Werner Koeppen

Werner Koeppen (right) in the SA leadership school at Harnekopp Castle in 1932. Next to him Herbert Merker .

Werner Koeppen (born September 26, 1910 in Leipzig ; † 1994 ) was a German SA leader and political functionary. He became known as an adjutant and personal adviser to the Nazi chief ideologist Alfred Rosenberg .

Life

Youth and education

Koeppen was the son of parents from Pomerania . His father was a chemist. In 1917 he started school in Leipzig. He then attended pre-primary and secondary schools in Berlin , Stettin , Heilbronn and Nuremberg , where he graduated from high school in 1929.

After attending school, Koeppen was an officer candidate in a police training group in Fürth for around three months . In the winter of 1929 he began studying history, German and geography at the University of Erlangen . He completed a semester at the Berlin Friedrich Wilhelms University . Otherwise he studied exclusively in Erlangen.

In November 1936 Koeppen received his doctorate in Erlangen under the professor of modern history Otto Brandt . The title of his dissertation is Beginnings of the Franconian Workers' and Journeyman's Movement in the Years 1830–1852 . Martin Vogt wrote about this dissertation: “In his work, Koeppen came to the politically determined and time-bound result that the social and political endeavors of the '48 revolution had failed, but were not in vain. What failed back then led a later generation to a happier end after the painful experiences of long wrong turns. "

After he had already passed his state examination in May 1935 , Koeppen accepted a traineeship at the Realgymnasium in Nuremberg. In the early summer of the same year, he applied to the Bavarian Ministry for Education and Culture to be dismissed because "a promising position in life" would have offered.

Beginning political engagement

Already in his youth Koeppen began to get involved in circles of the extreme political right: In 1926 he became a member of the Young National Federation .

On May 1, 1931, Koeppen became a member of the NSDAP . Soon afterwards he joined the NS student union , where he worked as an accounting officer . In the summer of 1931, while he was again spending a semester at Berlin University, he also joined the SA, the party army of the NSDAP.

After returning to Nuremberg in 1932, he initially took part in demonstrative marches and SA leadership courses until he was appointed leader of the Nuremberg SA Storm 14/15 in June 1933.

Career in the SA

In 1936 Koeppen received the rank of Sturmbannführer with the Nuremberg SA and took part in a summer exercise of the infantry regiment in Erlangen . In September 1933, as in the following two years, he attended the Nazi Party Congress of the NSDAP.

In the early summer of 1935, Koeppen was considered a brigade adjutant of Regensburg's SA Brigade 81, which is why he gave up his position as a teacher in Nuremberg. In the same year, 1935, he became a teacher in the SA group school in Thurnau . He was also chief of staff of the Bavarian SA group 48/36.

In January 1936 Koeppen took part in the meeting of the "Old Guard" in Berlin. Soon afterwards he left the church . From then on he described himself as " believing in God ". In the summer of 1937 he was given the rank of Sturmbannführer and was made available to the Supreme SA leadership , for whom he had worked as an assistant since April.

Speaker from Rosenberg

On November 9, 1937, Koeppen was called to Reichsleiter Alfred Rosenberg by order of the Führer . He initially received the post of adjutant von Rosenberg and was appointed head of the "Rosenberg Chancellery". So he carried out an activity for which Thilo von Trotha (1909–1938) had previously been responsible. On March 1, 1938, Koeppen joined the Reich leadership. In the same year he married. His first son was born in 1941 and his second son was born on March 1, 1943.

Between September 1939 and autumn 1940 Koeppen took part in the Second World War. "Due to a UK position " he retired as a sergeant from the Wehrmacht . In January 1941 he was promoted to SA Standartenführer.

On July 16, 1941, the official proclamation of Alfred Rosenberg as Reich Minister for the occupied countries of Eastern Europe took place in the Führer Headquarters (FHQ) "Wolfsschanze" . During the talks with Hitler, Rosenberg proposed that Koeppen be used as a liaison with him. Normann recorded: “Rosenberg made the suggestion to assign a liaison to the Führer; this task should be taken over by his adjutant Koeppen; the Führer agrees and declares that Koeppen should take on the parallel role to Hewel . ”In the same month Koeppen started his service at the FHQ. The one year older SA standard leader Joachim Marquardt (born 1909) took Koeppen's place as adjutant at Rosenberg. Martin Vogt described Koeppen's role in the FHQ as follows:

“Koeppen wasn't actually able to take on the 'parallel role' with Hewel; because he was not only the representative of the “ Foreign Office ”, but between him and Hitler there was a special bond that Hitler had with the “ old fighters ” of the early days. Koeppen could not think of such personal closeness and similar personal influence. In contrast to Hewel, it had at best a second-rate meaning in the 'Wolfsschanze'. However, Koeppen carefully observed what was going on in the 'Wolfsschanze' and tried to capture conversations and rumors, even if the number of guests at the 'lunch or dinner' was particularly large or state visits were taking place in the 'Wolfsschanze' so that he belonged to those who were assigned their place in a room other than Hitler. "

On March 1, 1943, Koeppen finished his service at the FHQ. By then he had worked at FHQ for 18 months.

