Willi Henne

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Willi Henne (born July 12, 1907 in Grab near Backnang ; † February 10, 1977 in Wiesbaden ) was a German civil engineer , SS-Standartenführer of the reserve, Ministerialrat at the General Inspector for German Roads (GdS) and President of the Hessian State Office for Road Construction.

Studies and civil service

From 1926 he studied civil engineering at the Technical University of Stuttgart in order to obtain a degree in engineering in 1930. Then he went into the civil service and worked as a trainee lawyer at the Technical State Office in Ludwigsburg . In 1936 he was given a position as a consultant at the GdS to take on special tasks.

Start of activity on the Siegfried Line

In the first days in June 1938 he took part in an inspection tour during which Hermann Göring was supposed to inspect the military fortifications that were being built. His boss as GdS Fritz Todt and Ministerial Director Günther Schulze-Fielitz were there . On June 7, 1938 there was a joint meeting in the library of the military district in Wiesbaden, where the senior officers of the fortress construction on the western border under the leadership of the Commander-in-Chief of Army Group 2 (HGru 2) Colonel-General Wilhelm Adam , Major General Richard Speich as inspector of the West fortifications (InWest), the later Lieutenant General Rudolf Schmetzer as fortress inspector and other commanding officers took part. But Göring did not take part in this coordination meeting, because he reported to Hitler on June 14, 1938 that the army command had failed to build the fortress. In Bergzabern , on June 9, 1938, a meeting took place under the direction of Göring, in which a form of building organization was proposed in order to erect fortifications in a short time.

NSDAP and SS

On June 14, 1938 Todt received from Hitler the general power of attorney as special representative of the Führer to take over the expansion of the fortifications in the west of the border area. On June 16, Oberbaurat Henne was appointed head of the Inspector General for German Roads, Department Wiesbaden (Westwallbau - W) based in the Kaiserhof Palace Hotel. In order to consolidate his position in the Nazi regime, Henne became a member of the NSDAP (No. 3 227 049) in May 1933 and was given the rank of SS Untersturmführer (SS No. 110 868) on July 1, 1938.

Management of the construction management at the Siegfried Line

As a first measure, Henne had to go through and check 60,000 planning and construction documents drawn up by the fortress pioneers of the Wehrmacht over the next two months . After that, Henne was given the task of supervising 19 and later 22 construction managers. This led to conflicting views between Henne and General Speich. However, Speich soon fell out of favor when he was unable to present sufficient success stories on August 8, 1938 about Hitler's fortress construction at a meeting on Obersalzberg . At the end of 1938, Speich was put into temporary retirement.

Mobilization of the commitment and organization Todt

In a few months, Henne was able to access a large mobilization of workers, which Göring had issued on June 22, 1938 ( RGBl. I 1938, p. 652) through the ordinance to secure the need for manpower for tasks of particular political importance . The number of available workers in the construction management increased from July 20, 1938 from 35,000 to 342,000 on October 6, 1938. Furthermore, there were around 100,000 men in the Reich Labor Service in the advanced expansion phase, 90,000 among the pioneers of fortress construction and also pioneer battalions and infantry divisions ready for use.

When, after the outbreak of the Second World War the buildings at the West Wall were in the front area, Henne left the construction crews on September 2, 1939. pull. But already on September 4th this measure was lifted by Todt. Hitler had ordered that the now established Todt Organization (OT) should continue to operate during the war.

Use in Norway

Josef Terboven and Willi Henne in Drontheim, Norway 1942.
Henne, in Oslo, Norway 1943, left.

In early April 1940, came as part of the company Weserübung to occupy Denmark and Norway by German forces. In order to support the German positions, the OT set up an OT task force Wiking based in Oslo through its task force in Berlin by resolution of April 1, 1942 , which was led by Henne. The title of General Engineer for Norway and Denmark was associated with this appointment .

In July 1942 he also took over as the successor to senior government building officer Dr. Klein took over the management of the main technology department at the Reichskommissariat Norway , which was led by the Gauwirtschaftsberator Carlo Otte . The technology department had been removed from the existing structure of the main economics department under Klein and now existed as an independent main department. Henne expanded his position and became general representative for the construction industry in the occupied territories of Norway.

According to instructions he was subordinate to the Reich Commissioner Josef Terboven . As head of the Wiking Task Force, however, he was also subordinate to Fritz Todt and his successor Albert Speer . However, from this double subordination and the double management of the institutions under his control, disputes soon arose with the Department of Economics regarding the organization of labor, building materials and operating resources. He had a good living at Terboven because, according to SS-Hauptsturmführer Herbert Noot , Henne did not comment on the political situation.

