Wilhelm Werner (SS member)

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Wilhelm Werner (born June 6, 1888 in Apolda , † May 14, 1945 in Falkenau (Upper Silesia) ) was a German naval and air force officer , politician ( NSDAP ) and SS leader . He was also charged with war crimes in the First World War . At the end of March 1926, however, the Imperial Court in Leipzig ordered the murder of the Torrington to be sunk out of prosecution and the remaining proceedings to be discontinued.

Wilhelm Werner in the uniform of an SS Standartenführer, around 1933

Life

Werner was the son of the future attorney general Max Werner and his wife Eugenie, née Schacke. He was baptized Protestant and was married to Henriette-Luise Moewes (born June 30, 1899 in Königshain ) on October 15, 1925 . His widow settled in Dossenheim after the war .

Imperial Navy

Promotions in the Imperial Navy :

After attending a humanistic grammar school in Weimar, Werner joined the Imperial Navy in 1905 as a midshipman (sailing training ship Charlotte and Marineschule Mürwik ) and began his practical training on a torpedo boat of the II. Minesweeping Division. In 1906 he was promoted to ensign in the sea and in 1908 to lieutenant in the sea . He then received special training in submarine weapons. Between 1907 and 1914 he served on the following ships, among others: Karl der Große , Hansa , König Wilhelm , T 54 . From 1910 he served as a first lieutenant at sea as an officer on watch on boats U 1 and U 13 . When the First World War broke out , Werner was in command of the T 55 torpedo boat of the 2nd minesweeping division. During the war, he was employed as a half-flotilla chief (August to September 1914), as an officer on watch of the U-boat acceptance commission (UAK) and officer on watch on U 38 and as commander of UB 9 (February 18 to March 1915). In the winter of 1914/15 he became commandant of UB 7 , which operated in the Mediterranean , Black Sea and Dardanelles (May 6, 1915 to April 11, 1916). In the summer of 1916 he was promoted to lieutenant captain. This was accompanied by a change of job. From June 8, 1916, he was in command of U 55 , which he commanded until August 3, 1918. With U 55 he undertook 13 patrols and was able to sink enemy ship space of almost 127,000  GRT . For his achievements, he was awarded the highest Prussian valor award, the Order Pour le Mérite , by Wilhelm II . He had already received both classes of the Iron Cross and the Knight's Cross of the Royal House Order of Hohenzollern with Swords.

However, Werner were on the Allied side several war crimes accused:

  • On April 8, 1917, he sank the steamer Torrington in the Celtic Sea . He drowned the 34 survivors by ordering them to go to the upper deck of his submarine and then diving. He only took the captain with him to Germany as a prisoner of war .
  • On the same patrol he sank the steamer Toro on April 13, 1917 . He murdered the 14 crew members in the same way. He only took the captain and one other crew member with him to Germany as prisoners of war.
  • On January 4, 1918, he sank the hospital ship Rewa , violating the Hague Land Warfare Regulations of 1907 (Agreement X: Convention for the Adaptation to Maritime Warfare of the Principles of the Geneva Convention (of 6 July 1906)) .
  • On July 31, 1917 at around 9 p.m. there was a momentous torpedo attack on the steamer Belgian Prince , which was hit in the middle of the ship. Due to the failure of the generators, it was no longer possible to call for help. 44 men then went into the lifeboats. Werner appeared and had the ship shot with a machine gun . He then ordered the survivors to come to the upper deck of the submarine. Most of the life jackets were then removed. The life jackets were thrown into the sea by the German sailors. Then all lifeboats - except for the captain's dinghy - were riddled with axes. Then the submarine ran two nautical miles from the still buoyant Prince Belgian and stopped at sea. At 10:00 p.m. Werner let the submarine dive and the people on deck drowned all but three survivors. The next day at 7:00 a.m. Werner had the wrecked Belgian Prince sunk with an explosive cartridge. At 8:00 a.m., the sloop Gladiolus that had rushed up was able to take the three surviving sailors on board and rescue them.

On July 17, 1918, he also sank the Carpathia , which took 705 survivors on board after the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 and thus saved them from drowning. Werner handed over command of U 55 to Alexander Weiss on August 10, 1918 .

