not without expressly regretting it with regard to the Nazi perpetrators. To what extent this hidden amnesty of Nazi criminals can be attributed to Best and his network is uncertain. Although Eduard Dreher's involvement suggests a certain amount of suspicion, "there is no evidence of any involvement of the group around Best in the drafts of the Federal Justice Ministry". Possibly a lack of overview and a faulty impact assessment - but not a "punishment-thwarting intervention" - inadvertently helped to achieve the amnesty sought by Best.
Indictment as the main culprit
Best himself, however, was arrested on March 11, 1969 and transferred to Berlin. The Berlin public prosecutors did not see him in the least as an assistant or secondary perpetrator, but rather as the main or accomplice who was responsible for the murder of around 10,000 people by setting up task forces during the attack on Poland. The RSHA trial, which had just failed for the most part, now became a threat to Best: The extensive preliminary investigations that had revealed his role on the side turned against him. In the meantime, the judiciary had also noticed the coordinated defense in a large number of Nazi trials, and Best in particular came into question as the originator. A search of the house at Best and in Stinnes' business premises led to the confiscation of Best's documents, which he had fed the defense with and coordinated statements in many cases. From now on, the judiciary had certainty about Best's role, as well as a multitude of incriminating documents and appointed witnesses. Best's own opportunities to defend himself as he had made it possible for other Nazi perpetrators disappeared.
In 1971 the indictment was drafted and the main proceedings were prepared. Although the arrest warrant was overturned and Best provisionally released - amid the protest of the public prosecutors who suspected politically motivated intervention by the newly appointed judge - this appeared to be only a partial victory in view of the determination of the prosecutor and their thorough preparation. Best had to expect a long prison sentence.
Meanwhile, Stinnes had to file for bankruptcy in 1971 , so Best's activity there ended. From then on, Best concentrated on his family, his private life and avoiding a lawsuit against him. In addition, he worked with the German-Danish journalist Siegfried Matlok for a Danish publisher until 1988 on the book Denmark in Hitler's hands , which received a lot of attention in Denmark and in which he tried to justify his own role again.
Inability to stand trial
He escaped the judiciary by citing his compromised health - Best had reacted again with depression to his detention - applying for exemption , which was granted for the time being. The following years saw a bitter sequence of medical reports and counter-reports, during which Best was again in custody for six months, only to be released again - a few reports later.
On February 10, 1972, the Berlin public prosecutor brought charges against Best for the murder of at least 8,723 people in Poland, which was "jointly with Hitler, Göring, Himmler, Heydrich and Müller". However, the main trial with reference to Best's mental health was not opened. At the end of the 1970s, the Duisburg regional court refused to reopen the case with a reference to Best's health (and now his age) and determined that he was permanently incapable of standing.
In 1987 Best testified in a trial for the security police officer Modest Graf von Korff , whom he knew from his time in France. A Bonn public prosecutor noticed Best's alert and extremely healthy demeanor, and he pointed this out to the Duisburg public prosecutor. This ordered a new assessment of Bests. On April 13, 1989, the medical expert determined that he was partially incapable of standing, and on July 5, 1989, the public prosecutor filed an application for the main proceedings to be opened, presenting the old indictment.
Werner Best was no longer alive at this point. He died on June 23, 1989.