From then on Koeppen carried out various activities in the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR).

A few months before the end of the war, on September 28, 1944, Rosenberg considered reducing his office to a “small staff with 15 clerks.” Werner Koeppen handled the relevant correspondence for him. Koeppen's work at Rosenberg only ended with the final collapse of National Socialism in February 1945. He was one of Rosenberg's last employees. For a short time Koeppen was drafted into the Wehrmacht again, but was quickly taken prisoner by the Allies .

post war period

Little is known about Koeppen's life after 1945. At first he lived in Munich for many years. At times he was deputy president of the right-wing extremist "German Cultural Association of the European Spirit" (DKEG).

In 1977 Werner Koeppen wrote apologetic "Thoughts on Alfred Rosenberg's Ostpolitik ". Koeppen complained that in the post-war period "the nonsensical claims and rumors about the person of the former Reichsleiter and Reich Minister Alfred Rosenberg" had still not fallen silent. These words, which he disliked, would not “only come from the pen of declared enemies of National Socialism”. According to the former doctrine of racial ideology of the RMfdbO, he still formulated the claim in this document that all Slavs were "second class people" who were formerly in need of "Germanic" and now "German leadership". Vogt commented on these words that Koeppens' later notes "do not reveal any insight into the basic violence and the will to destroy the Nazi ideology".

His written estate is in the Munich City Archives .

literature

• Martin Vogt: Autumn 1941 in the “Führer Headquarters” . Werner Koeppens reports to his minister Alfred Rosenberg, Koblenz 2002, ISBN 3-89192-113-6 . (Documentation.)
• Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich . Who was what before and after 1945, 2nd edition, Frankfurt a. M. 2007, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Werner Koeppen in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Martin Vogt: Autumn 1941 in the "Führer Headquarters". Werner Koeppens reports to his Minister Alfred Rosenberg. Koblenz 2002, p. XVIII.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Reinhard Bollmus: The office of Rosenberg and its opponents . Studies on the power struggle in the National Socialist system of rule, Munich 1970, p. 273.
3. ↑ HD Heilmann: From the war diary of the diplomat Otto Bräutigam . In: Götz Aly u. a. (Ed.): Biedermann and desk clerk . Materials on the German perpetrator biography, Institute for Social Research in Hamburg: Contributions to National Socialist Health and Social Policy 4, Berlin 1987, p. 136 f., ISBN 3-88022-953-8 .
4. ↑ Martin Vogt: Autumn 1941 in the "Führer Headquarters" . Werner Koeppens reports to his Minister Alfred Rosenberg, Koblenz 2002, p. XIX; Bollmus, who wrote that Amandus Langer , b. 1908 and by profession poster maker, Reinhard Bollmus took the place of Koeppen: The Office Rosenberg and his opponents . Studies on the power struggle in the National Socialist system of rule, Munich 1970, p. 273. (Sources: "BDC and Eidesstattl. Dec. Dr. Koeppens NO-3822; Communication ad author. Of June 12, 1965.)"; Amandus Langer was Rosenberg's second adjutant, Findmittelinfo BArch R 43-II / 1159 b ( page no longer available , search in web archives: Reich Chancellery - Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories - civil servants' personnel matters ).
5. ↑ Martin Vogt: Autumn 1941 in the "Führer Headquarters" . Werner Koeppens reports to his Minister Alfred Rosenberg, Koblenz 2002, p. XIX.
6. ↑ Note HD Heilmann: From the war diary of the diplomat Otto Bräutigam . In: Götz Aly u. a. (Ed.): Biedermann and desk clerk . Materials on the German biography of the perpetrators, Institute for Social Research in Hamburg: Contributions to National Socialist Health and Social Policy 4, Berlin 1987, p. 172.
7. ↑ Jan-Pieter Barbian: Literary Policy in the "Third Reich" . Institutions, competencies, fields of activity, Nördlingen 1995, p. 56, ISBN 3-423-04668-6 . (Sources given: BArch Potsdam, NS 8/227 Bl. 180-181; Stellrecht reply of September 20, 1944, Bl. 182-183.)
8. ↑ Note from apabiz
9. ↑ ^{a b} Martin Vogt: Autumn 1941 in the “Führer Headquarters” . Werner Koeppens reports to his Minister Alfred Rosenberg, Koblenz 2002, p. XXI f.
10. ^ Proof of the Munich City Archives