Wilhelm Rediess
Friedrich Wilhelm Otto Rediess (also Rediess , born October 10, 1900 in Heinsberg ; † May 8, 1945 in Skaugum near Oslo ) was a German SS-Obergruppenführer , General of the Police (1941) and Higher SS and Police Leader (HSSPF) in East Prussia . During the German occupation in Norway , he was also HSSPF Nord from 1940 to 1945, based in Oslo, and from 1944 also General of the Waffen SS .
Life
The son of a judicial clerk, he attended elementary school and was drafted into the 3rd Lorraine Infantry Regiment 135 in June 1918 . After the war he began an apprenticeship as an electrical engineer and worked in this profession until 1932, although he was temporarily unemployed during the economic crisis in 1929 .
In 1924 Redieß joined the Völkisch Social Block , a replacement organization of the NSDAP , which was banned at the time. After the re-admission of the NSDAP, he became a party member on July 15, 1925 ( membership number 25,574). From December 1926 to February 1932 Redieß was NSDAP local group leader for Düsseldorf . On January 1, 1927, he joined the SA ; until April 1929 he was storm leader of SA Storm 88 in Düsseldorf. On July 22, 1929, Redieß transferred from the SA to the SS (SS no. 2839). After several promotions he reached the rank of SS-Standartenführer in March 1931 ; During this time he led various SS units in Düsseldorf and Essen . From 1932 Redieß worked full-time for the NSDAP. In July 1932 he took over the leadership of SS Section XI, whose seat was initially Frankfurt am Main , from October 1933 Wiesbaden .
Redieß, who had run unsuccessfully in the election to the Prussian state parliament in 1928 , received a state parliament mandate in the 1932 election, which he held until 1933. After the NSDAP won the Reichstag elections in March 1933 and November 1933 , he sat in the National Socialist Reichstag until 1945 . In the SS, Redieß led Section XVI in Magdeburg from March 1934 to January 1935 and the Upper Section Southeast based in Brieg , later in Breslau from January 1935 to February 1936, where he was promoted to SS-Gruppenführer on April 20, 1935 . From February 1936 he was the leader of the SS upper section northeast in Königsberg . From June 28, 1938 to June 19, 1940 Redieß was Higher SS and Police Leader "Northeast". In this capacity, he commanded two regiments of the SS-Totenkopfverband in October 1939 and organized the deportation of East Prussian Jews in October and November 1940.
After a meeting with the HSSPF “Warthe”, SS-Gruppenführer Wilhelm Koppe , in Posen , Rediess was transferred to the “Sonderkommando Lange”, which was led by SS-Hauptsturmführer Herbert Lange . This command was in possession of a " gas truck " as a mobile gas chamber , in which carbon monoxide could be led into the rear closed loading area of the body. In coordination with the Gauleiter of Königsberg, Erich Koch , between May 21 and June 8, 1940, 1558 mentally handicapped people were murdered in the Soldau transit camp as part of a "euthanasia" campaign T4 . Koppe then demanded from Redieß 10 Reichsmarks for each person killed as compensation for the provision of the "Lange Command". Redieß, who was already in Norway, was not prepared to pay the expenses, although he himself had agreed the premium for each person killed.
After the German invasion of Norway , Redieß was transferred there in June 1940 and worked with the German Reich Commissioner Josef Terboven and the Norwegian police chief Jonas Lie . When, from March 1941, Norwegian women became pregnant by German occupation soldiers, he transferred the German “ Lebensborn ” program to Norwegian conditions. Over 8,000 children vilified as Tyskerbarna after the war were born under this program. In November 1941 Redieß was appointed SS-Obergruppenführer .
After the unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht , Rediess shot himself with his pistol after a drinking party with Reichskommissar Terboven in a bunker near his headquarters in Skaugum , the seat of the Norwegian royal family. His body was destroyed when Terboven blew himself up in that very bunker with 50 kilograms of dynamite that same day.
literature
- Ruth Bettina Birn : The Higher SS and Police Leaders. Himmler's representative in the Reich and in the occupied territories. Droste, Düsseldorf 1986, ISBN 3-7700-0710-7 .
- Joachim Lilla , Martin Döring, Andreas Schulz: extras in uniform: the members of the Reichstag 1933–1945. A biographical manual. Including the Volkish and National Socialist members of the Reichstag from May 1924 . Droste, Düsseldorf 2004, ISBN 3-7700-5254-4 , p. 494 f .
Web links
- Entry on Wilhelm Redieß in the Rhineland-Palatinate personal database
- Document from the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial on W. Rediess
- Discussion with Heinrich Himmler about the establishment of Norwegian Lebensborn homes ( memento from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
Individual evidence
- ↑ Ruth Bettina Birn: The higher SS and police leaders. Himmler's representative in the Reich and in the occupied territories. Düsseldorf 1986, p. 343.
- ^ Wilhelm Redieß in the database of the Reichstag members
- ^ Ernst Klee : "Euthanasia" in the Third Reich. The "destruction of life unworthy of life". Fischer, Frankfurt / Main 2010, ISBN 978-3-596-18674-7 , pp. 171ff.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Rediess, Wilhelm |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Rediess, Wilhelm; Rediess, Friedrich Wilhelm Otto |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German politician (NSDAP), MdR, MdL, SS-Obergruppenführer and general of the police and Waffen-SS |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 10, 1900 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Heinsberg |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 8, 1945 |
| Place of death | Skaugum , Oslo , Norway |