Significance for National Socialism
Theoretical contribution to the police state
Best played a crucial role as the theoretician of the security police. In his textbook on police law from 1940, Best tried to legitimize the general preventive detachment of the police and the Gestapo from any legal obligation. In doing so, he ensured a quasi-legal justification of arbitrary measures:
"According to the national legal conception, law is every rule according to which the cooperation of 'organs' - institutions and individuals - takes place and which is set or approved by the leadership. There is therefore no longer any distinction between 'stronger' and 'weaker' norms, between 'constitutional law' and ordinary law, between 'laws', 'ordinances' and 'enactments', between 'public' and 'private' law. The will of the leadership, regardless of the form in which it is expressed - whether through law, ordinance, decree, individual order, overall order, organization and jurisdiction regulation, etc. - creates law and changes previously applicable law. "
After he went on to explain that even without a finally summarized new police law, older laws and legal ideas about the Führer decree of June 17, 1936, by which Heinrich Himmler was entrusted with the management and standardization of the German police, and the Prussian law on the secret state police of February 10, 1936 would have to be reinterpreted, so that too
"- without formal repeal or amendment of the individual older laws - all deviating legal provisions apply as amended in the sense of the new order"
he came to the result:
“What the ' government ' wants to know 'looked after ' by the police is the epitome of 'police' law, which regulates and binds the actions of the police. As long as the 'police' carry out this will of the leadership, they act lawfully; if the will of the leadership is violated, the 'police' no longer act, but a member of the police commits a service offense . "
In 1936 he recorded for the Gestapo:
“An institution that carefully monitors the political health of the German national body , recognizes every symptom of illness in good time and detects and eliminates the germs of destruction - whether they originated through self-decomposition or through deliberate poisoning from outside - and eliminate them by any suitable means. That is the idea and the ethos of the political police in the national leader state of our time. "
Theoretical contribution to the Nazi rule over Europe
Best's ideas about the way in which Nazi rule over Europe was to be established and shaped, he was no longer able to translate seamlessly into laws and informal guidelines after leaving the RSHA. He was therefore dependent on publication in specialist journals (such as the RVL , which he co-founded ), commemorative publications and lectures.
In a commemorative publication for Heinrich Himmler, he explained his ideas in an exemplary manner: In a critical discussion with Carl Schmitt , who saw states as the actual bearers of political order , Best had previously developed the idea of a "Völkische Großraumordnung", in which dominant peoples around a zone of rule straightened up and would not have to see themselves exposed to any normative restrictions. Power alone is the all-creating source of political order, and besides the peoples (and not primarily the states as with Schmitt) there are no other fixed points of normative values that could be offset against the established order of National Socialism. There are völkisch laws of life, which consist in unchangeable interests of the peoples, and which on the one hand have to be followed, the framework of which can on the other hand be designed in a controlling manner. This also allows undesirable peoples to be expelled from the greater area order - or even to be destroyed - just as the dominating greater area people seem favorable after weighing the facts.
The real radicalism of his worldview lies in Best's carefully graded method of rule, formulated in a sober legal tone. This method ranged from an “alliance” or “supervisory” administration for some (Danes and French) to the only limitedly independent “government” administration - as in the Czech example, only parts of the subordinate administration were under German government should remain in place - up to and including the much tougher "colonial administration" for other peoples (Generalgouvernement Poland, peoples of the Soviet Union). The normative lack of commitment and the possible and dispassionate destruction of unpopular peoples (Jews) formed the background of this methodology.
In this commemorative publication, Best tried to convince Himmler of the resource-conserving possibilities of the indirect form of a "relatively loose occupation" (which should fail), but not for ethical reasons, but to ensure the ability to steer occupied Europe. The aim was not to avoid genocide , but to put it into more precise service according to principles of political prudence within the framework of presupposed völkisch “laws of life”.
In another essay, Best stated with laconic clarity: " According to historical experience, destruction and repression of foreign nationalities does not contradict the laws of life if it happens completely". It is just not an end in itself, but must be carefully weighed against other interests and requirements of power. As early as 1941, no other representative of National Socialism expressed readiness for “systematic racial extermination” in such a broad public as Best naturally did.
In contrast to the Gestapo laws, these considerations did not immediately become a guideline for the administration after he left the RSHA; they rather represented an elitist National Socialist discourse within the SS. But they were based on an ongoing and radicalizing practice of rule in Eastern Europe and provided that Functionaries from the SS the theoretical tools for their approach. According to Ulrich Herbert , Best was perceived and recognized as “the leading large-scale theoretician of the SS” despite his willingness to partially criticize individual aspects of Nazi rule.
