Wilhelm Friedrich Loeper

Wilhelm Friedrich Loeper

Wilhelm Friedrich Loeper (born October 13, 1883 in Schwerin , † October 23, 1935 in Dessau ) was a politician of the NSDAP and Gauleiter of the Magdeburg-Anhalt Gau .

Life

Loeper was born the son of a pharmacist. In 1884 his family moved to Friesack (Mark Brandenburg). A short time later the company moved to Roßlau / Elbe , where the father took over a pharmacy. He first attended school in Roßlau, later the Friedrichs-Gymnasium in Dessau, where he graduated from high school in 1903 . Loeper then embarked on a military career.

On March 16, 1903, he joined the pioneer battalion of Rauch (1st Brandenburgisches) No. 3 in Spandau as a flag junior and then graduated from the Neisse War School . On August 19, 1904, he became a lieutenant and, after various other commands (Stettin, Berlin, Graudenz and Allenstein), on August 18, 1912, he became first lieutenant . He was then transferred to the Magdeburg Pioneer Battalion 4 . Here he took over command of a floodlight train in 1913 .

In the first World War

After the beginning of World War I , he was deployed on the Western Front as a captain and company commander in the 19 Pioneer Battalion between 1914 and 1918 . He was wounded several times, the first wound on September 15, 1914 (shrapnel) near Bieuxy.

Awards in the First World War:

• 22nd September 1914 Iron Cross 2nd class ,
• April 4, 1915 Mecklenburg-Schwerin Military Merit Cross, 2nd class,
• May 27, 1915 Iron Cross 1st Class,
• October 25, 1915 Mecklenburg-Schwerin Military Merit Cross 1st Class,
• February 3, 1916 Anhaltisches Friedrichskreuz on ribbon for fighters,

Loeper married his wife Elisabeth on July 12, 1915.

Weimar Republic

After the end of the war, Loeper became the leader of a volunteer corps that was deployed in the Baltic and Ruhr regions. In this role he was also involved in the suppression of the Spartacus uprising .

With the establishment of the Reichswehr Loeper became company commander in Pioneer Battalion 2. In 1923 he worked as a teacher at the Pioneer School in Munich , where he met Adolf Hitler . Loeper took part in the Hitler-Ludendorff putsch of November 9, 1923 and intended to place the pioneer school under Hitler's orders. After the attempted putsch was put down, Loeper was released from the Reichswehr in 1924.

Loeper began to get involved in the NSDAP. In 1925 he joined the party with membership number 6,980. He moved to Dessau and initially headed the local NSDAP group there . In the same year he became managing director of the Gau and finally in 1927 as the successor to Gustav Hermann Schmischke Gauleiter in the Gau Magdeburg-Anhalt . Loeper dedicated himself to building up the party in his Gau and fought the Dessau-based Bauhaus . In a letter from 1930 he wrote: "How the Bauhaus belongs to Jerusalem and not to Dessau". Loeper later played a decisive role in the destruction of this institution.

In 1928 he became a member of the Anhalt State Parliament . Anhalt had a National Socialist state government since 1932. From 1930 he was also a member of the Reichstag for constituency 10 ( Magdeburg ) .

Loeper became head of the personnel office of the NSDAP and editor of the Trommler-Verlag. In 1932 he set up the first main department and the leadership school of the Reich Labor Service in Großkühnau Castle . In the same year Loeper was appointed state inspector of the NSDAP for Central Germany-Brandenburg.

From 1933

After the nationwide " seizure of power " by the National Socialists , Loeper became the joint Reich governor in Braunschweig and Anhalt . Dessau was designated as his official residence. In 1933 the city gave him Magdeburg , the honorary citizenship to him in 1946 but posthumously was revoked. In January 1934 he was appointed SS - Ehrengruppenführer (SS No. 142.592) and Gauehrenführer of the Reich Labor Service. In 1935 he became a member of the Academy for German Law . He was also an honorary citizen of Dessau (May 30, 1933), an honorary citizen of the community of Mildensee (Dessau) and the city of Gernrode . On June 4, 2008, the city council of Dessau-Roßlau decided to officially delete Wilhelm Friedrich Loeper (as well as Adolf Hitler and Joachim Albrecht Eggeling , Loeper's successors as Gauleiter) from the city's list of honorary citizens.

Gauleiter Loeper died of throat cancer on October 23, 1935 . He was buried in the Napoleon Tower in Mildensee near Dessau; later he was buried in the Mildensee cemetery.

Honors

Various honors were given in the region. So the community named Otter life , the Captain-Loeper Street , the city Braunschweig Wilhelm Friedrich Loeper Street (now Adolfstraße), the city Leopoldshall the captain-Loeper Street (from 1946 Hohenerxlebener street), the city of Wernigerode a bridge , the city of Zerbst the swimming pool, the Hanseatic city of Osterburg (Altmark) the Hauptmann-Loeper-Berg (today Weinberg) and the Hanseatic city of Rostock the Hauptmann-Loeper-Straße (today Kuphalstraße ) after him. However, all names disappeared after the end of the war. The honorary citizenship of the city of Zerbst expired, according to the city statutes, with his death in 1935.

literature

• Gerald Christopeit: Loeper, Wilhelm Friedrich. In: Guido Heinrich, Gunter Schandera (ed.): Magdeburg Biographical Lexicon 19th and 20th centuries. Biographical lexicon for the state capital Magdeburg and the districts of Bördekreis, Jerichower Land, Ohrekreis and Schönebeck. Scriptum, Magdeburg 2002, ISBN 3-933046-49-1 .
• Torsten Kupfer: Wilhelm Friedrich Loeper (1883–1935): NSDAP Gauleiter and Reich Governor. In: Mitteilungen des Verein für Anhaltische Landeskunde , 11 (2002), pp. 155–165.
• Dr. Hans Henningsen: Our captain Loeper - life and death of a fighter. 1936, Trommler-Verlag GmbH Magdeburg (D. Heim).
• Advertisements in the official gazette for Anhalt (Anhaltischer Staats-Anzeiger), 172nd year number 80 and 81 from October 23, 1935 (D. Heim).
• City council Dessau-Roßlau: Template: DR / BV / 137/2008 / V. 2008.
• Erich Stockhorst: 5000 people. Who was what in the 3rd Reich . Arndt, Kiel 2000, ISBN 3-88741-116-1 (unchanged reprint of the first edition from 1967).
• Reinhard Bein (ed.): Hitler's Brunswick staff. Döring Druck, Braunschweig 2017, ISBN 978-3-925268-56-4 , pp. 158-165.

Web links

• Wilhelm Friedrich Loeper in the database of members of the Reichstag
• Lower Saxon people
• Newspaper article about Wilhelm Friedrich Loeper in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .