Willi Hermann (Carnivalist)

Willi (actually: Wilhelm) Hermann (born November 23, 1907 in Stockach ; † November 28, 1977 in Konstanz ) was an early National Socialist and composer of several Carnival songs that are still known today in the Lake Constance area .

Life path

Until World War II

Born on November 23, 1907 in Stockach as the son of the local city calculator August Hermann (1876–1949), Wilhelm Hermann attended the elementary school and then the community school in Stockach, later the secondary school in Meßkirch and finally the Rotteck secondary school in Freiburg im Breisgau . There he received German lessons from grammar school director Friedrich Georg Ludin , the father of the later SA upper group leader and German ambassador in Pressburg , Hanns Elard Ludin , who was known in right-wing extremist circles . Willi Hermann graduated from high school in Freiburg in spring 1926. After that, he, who had also been a running jester and was active in the carpenter's guild in the Stockach carnival since 1927, began studying German, English, history and French in the winter semester of 1926/27 at the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg . Munich (1927), Vienna (1928), Paris (summer course 1928) and Heidelberg (1928/29) followed as study locations. Then Hermann returned to Freiburg. The less determined student, who was more interested in “music and art”, did not pass a state examination. Between 1931 and 1933 he failed three times. The Baden Ministry of the Interior then informed him in the spring of 1934: “You cannot be admitted to the examination again”. Without a state examination, Willi Hermann was unable to pursue his aspired career as a high school teacher, initially remaining financially dependent on his parents.

In the summer of 1931 he joined the NSDAP ; However, his official membership number 1,243,917 was not dated until August 1, 1932 for organizational reasons within the party.

Willi Hermann's father August Hermann was appointed mayor on May 18, 1933 - after Hitler's "seizure of power" - by the Stockach town council; However, as a result of a ban on new members imposed in 1933, he did not become a member of the NSDAP until May 1, 1937. However, due to an affair over bad checks, August Hermann had to resign from his mayor's office in early 1938. He was replaced by Adolf Wendling (1884–1951), the Nazi mayor of Stetten am kalten Markt . August Hermann then moved with his wife to Constance, where he spent his retirement, financed by a pension and additional income as a "biller".

Father and son Hermann were active participants in the Stockach Carnival during National Socialism.

Willi Hermann joined the general SS in 1933 (SS ID number 143.921) and was entrusted with the business of storm clerk and storm guard training manager of the Stockach SS storm 9/79 in the service rank of SS squad leader (equivalent: sergeant major ). Looking back on his service in the SS, Willi Hermann wrote in the post-war period: " I was not involved in the Jewish actions because I was no longer in the SS at that time".

The new district leader of the Stockach NSDAP, Ernst Bäckert (1899–1962), appointed the 27-year-old Hermann in the autumn of 1935 to the Stockach leadership of the NS community " Kraft durch Freude " (KdF), which is a subdivision of the German Labor Front (DAF) recently had to look after the KdF Lake Constance travelers from the Rhineland and Westphalia during the summer months. From then on, Willi Hermann was employed as a Nazi training and propaganda speaker and released from active SS service. He took over the management of the popular education center within the "KdF" in the Stockach district. His tasks included influencing the KdF travelers in the summer and the population of the rural Stockach area in the rest of the year. Hermann spoke, for example, at a training evening in Homberg-Münchhöf at the end of January 1936 about “German consciousness” or on January 25, 1936 in front of Nazi officials from Volkertshausen, Steißlingen, Stahringen and Wahlwies in the Stockach district training camp about the “National Socialist Weltanschauung”. In addition, Willi Hermann organized entertainment evenings for KdF vacationers and locals.

In addition, Willi Hermann was involved in the "Aid Association of German-Austrians" in the 1930s.

In 1936 Hermann resigned from the Catholic Church and from then on referred to himself as "a believer in God ".

From July 15, 1936, Hermann was employed by the Karlsruhe Gauleiter Robert Wagner (1895–1946) in the Karlsruhe Gauleitung, namely in the regional training office responsible for the political and ideological education of the Baden NS officials. Before he started his service in Karlsruhe, the head of the district and Kdf training officer Hermann took part in a course at the Reichsschulungsburg in Hirschberg in the Giant Mountains from June 10 to July 1, 1936 . In the regional training office, Hermann carried out organizational work, above all the issuing of drafting papers for the Nazi functionaries, the so-called political leaders, who had been summoned to training courses. Together with his superior, the district training director Wilhelm Hartlieb (born 1898), Willi Hermann u. a. a 30-page “work plan for ideological-political training” approved by Gauleiter Robert Wagner, which was used by Nazi functionaries in Baden from September 1937 as a guideline for ideological training of the population. For the regional training office, Hermann also gave public lectures in Karlsruhe and the surrounding area in line with Nazi ideology.

He initially appeared in civilian clothes and with the NSDAP party badge on his lapel. He was given a party uniform on May 1, 1939, when he was promoted to the position of acting head of the yard. On May 20, 1939, he was recorded in a statistical survey by the regional training office with the rank of "Gastellenleiter" and the position "Gauhauptstelleleiter". This does not coincide with his statements in the post-war period, in which he claimed to have risen to Gauhauptstelleleiter in 1943 and to have learned about it by letter as a soldier in Greece.