Type of the National Socialist intellectual
During his political career in the Nazi state, Best was very interested in not only enforcing its rule in practice, but also justifying it theoretically. This claim went back to his youth and adolescence in elitist-academic völkisch organizations, as well as to his stamping as a capable qualified lawyer and to his view of the SS as the intellectual elite of National Socialism. His claim led Best to extensive journalistic activity early on. In a certain way, these convictions preceded any personal and institutional ties - whether to Himmler, Hitler or the NSDAP - and found not their cause in the ideology of National Socialism, but their support.
In fact, in allied interrogations - in which he untruthfully denied any knowledge of the Holocaust - after the war in Nuremberg , Best stated that his worldview did not first emerge under the influence of Hitler and the NSDAP, and that he was quite capable of always including Hitler to see critically:
“I was already exhausted in my convictions, it is so difficult to say today, the National Socialist program, the worldview, it is more of a conglomerate. The only clear one was the belief in Hitler. The old Hitlerians have no problems. For everyone else, the old problems had to reappear. I got the impression that Hitler seemed to deviate from certain principles [.] "
In his convictions, he was therefore anything but a recipient of orders without contradiction; in fact, he dared to conflict with Heydrich, Himmler and Hitler himself several times in his career.
In the face of political lack of control or lack of clarity, Best always took the stance of a cool, purposeful rationalism on a folk basis, which he himself understood as "objectivity" and which carried him through his career. As his break with Heydrich shows, this attitude was sometimes an obstacle to his professional progress. Even after the war, he protested against the charge that he acted out of hatred of the Jews. Rather, he saw his activity as the factual execution of the necessary .
With this, Best clearly shaped National Socialism and, above all, the leadership structures of the Reich Security Main Office as part of that relatively young, mostly academically educated "generation of the unconditional", which appeared rational in its habitus and was able to critically evaluate individual aspects of National Socialism from this habitus, but behind this rationality revealed deeply radical nationalist premises, which became politically effective almost unchecked and ended in mass murder of millions .
Best's theoretical reflections on the role of the police enabled him to establish absolute rule of the security police. His convictions about the peoples of Europe allowed him to develop techniques of rule that were flexibly adaptable: Völkisch hardship for Eastern Europeans, a certain freedom for the peoples of France and national liberality for the Danes, without Best even in a milder rulership practice a conflict with his had to see folk beliefs.
Best's theoretical and intellectual endeavors cannot be separated from its practical functions in the hierarchy of the Nazi system. His axiomatic premise, which has never been questioned , that peoples are fundamentally different and the exclusive bearers of history and that the Jews are therefore to be separated from the Germans - up to their annihilation - allowed him to pass extensive and highly radical anti-Semitic laws free of hatred and pity formulate and extend it to occupied Europe without ever asking for a deeper reason for the murder of the Jews that goes beyond these premises. Apparently, he did not miss such a reason.
Historical reception
Best's role as an academically educated National Socialist functionary and SS intellectual with considerable scope remained undiscovered for decades before Ulrich Herbert examined it in detail for his habilitation thesis until 1992 and published it in the expanded version of the biography Best in 1996 . As a result, the interest of historical science was directed to the role, the great influence, the social characteristics, the motivation and the motivations of the leadership class promoted by Himmler and Heydrich in the security apparatus of the Third Reich. Due to their relatively young age, their relatives could not belong to the top ranks of the National Socialist ruling apparatus, and their political socialization was not only carried out in the sub-divisions of the NSDAP, but - inconspicuously from the bourgeoisie - at the schools and universities of the Weimar Republic : academically educated, mostly connected to the ethnic milieu and often above average gifted and career-oriented, their service to National Socialism was not the result of blind seduction or propagandistic overwhelming, but the expression of a conscious decision that they followed with moral coldness.
