Werner Tutter

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Kurt Werner Tutter (born December 12, 1909 in Prague - Smíchov ; † March 9, 1983 in Kötzting ) was a German war criminal in World War II and during the Cold War as an agent of the State Security of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (ČSSR).

Live and act

First republic

Tutter was born in the Smíchov district of Prague as the son of Konrad Tutter and Meta, born Meissner, from Wenkerschlag in southern Bohemia . He completed an engineering degree and spoke eight languages. He was married to Ilse, née Lügner, with whom he had two sons and a daughter. During the First Republic , Tutter, who worked as a technical officer, became increasingly politically active in German nationalist circles. Since 1934 he was known to the police as a member of the Sudeten German Home Front . In 1935 the Sudeten German Party (SdP) emerged from this ; Tutter acted as chairman of the Prague district association and was also advertising manager and press officer for the SdP. He gave lectures at party events, organized distance learning courses and acted as editor of the papers Der Ruf and Nachrichtenblatt of the Sudeten German Home Front . When led by Tutter Monthly Meeting of the Prague Sudeten District Association under the theme "The struggle for the right and the honor of the German worker and communications of the organization" held on 25 November 1936 at the German House in Prague the deputy Georg Wollner before 800 Participants gave a hate speech against the Czechoslovak state, so that the meeting was broken up by the police. In the local elections on May 22, 1938, Tutter was elected to the Prague City Council as an SdP candidate (together with Josef Pfitzner and Fritz Pawellek).

Time of National Socialism and war crimes

After the Munich Agreement, Tutter and his family moved to Reichenberg in November 1938 , where he received a post as a consultant at the Reich Office for Propaganda . In fact, however, he was active there for the defense . In connection with a traffic accident, Tutter had to leave the Sudetenland in 1939 and returned to Prague, where he worked as an interpreter and organizer of conferences.

After the start of the Second World War , Tutter was a reporter for the defense in Italy , Yugoslavia , Bulgaria , Romania and Turkey . After the convocation to the front, he was in the Caucasus injured. From January 1943 Tutter worked in the " Brandenburg Division " belonging to the Second Department of Defense . In the course of the reorganization of the defense by Otto Skorzeny , Tutter became a member of the SS unit Southeast formed from the "Brandenburg Division" in 1944. This included the SS task force "Josef" formed in Baden near Vienna to fight partisans in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and Slovakia under the command of SS-Obersturmführer Walter Pawlofski from German Bohemia , German Slovaks , Hlinka guards and members of the Hlinka youth . After the SS-Einsatzkommandos were transferred to Slovakia and a training center for hand-to-hand combat, self-defense, the destruction of buildings and bridges, and preparation for an assassination attempt, SS-Oberscharführer Tutter was appointed its deputy commander. In the “practical part of the training”, at least 44 murders occurred in Slovakia. The Sekule training center was closed in the spring of 1945 and participants were divided into groups.

Tutter was given command of a group with the operational area in Moravia , which moved via Třešť , Valašské Meziříčí to Vizovice , in Wallachia as part of the operation "Auerhahn" together with the Gestapo and regular SS divisions against the increasing actions of 1. Czechoslovak partisan brigade "Jan Žižka" to proceed. On the evening of April 18, 1945, Tutter read out the order for the next day to capture partisans and their helpers in Ploština . In the afternoon of April 19, 1945, the "Josef" detachment reached Ploština, where they burned eight of the ten houses and murdered 24 people. On April 23, 1945 the "Josef" command was involved in another operation against partisans, in which 21 people were murdered in Prlov .

After completing the “Auerhahn” operation, Tutter went back to his family in Prague. There he was arrested as a German in May 1945 and deported to Bavaria a little later .

Post-war period, sentenced as a collaborator and agent for the State Security Service of the ČSSR

In Bavaria, Tutter and his family settled in Weißenstadt and got a job at the Bavarian Ministry of Agriculture . In September 1946 the US intelligence service arrested Tutter at the request of the Czechoslovak General Ečer and in November 1946 extradited him to Czechoslovakia, where he was tried in Bratislava . The subject of the indictment, however, was not the murders in Ploština and Prlov, but merely his activity as an instructor and head of the Sekule training camp. From April 28, 1948, the Bratislava People's Court sentenced Tutter to six years imprisonment for collaboration , which he served as prisoner no. 6358 in Leopoldov prison.

After his release from prison, Tutter was taken to the Ostrava-Kunčičky assembly camp in 1952. From there he was taken several times to Prague for "interrogations", which was probably recruitment talks by the Czechoslovak State Security Service. Then Tutter returned in 1954 as a late returnee and at the same time as agent "Konrad II" from the Czechoslovak Republic to his family in Weißenstadt. He later moved to Frankfurt am Main and worked as a businessman.

