Wilhelm Schmidhuber

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Wilhelm Schmidhuber (born November 23, 1898 in Munich ; † 1965 ) was a businessman, German officer in the military defense and politician of the Bavarian Party (BP).

Life

From 1924 to 1932 Schmidhuber was honorary consul of Portugal as well as Mexico and Nicaragua in Munich. He had a doctorate in foreign trade, a delegate to the Munich Chamber of Commerce and a consultant at the Reich Association of German Industry and a member of the board of directors at Hofbräu AG in Bamberg . He owned several breweries and was involved in all kinds of business.

During the Second World War he belonged to the rank of major in the "Air" group of Abwehr -teilung 1, the defense office (AST) of Military District VII in Munich, which was headed by Josef Müller . According to Schmidhuber's own statements, he came to the service of the Munich Abwehrstelle through a reserve exercise with the rank of captain. There he was a dazzling figure who attracted attention above all with generous gifts and who, by the way, could switch quite freely, giving the impression that he received his orders directly from Berlin. He had said goodbye in 1941 and accepted an indispensable position, but was there again from the beginning of 1942 and occasionally showed up at the office when he saw the opportunity to be promoted to major.

Schmidhuber brought his friend Josef Müller into contact with the military resistance against Hitler. The heads of the Easter group, Hans Oster , Hans von Dohnanyi and Erwin von Lahousen, were able to correspond with other countries through Rome through Müller, who had good contacts with the Vatican, and through Schmidhuber, who was relatively free to move around. In 1942 Schmidhuber even accompanied Dohnanyi and Dietrich Bonhoeffer to Rome, who met there directly with Müller's confidants. Through this channel they had the opportunity to make uncensored contact with friends and like-minded people in Switzerland and England. In addition, Dohnanyi had the opportunity to initiate relief operations through Schmidhuber. One of these actions was, for example, money transfers to Jews in camps in the south of France. Some were disguised as agents and brought to Switzerland with foreign currency. Schmidhuber had also taken over Bonhoeffer as an undercover agent in Munich, thus giving him a certain amount of travel freedom.

Schmidhuber was arrested in 1942. A black marketeer named David who wanted to sell dollars and jewels had been arrested in Prague. The names of Schmidhuber and his colleague Ickrath were on the letters with the jewels. Schmidhuber ordered the customs investigation to Prague, where he initially wanted to present the whole thing as an important defensive action, but he did not achieve the release of David or the release of the money from the customs officer Wapenhensch. He therefore changed his story and tried to incriminate David as an English agent, who in turn accused Schmidhuber of large-scale smuggling of paintings, jewels and foreign currency. Further investigations confirmed Wapenhensch's suspicions and he decided to obtain an arrest warrant for Schmidhuber and Ickrath, which was delayed a little because he was not familiar with the responsibilities. Müller, Oster and Dohnanyi, who were in dire straits because of the imminent arrest of Schmidhuber (Schmidhuber was also considered weak and talkative), spoke out in favor of Schmidhuber leaving for Italy first. Canaris flatly refused any backing he suggested for Schmidhuber.

Schmidhuber was arrested on October 31 by the Italian police in Bolzano and extradited to Germany. Schmidhuber was arrested and interrogated in the Wehrmacht Investigation Prison (WUG) in Munich. In November 1942, he and Ickrath, who had meanwhile also been imprisoned, were handed over to the Gestapo and the Reich Security Main Office and not until February 1943 again transferred to the Wehrmacht justice system. Why this rather unusual sequence of responsibilities took place has not been clarified and is controversial. After the interrogations at the RSHA and searches of Schmidhuber's house, the Gestapo's investigations with the aim of investigating the defense were tightened, especially since Schmidhuber had made hints about secret peace talks by Josef Müller in the interrogations. Schmidhuber was sentenced to four years in prison in February 1944 for the foreign exchange offense and survived the war. In the immediate aftermath of the affair, Dohnanyi, Müller and Bonhoeffer were arrested and Oster was given leave of absence from the Abwehr.

After the end of the Nazi regime, he had been one of BP's main donors since 1948 and became the party's treasurer in 1949. As treasurer, he advocated state party funding of 50 pfennigs per year and voter for all parties represented in the Bundestag. Within the Bavarian Party, Schmidhuber belonged to the group around Anton Besold , Anton Donhauser and Anton Freiherr von Aretin , who were ready for a reconciliation and a joint state election list with the CSU .

literature

  • Elisabeth Chowaniec: The "Dohnanyi Case" 1943–1945: Resistance, military justice, SS arbitrariness. Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, Munich 1991, ISBN 3-486-64562-5 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  • Karl Glaubauf , Stefanie Lahousen: Major General Erwin Lahousen, Edler von Vivremont. A Linz defense officer in the military resistance , LIT-Verlag, Münster 2005, ISBN 3-8258-7259-9 .
  • Manfred Keller, Günter Brakelmann, Traugott Jähnichen : Dietrich Bonhoeffer - Stations and motives on the way to political resistance. Festschrift for Manfred Keller on his 65th birthday on September 19, 2005, LIT Verlag Berlin-Hamburg-Münster 2005, ISBN 978-3-8258-8945-6 .
  • We'll end up on the gallows! In: Der Spiegel . No. 24 , 1969 ( online - June 9, 1969 ).
  • Ludwig Walter Regele: The case of the Portuguese consul Schmidhuber. In: Meran and the Third Reich. Studienverlag, Innsbruck, 2007, ISBN 978-3-7065-4425-2 , pp. 110-113
  • Heinz Höhne Canaris - Patriot in Twilight , Bertelsmann 1976, Gondrom, Bindlach 1993, ISBN 3-8112-1010-6 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Regele, p. 110
  2. ^ Book of the German Secret Service , List, p.418 also describes him as the Portuguese honorary consul
  3. ^ Heinz Höhne, Spiegel June 9, 1969, Höhne Canaris , p. 366.
  4. ^ Höhne Canaris , Bertelsmann, p.366, refers to statements by Schmidthuber from 1950
  5. ↑ Höhne, Canaris, loc. Cit. P. 476.
  6. ↑ Chowaniec, pp. 31/32.
  7. ↑ Höhne, loc. Cit. P. 477.
  8. ↑ Höhne, loc. Cit. P.479. Dohnanyi: A good-natured and amusing, but weak man
  9. ↑ Chowaniec, pp. 32-34.
  10. ↑ Keller among others, p. 145.
  11. ↑ Buchheit, loc.cit, p. 419
  12. ↑ Regele, p. 113
  13. ↑ Süddeutsche Zeitung of March 30, 1950: "State subsidies for parties"
  14. ↑ And have nothing . In: Der Spiegel . No. 18 , 1950 ( online - 4 May 1950 ).
personal data
SURNAME Schmidhuber, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German diplomat and politician (BP)
DATE OF BIRTH November 23, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich
DATE OF DEATH 1965