Herbert's sensational habilitation thesis, which is considered “one of the standard works of modern contemporary history research”, became the point of departure for further studies by Karin Orth , Michael Wildt and Lutz Hachmeister , for example . This work concentrated on the résumés, careers and characteristic features, differences and similarities of these Nazi leadership cadres of the second tier, whose important contribution to the emergence and course of the occupation and extermination policy of the Third Reich had been overlooked.
In addition to the positions of the intentionalists and the structuralists, a third perspective was established within NS research , which focused on the independent ideological drives of NS elites, who entered into dynamic cross-connections with Hitler's intentions and the institutional interests of NS polycracy. Neither Hitler's intention nor the competition between the formal organizations and the interest groups of the Third Reich alone explain the emergence and course of the Nazi extermination program, but rather the active and ideologically motivated participation of Nazi cadres (such as Werner Best) within one Within the framework of institutions that are geared towards this purpose (such as the RSHA) must be used for explanation.
Publications (incomplete)
- On the question of the "intentional disability". Dissertation. University of Heidelberg 1929.
- "... is shot": the truth about the Boxheim document. Self-published, Mainz 1932.
- Die Geheime Staatspolizei, in: Deutsches Recht 6 (1936), pp. 125–128.
- Renewal of police law. In: Kriminalistische Monatshefte. 12, 1938, pp. 26-29.
- The administration in Poland before and after the collapse of the Polish Republic. von Decker, Berlin 1940.
- Ruling class or ruling class? In: Reich-Volksordnung-Lebensraum. Vol. 3, 1942, pp. 122-139 (published with anonymized author's name).
- The German police. LC Wittich, Darmstadt 1940 ( research on constitutional and administrative law , vol. 5, edited by Reinhard Höhn ).
- Basic questions of a German metropolitan area administration. In: Festgabe für Heinrich Himmler ... written for the Reichsführer SS and Chief of the German Police Heinrich Himmler on his 40th birthday and presented to him on the 5th anniversary of the takeover of the German police on June 17, 1941. 1941, pp. 33-60.
- The German military administration in France. In: Reich, Volksordnung, Lebensraum. Journal for national constitution and administration. (RVL) 1, 1941, pp. 29-76.
- Large-scale planning and management. In: Journal of Politics. 32, 1942, pp. 406-412.
- Siegfried Matlok (ed.): Denmark in Hitler's hands. The report by Reich Plenipotentiary Werner Best on his occupation policy in Denmark with studies on Hitler, Göring, Himmler, Heydrich, Ribbentrop, Canaris and others. a. Husum-Verlag, Husum 1988, ISBN 3-88042-436-5 .
- The "Philosophy of Nevertheless". Basics of a contemporary philosophy. Manuscript without date (around 1953), kept in the main state archive in Düsseldorf, Rep 242 (proceedings against Best and others because of murder), document folder 32
- The Gestapo. Manuscript without date (also around 1953), kept in the main state archive in Düsseldorf, Rep 242 (proceedings against Best and others because of murder), document folder 32
literature
- Tôviyyā Friedman (Ed.): The two Nazi rulers in Denmark. Günther Pancke ; Werner Best. A documentary collection. Institute of Documentation in Israel for the Investigation of Nazi War Crimes, Haifa 1998
- Ulrich Herbert : Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason 1903–1989. Dietz, Bonn 1996, ISBN 3-8012-5019-9 .
- Ulrich Herbert: Werner Best - radicalism, worldview and reason. Verlag Willmuth Arenhövel, Berlin 1997 (brochure, 24 pages).
- Serge Klarsfeld : Vichy - Auschwitz: the cooperation of the German and French authorities in the final solution of the Jewish question in France. Translated by Ahlrich Meyer. Greno , Nördlingen 1989, ISBN 3-89190-958-6 .
- Jochen Lengemann : MdL Hessen. 1808-1996. Biographical index (= political and parliamentary history of the state of Hesse. Vol. 14 = publications of the Historical Commission for Hesse. Vol. 48, 7). Elwert, Marburg 1996, ISBN 3-7708-1071-6 , p. 73.