Henne was able to further expand his area of ​​responsibility as head of the largest construction company in Norway. He was also responsible for the entire electricity supply. It was inevitable that there were disputes over competencies with the Norwegian Minister of Construction, Eivind Blehr , which escalated in May 1943. Henne got Terboven to support the Norwegian Prime Minister Vidkun Quisling for Henne's demands. Henne had the ambition to push ahead with the construction of the northern runway by all means. In order to get additional workers, he had factories closed and from 1943 he used prisoners of war and forced labor . In his energetic measures, Henne was able to refer to an order from Adolf Hitler dated May 13, 1941, which stated that the building projects should be carried out with all means and in the shortest possible time , as they were decisive for the war .

The problem of the labor force became so acute that more and more Norwegian workers left their jobs for fear of being forced to work in the north of Norway. There were disruptions in setting up operations for Nordische Aluminum AG (Nordag). This reported Rudolf Sattler , the commissioner of the Reich Commissioner for the Norges Bank , to Otte. In the meantime, on June 21, 1943, Henne had been promoted to SS Standartenführer of the Reserve and to Ministerial Councilor. Speer gave Henne the order to set the priorities of the construction projects and to stop all other less important construction projects. On June 2, 1944, Speer honored Henne in Magdeburg for his services in Norway with the Knight's Cross for War Merit .

post war period

In 1945 he was taken prisoner by the Soviets and was only able to return to Germany a little more than ten years later. First he worked again in road construction at the Besigheim road construction authority . From 1957 he became the head of the Hessian State Office for Road Construction as the chief government building director. He also took over the management of the Hessian road administration.

Under his direction, the motorways in the Sauerland , the Bergstrasse and the Rhön were built . After he retired in 1972, he devoted himself to research in the steering committee of the working group asphalt and tar roads . He also contributed his knowledge to the special tasks working group .

Writings / literature

  • From the construction of the Siegfried Line. In: Deutsche Arbeitsfront (Hrsg.): German community work - history, idea and construction of the west wall. Stuttgart 1940. (word for word: About the construction of the Westwall. In: Deutsche Arbeitsfront (Hrsg.): Unbezwinglicher Westwall - A people's book about the struggle for Germany's Westmark. Wiesbaden 1940.)
  • with Fritz Kind: Roads and Bridges in Hesse. 1957.
  • Roads and bridges in Hessen - II. Episode. Munich 1966.
  • oA: Ministerialrat a. DW Henne back from Russia, In: Die Bauwirtschaft 1955, p. 1284
  • oA: On the death of President a. D. Dipl.-Ing. Willi Henne, In: Straße und Autobahn 1977, p. 116

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ DEB. Volume 4. Munich 2006, p. 686.
  2. ^ Franz W. Seidler: Fritz Todt. Builder of the Empire. Munich 1986, p. 164.
  3. ^ Dieter Robert Bettinger, Hans-Josef Hansen, Daniel Lois: The West Wall from Kleve to Basel. Eggelsheim 2002, p. 14.
  4. ^ Franz W. Seidler, ibid
  5. ↑ Hedwig Singer: Development and use of the Organization Todt (OT). In: Hedwig Singer: Sources for the history of the Todt organization. Volume 1. Osnabrück 1998, p. 11
  6. ↑ a b Klaus D. Patzwall : The Knight's Cross Bearers of the War Merit Cross 1942–1945. Patzwall Militaria Archive, Hamburg 1984, p. 140.
  7. ↑ Albert Molt: The German fortress construction from the Memel to the Atlantic - fortress pioneers - engineer corps - pioneer troops - 1900-1945. Friedberg 1993, p. 58
  8. ↑ Franz W. Seidler, ibid, p. 166.
  9. ↑ Dieter Bettinger, Martin Büren, Martin Wolff: The West Wall. The history of the German western fortifications in the Third Reich. Volume I. Osnabrück 1990, p. 102.
  10. ↑ Albert Molt, ibid, p. 58.
  11. ↑ Willi Henne: From the construction of the west wall. In: German Labor Front, German Community Work - History, Idea and Construction of the West Wall. Stuttgart 1940, p. 52.
  12. ^ Franz W. Seidler, ibid, p. 185.
  13. ↑ Hedwig Singer: Development and use of the Organization Todt (OT). In: Hedwig Singer (ed.): Sources for the history of the Todt organization. Volume 1 and 2. Osnabrück 1998, p. 27.
  14. ↑ Robert Bohn: Reichskommissariat Norway, "National Socialist Reorganization" and War Economy. , Munich 2000, p. 167.
  15. ↑ Robert Bohn, ibid, p. 180.
  16. ↑ Robert Bohn, ibid, p. 181.
  17. ↑ Martin Moll: Leader Decrees 1938-1945. Stuttgart 1997, p. 249, In: Robert Bohn, ibid, p. 362.
  18. ^ W. Knoll: President a. D. Dipl.-Ing. Willi Henne. In: civil engineer. 52, 1977, p. 239.
personal data
SURNAME Hen, Willi
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German civil engineer, SS-Standartenführer of the reserve, Ministerialrat at the General Inspector for German Roads (GdS) and President of the Hessian State Office for Road Construction
DATE OF BIRTH July 12, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH dig
DATE OF DEATH February 10, 1977
Place of death Wiesbaden