In the post-war period, Werner briefly belonged to the "Lettow" Freikorps under the leadership of Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck . On June 28, 1919 (a. A. March 1, 1920) his military career in the Reichswehr came to an end.

Between the wars and the SS career

Promotions in the SS :

Although Werner's extradition as a war criminal, demanded by the Allies, was prevented by the political side in accordance with Section 231 of the Versailles Treaty , he emigrated to the state of São Paulo in July 1919 by order of the authorities under assumed (= false) names . After initially working on a coffee facenda , he finally found a job as an “unskilled” architect at the German-Brazilian company Gebr. Weisflog in Caieiras near São Paulo . In the autumn of 1924 he returned to the German Reich and operated as part of the Leipzig trials to resume his war crimes trial. The Supreme Court adopted Decision of 30 March 1926, the method of murder in the sinking of Torrington except tracking and disposal in the other cases, the termination of the proceedings. From October 1925 he managed the manor of his newly wed wife in Falkenau, Grottkau district .

In September 1930 Werner joined the NSDAP ( membership number 332.139) and on June 1, 1931 the SS (membership number 9.916). In 1931 he was entrusted with building up the SS in Upper Silesia , became an SS brigade leader and, for a short time, was also the deputy head of the Southeast section leader. From 1938 he belonged to the personal staff of Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler and was briefly liaison officer for the Sudetenland .

Military career in the Wehrmacht or Waffen-SS

Promotions in the Wehrmacht :

  • July 1, 1937: as Major d. R. transferred to the officer corps of the Air Force on leave .
  • August 27, 1939: Lieutenant Colonel d. R. z. V. (Air Force).
  • October 1, 1942: Colonel d. R. (Air Force).
  • December 1942: Acceptance into active employment.
  • 1944: Admitted to the army as a colonel.

Political career

In the election to the Prussian state parliament on April 24, 1932 (state list of the NSDAP for the constituency 9 "Opole") his candidacy was unsuccessful. In June 1933 he took over the post of district deputy for the district of Grottkau . In 1934 he was appointed Prussian Provincial Councilor . From November 12, 1933 until the end of the Nazi regime on May 8, 1945, Werner was also a member of the National Socialist Reichstag for constituency 9 (Opole) .

Awards

Military awards

Party and SS awards

literature

  • Joachim Lilla , Martin Döring, Andreas Schulz: extras in uniform. The members of the Reichstag 1933–1945. A biographical manual. Including the ethnic and National Socialist members of the Reichstag from May 1924. Droste, Düsseldorf 2004, ISBN 3-7700-5254-4 , pp. 724–725.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Joachim Lilla, Martin Döring, Andreas Schulz: extras in uniform. The members of the Reichstag 1933–1945. A biographical manual. Including the ethnic and National Socialist members of the Reichstag from May 1924. Droste, Düsseldorf 2004, ISBN 3-7700-5254-4 , pp. 724–725.
  2. ↑ a b The work of the investigative committee of the German Constituent Assembly and the German Reichstag 1919-1928, Vol. 4 The gas war, the air war, the submarine war, the economic war, Berlin: Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft für Politik und Geschichte, 1927, p. 342.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f Joachim Lilla, Martin Döring, Andreas Schulz: extras in uniform. The members of the Reichstag 1933–1945. A biographical manual. Including the ethnic and National Socialist members of the Reichstag from May 1924. Droste, Düsseldorf 2004, ISBN 3-7700-5254-4 .
  4. ^ A b c Marineschule Mürwik: Chronicles of the German naval crew 1891–1918, Crew 1905, compiled in autumn 1952, p. 102 f.
  5. ↑ Bernd Langensiepen : Wilhelm Werner: Mörder zur See und Himmlers Spezi, in: Marine-Nachrichtenblatt, 1. Jg., H. 1 (March), 2010, S. 2-16, ed. from the Working Group War on the Sea 1914–1918 e. V .; URL: http://www.mnb.seekrieg14-18.de/Leseprobe%20-%20Heft%201.pdf , accessed on June 10, 2015.
  6. ↑ The German Leader Lexicon .
personal data
SURNAME Werner, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German naval officer, politician (NSDAP), MdR and SS leader
DATE OF BIRTH June 6, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Apolda near Weimar
DATE OF DEATH May 14, 1945
Place of death Falkenau (Upper Silesia)