In a personal union, Hermann also held the position of position manager in the district propaganda office in Karlsruhe. The local NSDAP district leader Willi Worch (1896–1972) judged on an "assessment sheet" from June 1938 about his district leader Hermann: "very good as a speaker [...] absolutely solid in the sense of the NSDAP".

Willi Hermann married for the first time in Karlsruhe, and his daughter was born soon after. At his new place of residence in Knielingen near Karlsruhe, he took on the role of NSDAP local group leader, which he omitted on the questionnaire of the military government in the post-war period. In this function he took part in a seminar at the Gauschulungsburg in Frauenalb from April 11-30, 1939 .

During the Second World War

On September 12, 1940, Willi Hermann was drafted into the Wehrmacht, namely to the 2nd Company of Infantry Replacement Battalion 390 in Neckarsulm . After basic infantry training, in December 1940 he was assigned the rank of rifle to the 3rd Company of the Landesschützen Battalion 421, which was in the military administrative district A in north-west France in 1941/42 in the Évreux area in Normandy, then in Amiens , then as a "mobile reserve" of the military commander in Mantes and finally again in Évreux was stationed as a security unit. His promotion to non-commissioned officer followed in May 1942.

In the summer or autumn of 1942, Willi Hermann must have committed a criminal offense in occupied France; What is unknown, however, is what Willi Hermann is guilty of. In May 1943 he was transferred to one of the probation battalions of the Wehrmacht, aptly referred to by the Wehrmacht soldiers as the " punishment battalion", namely to the 4th Company of the Fortress Grenadier Battalion 909, which was led by Lieutenant Helmut Sigeneger. This battalion was reorganized in Hanau .

Said fortress grenadier battalion 909, in which Willi Hermann now served, was relocated to the Greek island of Kefalonia - more precisely: to the port town of Lixouri on the Paliki peninsula there - in August 1943 . After Italy - previously allied with the German Reich - announced its armistice of September 3, 1943 with Great Britain and the USA on September 8, 1943 , the German Fortress Grenadier Regiment 966 was to disarm the Italian division on Kefalonia and take it into German captivity. But from September 10, 1943 the Italians offered armed resistance to their capture. In the following days, at least 2,500 (and up to 5,000) Italian soldiers who had already surrendered were shot by German troops on Kefalonia, in violation of international law. The German losses should add up to 60 dead, seven missing and 104 wounded. Whether Willi Hermann shot defenseless Italian prisoners of war himself or whether he ordered his grenadier group to shoot them, cannot be clarified any longer; What is certain, however, is that Hermann's battalion was involved in this serious war crime.

Willi Hermann experienced the withdrawal of the Wehrmacht from Greece from the end of September 1944 with the Fortress Grenadier Regiment 966 as part of the XXII. Mountaineering Army Corps. The fighting of retreat of this army corps led through Albania, Macedonia and Serbia. In the Balkans, Hermann claims to have been shot through the knee and suffered "severe frostbite". In the spring of 1945 he was a soldier in the "Alarm Company Dürrschnabel" and on April 23, 1945 he was taken prisoner by the Americans in an unknown location.

After the Second World War

As a prisoner of war, Willi Hermann defused explosives and ammunition between June 1945 and April 1946 in an ammunition work company, mainly in France; life-threatening work for which he was compensated at 80 American cents per working day.

After his release from prisoner-of-war, he fell under the American " automatic arrest "; due to his previous activity with the Karlsruhe Gau leadership, he found himself as a prisoner in the internment camps in Darmstadt and Kornwestheim . From there he was transferred on November 20, 1947 to the Lahr and Freiburg internment camps operated by France . Here he went through a formal denazification process , in which he was classified as "less polluted".

He was released from the Freiburg camp in October 1948. He moved to Konstanz, where his parents lived at the time on Luisenplatz.

In July 1949, Hermann divorced his first wife. He married a second time in July 1952. This second marriage also resulted in a daughter.

After 1949 Willi Hermann worked for various companies in Konstanz, first as a construction worker at the Leonhardt company, who initially had to report to the French gendarmerie every Monday, and later as a simple employee in the textile industry at the Herosé company. From then on he led a petty-bourgeois, inconspicuous life.

Hermann entered the Protestant church.

On the Saalfasnacht in Konstanz he was able to gain recognition from a wide audience from the 1950s as a handcrafted speaker and composer. Hermann emerged as the composer of the songs "Yes, if the whole Bodesee were one single wine barrel" and "Mädle, if vuu Konstanz bisch, why kaasch you nit kisses ...", which are known to this day in the Lake Constance area. He served as vice-president of the Great Constance Narrengesellschaft Niederburg and from 1961 worked for a total of 16 years in the college of the Stockacher Hohen Grob favorable jester court . He was elected to the local college by members of Stockach who were obliged to reside - despite his Nazi biography, which must undoubtedly have been known in the small town of 4,000 inhabitants.

He died unexpectedly on November 28, 1977 of a heart attack in Konstanz and was buried in the city's main cemetery.

source

• Jürgen Klöckler, "An icon of the Carnival on Lake Constance - on the Nazi past of the Konstanzer and Stockach carnival Willi Hermann", in: Writings of the Association for the History of Lake Constance and its Surroundings, special print from: 137th issue, 2019, Jan Thorbecke Verlag 2019 , https://www.thorbecke.de/pdf/zusatz/978-3-7995-1726-3.pdf  ; viewed on February 23, 2020