After the establishment of the NATO -Abhöranlage telecommunications sector "F" on the Hohen Bogen Tutter was because of his language skills in 1962 as a civilian employee of the army listening radio operator in the Air Force Signal Regiment 72 of the Federal Armed Forces and moved to Kötzting . Tutter headed the State Security Service a. a. News about front companies of the German intelligence service and in December 1962 handed over the organization plan and a list of the personnel of the Air Force Telecommunication Regiment 72 of the Bundeswehr, which was created to intercept radio contact between the pilots of the ČSSR and GDR . In 1966 the Prague Public Prosecutor brought charges against Tutter for the Ploština massacre. In the course of the investigations, the State Security Service praised the valuable cooperation with Tutter and the Deputy Minister of the Interior Jaroslav Klima caused the Deputy General Procurator of Czechoslovakia Jaroslav David to suspend the Tutter / Pavlovski case because of possible threats to the interests of the Czechoslovakia abroad. In January 1969, Tutter was given the new code name "Dietrich".

When on January 12, 1972 a lost envelope with a sketch of the military installation, shift plans, telephone directory, a description of the equipment of a listening car of the type 5 t MAN and a typewritten letter with obviously suspicious content was found in the security lock in the telecommunications sector "F" Tutter was also targeted by the investigations of the State Office of Criminal Investigation and the Military Counter-Intelligence Service (MAD), as he belonged to the group of people who had previously passed the lock. The interrogation protocol shows that Tutter had already served as a source for MADGrp VI in other cases and probably also served as an agent for the MAD. Tutter was able to pass the suspicion on to a civil servant worker on whose typewriter the letter had been written. In 1974 Tutter retired.

In his hometown of Kötzting, Tutter was a member of the city council for the CSU for five years, was a member of the Protestant church council, chairman of the local branch of the Sudeten German Landsmannschaft and head of the local adult education center . Because of his diverse social commitment, Tutter was a respected citizen of Kötzting and was buried in 1983 with great public sympathy.

Covered by the ČSSR authorities and late exposure as a war criminal and agent

The identity of the commander of the SS Einsatzkommando "Josef" was apparently known to the ČSSR authorities for a long time. This knowledge probably formed the basis for Tutter's recruitment as an agent for the State Security Service of the ČSSR. The survivors from the burned down villages were denied the names of those who were responsible for the pillage of their homes and for the death of their friends and relatives.

The novel Smrt 'sa volá Engelchen by Ladislav Mňačko , which was published in 1959 and was influenced by communist ideology , gives the person responsible for the massacre the name “Engelchen” and the SS officer becomes a violin maker from Klingenthal in the novel specified. It remains to be seen whether the completely different origin attributed to the war criminal in literary fiction was intentional.

Following the intervention of the State Security Service, a case against Tutter opened in 1966 by the Prague Public Prosecutor's Office was discontinued. In the newspaper Hlas revoluce Roman Cilek reported on February 28, 1969 about the war crimes of the SS unit "Josef" in Ploština and Prlov, the names Walter Pawlofski and Werner Tutter were also mentioned. In 1985 Roman Cílek mentioned the name Tutter in the book Smrt na prahu života in connection with the pillage of Prlov. Likewise, in 1990 Cílek cited SS-Oberscharführer Tutter as the instructor of the massacre in the book Ploština . There was no public awareness and persecution by the communist organs was also not wanted.

The Czech newspaper Mlada fronta Dnes published the news in November 2000 that the war criminal Kurt Werner Tutter had been covered for years by the members of the State Commission for the Prosecution of War Criminals Jaroslav David and Jaroslav Klíma. The Office for Documentation and Investigation of the Crimes of Communism thereupon brought charges against David and Klima for exceeding their competencies as public officials and for thwarting punishment in office. The editor of Mladá fronta Dnes , Luděk Navara, continued researching the Tutter case and published his findings in 2002 in the book Smrt si říká Tutter .

The reports in the Czech media prompted the Germanist and Slavicist Winfried Baumann, who came from Kötzting, to research the deceased Kötzting citizen Kurt Werner Tutter, which revealed his identity with the war criminal. The Straubinger Tagblatt published on March 9, 2001 under the title "Nazi criminals and top agent Czechoslovakia lived for 20 years unchallenged in Kötzting" a full-page article Baumann, who saw in Kötzting stir.

References

  • Luděk Navara: Death is called Tutter . A Nazi murderer in the service of the State Security of the ČSSR. Attenkofer, Straubing 2005, ISBN 3-936511-09-8 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Tutter, Werner
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Tutter, Kurt Werner (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Nazi war criminal and agent of the CSSR State Security
DATE OF BIRTH December 12, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Prague - Smíchov
DATE OF DEATH March 9, 1983
Place of death Kötzting