Wilhelm Sagemüller

Plate for Wilhelm Sagemüller

Wilhelm Sagemüller (* 1880 in Kranenkamp (East Friesland); † July 6, 1962 in Meppen ) was from 1933 to 1945, as head of the water management office responsible for peatland cultivation, jointly responsible for the Emsland camp system , in which between 20,000 and 30,000 people died. After the Nazi era , he was honorary mayor of the city of Meppen ( CDU ) from 1948 to 1956 .

Life

Sagemüller studied engineering in Braunschweig and served in various building administrations in Kohlberg, Greifenhagen, Aurich and Norden. He was a soldier in the First World War . From 1925 to 1947 he was head of the water management office in Meppen; since 1941 also senior government and building councilor .

Entanglement in the NS rule of injustice and the system of the Emsland camps

Sagemüller used the end of the admission freeze in 1937 to join the NSDAP . Before that he had already become a member of other Nazi organizations. As head of the water management office, he was in charge of the highest technical supervision of forced labor in the context of peatland cultivation in the concentration , prisoner and prisoner of war camps in the Emsland. According to a historical study by the University of Osnabrück , Sagemüller was "a key figure in the Emsland camp [...] and had no concerns about his participation in the terror and injustice system."

During the work in the moor, the instructors hit the prisoners with clubs on behalf of Sagemüller. At his instruction, the food portions were reduced if the camp inmates failed to complete the eleven-hour workload. Between 20,000 and 30,000 of the 180,000 inmates died in the 15 Emsland camps.

After 1945

From 1948 to 1956 Sagemüller was honorary mayor of the city of Meppen for the CDU, and in 1955 Sagemüller became an honorary citizen . In 1952 he was awarded the Cross of Merit with Ribbon of the Federal Republic of Germany.

In 2014 the city of Meppen had the involvement of Sagemüller in the Nazi injustice rule and the system of the Emsland camps through the University of Osnabrück. As a result, he was stripped of his honorary citizenship in September 2014 by a unanimous decision of the city council. At the end of March 2015, the street in Meppen, named after Sagemüller in 1991, was rededicated to the SPD politician Hermann Proske ; the previous decision of the city council was unanimous.

swell

• Esterwegen memorial
• Dr. Christoph A. Rass: Expert opinion on Wilhelm Sagemüller's involvement in the Emsland camp system in the "Third Reich", University of Osnabrück, 2014.
• Christoph A. Rass / Kathrin Hilgediek: The man in the background: Wilhelm Sagemüller - a forgotten perpetrator ?, in: Study Society for Emsländische Regionalgeschichte (ed.): Emsländische Geschichte 22, Haselünne 2015, pp. 278–316.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ http://www.noz.de/lokales/meppen/artikel/507787/meppener-wird-ehrenburgerschaft-abgesetzt
2. ↑ Honorary citizenship of the city of Meppen ( Memento of the original from October 23, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from October 23, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
4. ^ Hermann Gerdes: Sign exchange in Meppen: City honors SPD man , In: Grafschafter Nachrichten of March 31, 2015, accessed on April 1, 2015.
5. ↑ City Council Meppen posthumously honors Hermann Proske , SPD Meppen news report from February 25, 2015, accessed on April 1, 2015.