Wilhelm Kleinmann

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Wilhelm Otto Max Kleinmann (born May 29, 1876 in Barmen (today a part of Wuppertal ), † August 16, 1945 ) was State Secretary in the Reich Ministry of Transport and SA group leader .

Start of professional career

After studying engineering at the Technical Universities of Berlin and Hanover , he worked from 1904 in the Elberfeld , Strasbourg and Saarbrücken railway departments. During the First World War , Kleinmann was deployed on the German Eastern Front; from 1916 he was operations manager of the Bucharest Military Railway Directorate .

After the war he first worked at the Katowice Railway Directorate and, after its dissolution, from 1922 in the Opole Railway Directorate under Julius Dorpmüller, President of the Reichsbahn and later Director General and Minister of Transport . Here he took part in the disputes over the status of Upper Silesia . In January 1923, Kleinmann became operational manager in the senior management for the west of the Reichsbahn in Essen , and in 1924 he was appointed director of the Reichsbahn.

Advancement in the Reichsbahn and party

Kleinmann had contacts with the National Socialists in Essen; he became their representative for transport issues. He became a member of the NSDAP ( membership number 663.996) on October 1, 1931. On June 1, 1933, Kleinmann was appointed President of the Reich Railway Directorate in Cologne . He only took on this task for a few weeks; it was only necessary for reasons of career law. On July 25, 1933, Kleinmann replaced Wilhelm Weirauch as Deputy Director General of the Reichsbahn. Rudolf Hess had meanwhile built up the Reichsbahn management staff as a section in the staff of the Fuehrer's deputy and selected Kleinmann as the NSDAP's liaison to the Reichsbahn. The management staff was supposed to implement the wishes of Adolf Hitler and the NSDAP within the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft without changing the legal form of the company or dismissing the general director. The primary concern was the dismissal of Jews and Social Democrats and the filling of important positions with reliable National Socialists.

Kleinmann developed a busy activity to "clean" the top of the Reichsbahn of employees who were considered unreliable by the National Socialists, although he did pay attention to the necessary professional qualifications for new appointments. On February 12, 1937, he was appointed State Secretary and Supreme Railway Protection Officer in the Reich Ministry of Transport.

Since 1933 Kleinmann was a member of the National Socialist Academy for German Law Hans Frank .

In the SA , Kleinmann was promoted to Standartenführer in September 1933 and to Oberführer on June 5, 1934 . As of April 20, 1936, he held the rank of SA Brigade Leader as a member of the Supreme SA Leadership, and one year later he became SA Group Leader. In 1938 he received the NSDAP's golden party badge . Kleinmann also headed the Transport Business Group for the four-year plan and was a member of the Friends of the Reichsführer SS . In 1942 the Technical University of Darmstadt awarded him the title of Dr.-Ing. honorary.

Discharge

On December 18, 1941, Joseph Goebbels personally attacked Kleinmann, who was present at the Fuehrer's headquarters , and accused him of neglecting the transport space to supply the front and the local population in favor of "maintaining an artificial state of peace at home". On February 20, 1942, Adolf Hitler threatened Kleinmann with the Gestapo because of the inadequate rail services in Russia . A few days earlier, Reichsbahn councilors Eugen Hahn and Erwin Landenberger had been arrested in Minsk and Kiev and detained in Sachsenhausen concentration camp as a deterrent . Even Albert Speer operational detachment Kleinmanns. Although Dorpmüller wanted to keep him, Kleinmann was honorably discharged on May 26, 1942 "at his own request" and because he had "exceeded the age limit", replaced by Albert Ganzenmüller and appointed General Director of MITROPA that same month .

death

Kleinmann was presumably seized by members of the Red Army in Berlin in 1945 and taken to an internment camp near Posen . His wife initially reported him missing and later declared him dead. August 16, 1945 is the assumed date of his death.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ assumed day of death = Alfred Gottwaldt, Diana Schulle: “Jews are prohibited from using dining cars” ..., Teetz 2007, ISBN 978-3-938485-64-4 , p. 105.
  2. ↑ Mierzejewski 2000
  3. ^ Alfred Gottwaldt, Diana Schulle: "Jews are prohibited from using dining cars" ..., Teetz 2007, ISBN 978-3-938485-64-4 , p. 100.
  4. ^ Yearbook of the Academy for German Law, 1st year 1933/34. Edited by Hans Frank. (Munich, Berlin, Leipzig: Schweitzer Verlag), p. 254
  5. ^ The diaries of Joseph Goebbels, Part II, Diktate 1941–1945, Vol. 2 (December 18, 1941), pp. 527/528.
  6. ^ Alfred Gottwaldt, Diana Schulle: "Jews are prohibited from using dining cars" ..., Teetz 2007, ISBN 978-3-938485-64-4 , p. 103.
  7. ↑ More details from Albert Speer: Memories. Ullstein TBuch 33003, Frankfurt am Main 1985, ISBN 3-548-33003-7 , pp. 236-239.
  8. ^ Alfred Gottwaldt, Diana Schulle: "Jews are prohibited from using dining cars" ..., Teetz 2007, ISBN 978-3-938485-64-4 , p. 105.
personal data
SURNAME Kleinmann, Wilhelm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kleinmann, Wilhelm Otto Max
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician, State Secretary in the Reich Ministry of Transport and SA group leader
DATE OF BIRTH May 29, 1876
PLACE OF BIRTH Barmen
DATE OF DEATH August 16, 1945