- Franz Maier: Biographical organization manual of the NSDAP and its structures in the area of today's Rhineland-Palatinate. Mainz 2007, ISBN 978-3-7758-1407-2 , pp. 142-144.
- Ahlrich Meyer : Greater policy and collaboration in the west. Werner Best, the magazine "Reich-Volksordnung-Lebensraum" and the German military administration in France. In: Götz Aly (ed.): Models for a German Europe. Economy and rule in the greater economic area. Rotbuch Verlag , Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-88022-959-7 ( Contributions to National Socialist health and social policy. Vol. 10), pp. 29–76.
- Ahlrich Meyer : The German occupation in France 1940-1944. Fight against resistance and persecution of Jews. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2000, ISBN 3-534-14966-1 .
- Fritz Petrick: Werner Best - a prevented General Governor. In: Ronald Smelser / Enrico Syring (ed.): The SS. Elite under the skull. Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2000, pp. 60-76.
- Klaus-Dieter Rack, Bernd Vielsmeier: Hessian MPs 1820–1933. Biographical evidence for the first and second chambers of the state estates of the Grand Duchy of Hesse 1820–1918 and the state parliament of the People's State of Hesse 1919–1933 (= Political and parliamentary history of the State of Hesse. Vol. 19 = Work of the Hessian Historical Commission. NF Vol. 29) . Hessian Historical Commission, Darmstadt 2008, ISBN 978-3-88443-052-1 , No. 49.
- Hans Georg Ruppel, Birgit Groß: Hessian MPs 1820–1933. Biographical evidence for the estates of the Grand Duchy of Hesse (2nd Chamber) and the Landtag of the People's State of Hesse (= Darmstädter Archivschriften. Vol. 5). Verlag des Historisches Verein für Hessen, Darmstadt 1980, ISBN 3-922316-14-X , p. 64.
- Hermann Weiß (Ed.): Biographical Lexicon for the Third Reich . Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, ISBN 3-596-13086-7 .
- Sebastian Werner: Werner Best - The Volkish Ideologe. In: Ronald Smelser / Enrico Syring / Rainer Zitelmann (eds.): Die brown Elite 2. 21 further biographical sketches, 2nd updated edition, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1999, pp. 13-25.
Film, film contributions
- Gerolf Karwath: Hitler's elites after 1945. Part 4: Jurists - acquittal on their own behalf. Director: Holger Hillesheim. Südwestrundfunk (SWR, 2002).
Web links
- Literature by and about Werner Best in the catalog of the German National Library
- Works by and about Werner Best in the German Digital Library
- Gerhard Altmann: Werner Best. Tabular curriculum vitae in the LeMO ( DHM and HdG )
- Best, Karl Rudolf Werner. Hessian biography. (As of October 9, 2019). In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
- Nazis and “National Collection”: “Duty to the Right”. The FDP in the fifties . In: AIB , Heft 59, 2003, pp. 44-46.
- Old comrades . In: Der Spiegel . No. 26 , 1982, pp. 63-68 ( online ).
- Witness literature Werner Best . In: Archive of the Institute for Contemporary History , Munich, call number ZS 0207 / 1-2. ( online , PDF, 23.9 MB)
- Hitler's elites after 1945. Part 4: acquittal in their own right. Documentation, Saarländischer Rundfunk 2002 ( video on YouTube ).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Carsten Dams, Michael Stolle: The Gestapo. Rule and Terror in the Third Reich. Beck, Munich 2008, p. 51.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 234ff.
- ↑ a b Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 290.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 495ff.
- ^ Stiftung Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin: Biography: Best Werner 1903–1989.
- ↑ Uwe Lohalm: Völkischer Radikalismus. The history of the Deutschvölkischer Schutz- und Trutz-Bund. 1919-1923. Leibniz, Hamburg 1970, ISBN 3-87473-000-X , p. 444.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 50.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 67.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 68.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, pp. 70ff.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 83f.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 75f.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 78.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 85.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 86.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 87.
