Wilhelm Keppler

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Wilhelm Keppler in the dock in the Nuremberg trial

Wilhelm Karl Keppler (born December 14, 1882 in Heidelberg , † June 13, 1960 in Friedrichshafen ) was a German medium-sized entrepreneur, National Socialist politician and SS-Obergruppenführer . He founded the Keppler circle named after him , which established contacts between Adolf Hitler and industrialists.

Life

Keppler studied mechanical engineering at the TH Karlsruhe and at the Polytechnic in Danzig . During this time he joined the Corps Frisia Karlsruhe and Baltica Danzig . From 1921 he was one of two directors under a general director and co-owner of the Odin works in Eberbach , northern Baden , a plant for the production of photo gelatine , in which the British subsidiary of the US company Eastman Kodak also held a 50 percent stake, but resigned returned to this post on April 1, 1932, at the suggestion of Adolf Hitler, to set up a support group for the NSDAPto form business men, the so-called “study group for economic issues” or Keppler group. He joined the NSDAP in 1927 ( membership number 62,424). In March 1928 he organized a speech by Hitler to 650 industrialists in Heidelberg , to which he sent out 800 invitations. In his circle he mostly gathered smaller entrepreneurs and bankers around himself, but he was unable to win over representatives of big industry . The aim of the circle was to advise the economically inexperienced Hitler on economic issues and to promote the rise of the NSDAP. In the process, Keppler initially got into rivalry with Hjalmar Schacht , who tried to set up a similar body, but eventually worked in the Keppler circle at Hitler's request. The influence of the circle on Hitler remained marginal. The union only became historically significant once, when Keppler and the banker Kurt Freiherr von Schröder established contact between Hitler and Franz von Papen , which would ultimately lead to the transfer of power to the National Socialists.

In the March elections in 1933, Keppler became a member of the Reichstag for the Baden constituency and was also given an, albeit influential, post as "Commissioner for Economic Affairs" in the Reich Chancellery . In the same year he was a member of the German delegation to the World Economic Conference in London. In 1933, Keppler was one of the founding members of the National Socialist Academy for German Law by Hans Frank . He joined the SS (SS No. 50.816), in which he was promoted to Standartenführer on March 21, 1933, to Oberführer on August 23, 1933, to Brigade Leader on January 30, 1935 and to Group Leader on September 13, 1936 . After Ribbentrop's appointment as Foreign Minister, he became "State Secretary for Special Tasks" in the Foreign Office on March 19, 1938 . As such, he was instrumental in the break-up of Czechoslovakia . Keppler was involved in the so-called Anschluss of Austria by carrying out Göring's instructions on site in Vienna . After the Anschluss he officiated from March to June 1938 as " Reich Commissioner in Austria". He was also present when Danzig was incorporated in 1939 .

Keppler speaks at the national ceremony of the “Central Free India” in Berlin on the occasion of the establishment of the Provisional Indian National Government by Subhas Chandra Bose (1943), recording from the Federal Archives

After the "seizure of power", Keppler tried hard, but largely unsuccessfully, to implement the party's plans for autarky in German industry. In view of the massive German balance of payments problems, but above all because of the armament that had been accelerated since 1934, he urged the private sector to replace foreign imports with domestic raw materials: In November 1934 he received the "German Raw Materials Commission" from Adolf Hitler, in the context of which he and his Employees Paul Pleiger , Oskar Gabel and Wilhelm Peter Lillig put the German coal and steel industry under pressure to greatly increase the extremely expensive extraction of domestic iron ores. However, Keppler's office failed with his plan because of the Reich Minister of Economics Hjalmar Schacht and his colleague, Chief Mining Officer Heinrich Schlattmann , who were concerned about the international competitiveness of German industry. After the four-year plan was announced in autumn 1936, Keppler was given no central responsibility in the four-year plan organization installed by Hermann Göring , but was given a less important position in the office for German raw materials headed by Fritz Löb . It included the responsibility for the work areas “Research into German soil” and “Industrial fats and oils” (including the production of synthetic fats from coal by means of paraffin oxidation ). "In addition, it was given a new title as a consolation: he became a general expert for German raw materials. 'That was', as Keppler found retrospectively, 'a beautiful name without any decisive functions'".

Keppler was chairman of the board of directors of lignite petrol AG , later a member of the board of directors of Continentale Öl AG (Conti-Öl). At the beginning of 1937 he became head of the central office for the economic-political organizations of the NSDAP and in 1939 president of the Reichsstelle and later Reichsamt für Bodenforschung . His group was renamed " Freundeskreis Reichsführer SS " and raised funds for the SS, especially during the war. On January 30, 1942, Keppler was appointed SS-Obergruppenführer. During the Second World War , Himmler put him in charge of numerous companies confiscated by the SS in occupied Poland and the USSR, whose workers, often forced laborers , were treated with great brutality. As chairman of the supervisory board of Deutsche Umsiedlungs-Treuhand-Gesellschaft mbH , he was jointly responsible for mass deportations .

In the Wilhelmstrasse Trial in Nuremberg he was sentenced to 10 years in prison on April 14, 1949, but was pardoned early on February 1, 1951 by the US High Commissioner and released from the Landsberg War Crimes Prison . Later, he was at the engine plant of Felix Wankel in Lindau busy.

literature
  • Wolf-Ingo Seidelmann: "Making iron for the fighting army!" Doggererz AG - a contribution by the Otto Wolff Group and the Saarland steel industry to the National Socialist autarky and armaments policy on the Baar in Baden. UVK Verlag Konstanz and Munich, 2016, ISBN 978-3-86764-653-6 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Henry Ashby Turner : The big entrepreneurs and the rise of Hitler , Berlin 1985, p. 244.
  2. ^ Yearbook of the Academy for German Law, 1st year 1933/34. Edited by Hans Frank. (Munich, Berlin, Leipzig: Schweitzer Verlag), p. 254.
  3. ↑ http://www.dws-xip.pl/reich/biografie/1935/1935.html
  4. ↑ Wolf-Ingo Seidelmann: "Making iron for the fighting army!" Doggererz AG - a contribution by the Otto Wolff Group and the Saarland steel industry to the National Socialist autarky and armaments policy on the Baar in Baden. UVK Verlag Konstanz and Munich, 2016, ISBN 978-3-86764-653-6 , p. 27, 29-32 u. 37 .
  5. ^ Matthias Riedel: Iron and Coal for the Third Reich. Paul Pleiger's position in the Nazi economy . Musterschmidt Göttingen, 1973, ISBN 978-3-7881-1672-9 , pp. 25-76 . u. Wolf-Ingo Seidelmann: "Making iron for the fighting army!" P. 57-62 .
  6. ^ Matthias Riedel: Iron and Coal for the Third Reich. Paul Pleiger's position in the Nazi economy . S. 96-100 .
  7. ↑ Quoted from: Matthias Riedel: Iron and coal for the Third Reich. Paul Pleiger's position in the Nazi economy . S. 96-100 .
  8. ^ Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Second updated edition, Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 304.
personal data
SURNAME Keppler, Wilhelm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Keppler, Wilhelm Karl (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German entrepreneur and politician (NSDAP), MdR, SS-Obergruppenführer
DATE OF BIRTH December 14, 1882
PLACE OF BIRTH Heidelberg
DATE OF DEATH June 13, 1960
Place of death Friedrichshafen