- ↑ a b Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 89.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 96f.
- ↑ Norbert Podewin (Ed.): "Brown Book". War and Nazi criminals in the Federal Republic and in West Berlin. State, economy, administration, army, justice, science . Edition Ost, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-360-01033-7 (reprint of the 3rd edition from 1968), page 89
- ↑ a b Werner Best, statement on the person, HStAD (= Main State Archives Düsseldorf), Rep. 242 (= proceedings against Best and others because of murder 1 Js 12/65 RSHA), Pld-2, 53-71, here 68; quoted from Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, world view and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 103.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert Best: Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason 1903-1989 . Dietz-Verlag, Bonn 2011, ISBN 978-3-8012-5030-0 , p. 103 .
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 107.
- ↑ a b c Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, world view and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 108.
- ↑ Werner Best: Catholic Church and NSDAP, quoted from Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 109.
- ↑ Werner Best: Catholic Church and NSDAP, quoted from Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, pp. 108-109.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 111.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 108f.
- ↑ a b Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 128.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 119f.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 121.
- ↑ Werner Best: Durchgreifen!, In: Mainzer Warte, March 4, 1933, quoted from Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, world view and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 122.
- ↑ a b Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 123.
- ↑ Hans Buchheim: The SS - the instrument of rule, command and obedience. Munich 1967, p. 40.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 126.
- ↑ Best's order for the establishment of the Osthofen concentration camp, dating back to May 1, is photographed by Paul Grünewald: Osthofen concentration camp. Material on the history of an almost forgotten concentration camp. 2nd Edition. Röderberg-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1983, ISBN 3-87682-709-4 , p. 21f.
- ↑ Hans Buchheim: The SS - the instrument of rule, command and obedience. Munich 1967, p. 40.
- ↑ Cf. Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 129.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 135ff.
- ↑ cf. http://www.dhm.de/lemo/html/nazi/innenpolitik/gestapo/index.html
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 143.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 144.
- ↑ Cf. Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 144; Ulrich Herbert, however, expresses clear doubts about Best's alleged rescue efforts, corresponding representations come from Karl Otto Paetel
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 146.
- ↑ a b Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 147.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 148.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 150.
- ↑ Werner Best, quoted from Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 152. The origin of the quotations is indicated there with: Draft by the Gestapa for a meeting of the Prussian Council of Ministers (Best) of October 22, 1935, GStAB (= Secret State Archives Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin), Rep. 90P / 66- 4 (= Secret State Police), p. 247 ff.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 153.
- ↑ Werner Best, quoted from Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 155. Origin of the quotations in Herbert indicated with: Letter from the Gestapa to the Reich Ministry of Justice of March 28, 1935, GStAB (= Secret State Archive of Prussian Cultural Heritage, Berlin) Rep. 90P / 104. (= Secret State Police) Pp. 154-164. Letter signed by Himmler, but - according to Herbert - written by Best.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 157.
- ↑ Cf. Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 157.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 160.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 161.
- ^ Peter Longerich: Heinrich Himmler. Biography. Siedler, Berlin 2008, p. 209.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 210f.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 213.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 220.
- ↑ a b c Cf. Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, world view and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 222ff.
- ↑ Cf. Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 223.
- ↑ Cf. Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 236.
- ↑ Cf. Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 236ff.
- ↑ Cf. Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 237.
- ↑ Cf. Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 239ff.
- ↑ Cf. Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 242.
- ↑ Cf. Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 243ff.
- ↑ Cf. Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 245ff.
- ↑ So the assumption of Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 247ff.
- ↑ Carsten Dams, Michael Stolle: The Gestapo. Rule and Terror in the Third Reich. Beck, Munich 2008, p. 51; Michael Wildt: Generation of the Unconditional The leadership corps of the Reich Main Security Office. Hamburger Edition , Hamburg 2003, pp. 259-276.
- ↑ Cf. Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, pp. 230-232.
- ↑ Cf. Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 255; and Fritz Petrick: Werner Best. A governor-general who was unable to attend . In: Ronald Smelser / Enrico Syring: SS. Elite under the skull. Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2000, p. 66.
- ^ Hans Umbreit: The military commander in France 194-1944. Boldt, Boppard 1968, pp. 23-25.
- ↑ Cf. Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 254.
- ↑ Cf. Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 256ff.
- ↑ Cf. Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 257.
- ↑ Cf. Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, pp. 259ff.
- ↑ Cf. Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 265f.
- ↑ Cf. Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 261.
- ↑ a b Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 266ff.
- ↑ Werner Best: Völkisch New Order of Western Europe to secure the Reich! November 1941, today in the Kirchhoff Collection, University of Copenhagen, Institute for Contemporary History; quoted from Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, world view and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 295, cf. also p. 293.
- ↑ Cf. Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 270.
- ↑ Cf. Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 295.
- ↑ a b Werner Best (Anonymous): Lord class or leadership people. In: Reich - People's Order - Living Space. Volume 3, 1942, pp. 12–139 (The article was printed with anonymous author's name), quoted from Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographische Studien über Radikalismus, Weltanschauung und Vernunft. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 288.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 299ff.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 306ff.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 312.
- ^ Hans Umbreit: The military commander in France 1940-1944. Boldt, Boppard 1968, p. 26.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 320.
- ↑ Werner Best: Denmark in Hitler's hands. Husum Verlag, Husum 1988, p. 155.
- ↑ Cf. Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, pp. 326-330.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 340.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 337.
- ↑ Digital copies of the Slægtsforskernes Bibliotek , accessed on February 17, 2020.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, pp. 342-347.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 351ff.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, pp. 354-359.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 357.
- ↑ Fritz Petrick: Werner Best. A governor general prevented from doing so. In: Ronald Smelser / Enrico Syring (eds.), SS. Elite unter dem Totenkopf, Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh , Paderborn 2000, p. 72.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 367.
- ↑ Sebastian Werner: Werner Best. The völkische ideologe. In: Ronald Smelser, Enrico Syring, Rainer Zitelmann (eds.): Die Braune Elite 2. 21 further biographical sketches, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft Darmstadt, 2nd updated edition 1999, p. 23.
- ↑ So Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical Studies on Radicalism, Weltanschauung and Reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 363ff. and pp. 368-373.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 360.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 383.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 381.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 385.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 386.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 387.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 393.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 395.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 396.
- ↑ Cf. Ulrich Herbert : Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 398.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, pp. 398-400.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. Beck, Munich 2016, p. 423
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 414ff.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 400.
- ↑ Cf. Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, pp. 419-422.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 432.
- ↑ Fængslets fanger - Indsatte med forbindelse med Andes verdenskrig .
- ↑ a b Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 450.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 460. See also Norbert Frei : Past policy in the fifties. In: Wilfried Loth , Bernd-A. Rusinek (Hrsg.): Transformation policy, Nazi elites in West German post-war society. Campus Verlag, Frankfurt, New York 1998, ISBN 3-593-35994-4 , pp. 79-92, here p. 87.
- ↑ Jörg Friedrich : The cold amnesty. Nazi perpetrators in the Federal Republic . New edition, Piper, Munich / Zurich 1994, p. 323.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 467.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 485ff.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 491ff.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 486.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 490.
- ↑ a b Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 509ff; on the term “cold amnesty” see Jörg Friedrich: Die kalte Amnestie. Nazi perpetrators in the Federal Republic. New edition, Piper, Munich / Zurich 1994.
- ↑ So Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical Studies on Radicalism, Weltanschauung and Reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 510.
- ↑ So Michael Wildt: Generation of the Unconditional. The leadership corps of the Reich Security Main Office. Hamburger Edition, Hamburg 2003, p. 836.
- ↑ Michael Wildt: Generation of the Unconditional. The leadership corps of the Reich Security Main Office. Hamburger Edition, Hamburg 2003, p. 837.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 514.
- ↑ indictment Best and others of 10 December 1972 ZStL (= Central Office of the State Justice Administrations for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes ), p 1026 f .; quoted from Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, world view and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 517.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 521.
- ↑ Werner Best: The German Police. LCWittich Verlag, Darmstadt 1940 ( research on constitutional and administrative law , vol. 5), p. 15.
- ↑ Werner Best: The German Police. LC Wittich Verlag, Darmstadt 1940 ( research on constitutional and administrative law , vol. 5), p. 19.
- ↑ Werner Best: The German Police. Wittich, Darmstadt 1940 ( Research on Constitutional and Administrative Law , Vol. 5), p. 20.
- ↑ Werner Best: The Secret State Police. In: German law. 6, 1936, pp. 125-128, here pp. 126f .; quoted from Carsten Dams, Michael Stolle: The Gestapo. Rule and Terror in the Third Reich. Beck, Munich 2008, p. 42.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 278.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 283.
- ↑ Cf. Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, pp. 282-284.
- ^ Mark Mazower: Hitler's Empire. Europe under the rule of National Socialism. Beck, Munich 2009, p. 222.
- ↑ Werner Best: Grossraumordnung and Grossraumverwaltung. In: Journal of Politics. 32, 1942, pp. 406-412, quoted from: Mark Mazower: Hitlers Imperium. Europe under the rule of National Socialism. Beck, Munich 2009, p. 220.
- ^ Mark Mazower: Hitler's Empire. Europe under the rule of National Socialism. Beck, Munich 2009, p. 220.
- ↑ Werner Best in an interrogation on September 19, 1946, BA (= Federal Archives) All. Proc. 2 (= Nuremberg Trials 2); quoted from Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, world view and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 418.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. 3. Edition. Dietz, Bonn 1996, p. 417.
- ↑ Cf. Michael Wildt: Generation of the Unconditional. The leadership corps of the Reich Security Main Office. Hamburger Edition, Hamburg 2003.
- ↑ Ulrich Herbert: Best. Biographical studies on radicalism, worldview and reason. 1903-1989. Dietz, Bonn 1996.
- ^ (Review of) Ulrich Herbert: Best. ( Memento from September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) In: Documentation archive Beate Klarsfeld. Retrieved November 28, 2010.
- ↑ Karin Orth: The Concentration Camp SS. Social structural analyzes and biographical studies. Wallstein-Verlag, Göttingen 2000.
- ↑ Michael Wildt: Generation of the Unconditional. The leadership corps of the Reich Security Main Office. Hamburger Edition, Hamburg 2003.
- ↑ Lutz Hachmeister: The enemy researcher. The career of SS leader Franz Alfred Six. Beck, Munich 1998.
- ↑ see with reference to the work of Ulrich Herbert: Ian Kershaw. The Nazi state. Historical controversies and controversies at a glance. (Chapter 10, Shifting Perspective: Considerations for Changing Perspectives in Research), 4th edition, Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, Hamburg 2006, p. 394 and p. 395.
- ^ Compiled by Tuviah Friedman, 168 sheets, available in the German National Library , Leipzig location.
- ^ Under the title Vichy - Auschwitz. The “Final Solution to the Jewish Question” in France. WBG , Darmstadt 2007; Corrected edition and updated in the extensive literature list and in the register. In: Forschungsstelle Ludwigsburg FSL, Vol. 10, ISBN 3-534-20793-9 (standard work on the persecution of Jews in France, which among other things also documents Best's involvement in the disenfranchisement, expropriation and deportation of French Jews).
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Best, Werner |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Best, Karl Rudolf Werner (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German lawyer, police chief, SS-Obergruppenführer and politician (NSDAP) |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 10, 1903 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Darmstadt |
| DATE OF DEATH | June 23, 1989 |
| Place of death | Mülheim an der Ruhr |