Willi Markus

Willi Markus (born August 13, 1907 in Berlin ; † after 1969) was a German SA and SS leader.

Live and act

Markus was the son of the master furrier Franz Markus († October 15, 1915) and his wife Wilhelmine. After attending elementary school and a military boys' school in Saxony, the son also learned the craft of furrier. He then worked as a journeyman and, in the late 1920s, as a driver.

Career in the SA (1926 to 1934)

On September 1, 1926, Markus joined the Sturmabteilung, the task force of the NSDAP. His entry into the party followed in 1928 ( membership number 98.332). In the following years, Markus made a career in the Berlin SA: According to a service certificate from 1937, he was a ready-to-go SA leader in the last years of the Weimar Republic "who" was "partly involved in almost all battles, marches and rallies in Berlin" was.

In 1933 he reached the rank of Sturmbannführer in the SA Standard 6 led by his friend Richard Fiedler . After Fiedler's promotion to Leader of Brigade 30, Markus took over the leadership of Standard 6 with the rank of Standard Leader as Fiedler's successor.

In September of the same year Markus took part in the murder of Ali Höhler after an investigation by the Berlin public prosecutor from the 1960s . The KPD member Höhler was sentenced to six years imprisonment in 1930 for manslaughter of Horst Wessel . As a member of a group led by Karl Ernst and Rudolf Diels , which also included Fiedler, Markus shot Höhler with others on the edge of a forest between Berlin and Frankfurt an der Oder . The pending criminal proceedings against Markus and a few other pending criminal proceedings in this matter in the 1960s were finally closed in 1969, as they could only be proven to have assisted in the act, which at that time was already statute-barred.

On June 30, 1934, Markus was arrested in the course of the Röhm affair and taken to the barracks of the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler in Lichterfelde. After his release he was replaced as leader of SA Standard 6.

Career in the police and SS

On November 1, 1934, Markus joined the SA Feldjäger Corps as a military police standard and readiness leader . From December 20, 1934 to March 20, 1935, he led the police force in Cologne . Then he took over the leadership of the Feldjägerpanzer -teilung II Pomerania . On April 1, 1935 he was appointed captain of the Feldjägerkorps there. After the dissolution of the Feldjägerkorps, Markus was taken over to the police on April 1, 1936 : In this he was initially employed by the police in Stettin . From December 22, 1936 to March 31, 1937 he was leader of the 4th teaching department in Schöneberg.

On May 20, 1937 Markus was appointed leader of the engine readiness in Weimar . On May 10, 1938, shortly after the annexation of Austria by the German Reich, he was given the task of building up the motor storm readiness (gendarmerie formation) in Klagenfurt , which he then led with the rank of captain of the gendarmerie.

On February 24, 1937, Markus married Dora Flamm, the sister of Fiedler's wife, who thus became his brother-in-law. The marriage resulted in at least two sons (* 1941, 1942) and one daughter (* 1938).

On July 1, 1939, Markus moved from the Ordnungspolizei to the Schutzstaffel (SS) (membership number 337.756), into which he was accepted with the rank of Sturmbannführer. In 1941 he switched to full-time SS service, renouncing his civil service rights. Thereupon he was honorably discharged from the regulatory police with effect from March 31, 1941.

After Markus had taken over the leadership of the 112th SS standard in Litzmannstadt (Lodz) in the upper section of the Warta on March 15, 1941 , he was promoted to SS-Obersturmbannführer on April 20, 1941.

In the summer months of 1941 and from January 27, 1943, Markus took an active part in the Second World War with the Waffen SS , most recently as a member of the "Hitler Youth" armored division.

post war period

According to his own statements, Markus was taken prisoner of war by the Americans near Linz on May 7, 1945. As a result, he was interned first in the SS camp Linz-Kleinmünchen, a former camp for Eastern European forced laborers, and then from 1946 in Fallingbostel in Lower Saxony.

1947 Markus was the denazification accused Benefeld / Bomblitz from 1 September 1939, a member of the SS and to be later also was the Waffen-SS, "even though he knew that this organization has been used for the commission of acts that by Article VI of the statutes of the International Military Tribunal have been declared criminal ". An individual guilt for specific acts did not have to be proven as a prerequisite for a conviction. He denied having been involved in crimes committed by his SS and Waffen SS units or even having knowledge of such acts. The Spruchkammer sentenced him to a fine of 3000 RM on February 25, 1948, which, however, was considered to have been settled during the internment period. Although he was finally convicted, he left the court as a free man.

On February 28th he was released in the direction of Uelzen. On March 9, he left the refugee camp there for Oldenburg, where he was initially taken into an emergency shelter of the German Red Cross. The denazification committee in Jever / Oldenburg classified him as a follower in 1949.

At the beginning of the 1950s he lived in Berlin again and tried to get it used again in civil service. He lodged an objection against a rejection of his application, which the Berlin Administrative Court examined in 1954. It is uncertain whether Markus was reinstated in the civil service under Article 131 of the Basic Law. In any case, his previous conviction from 1948 was erased in 1956 in accordance with Section 20 of the Law on Impunity of July 17, 1954.

In the last years of his life, Markus worked as a doorman in his native Berlin.

literature

• Wilfried Kugel: Everything was passed on to him, he was ... the irresponsible: the life of Hanns Heinz Ewers. Grupello, Düsseldorf 1992, ISBN 3-928234-04-8 .
• Daniel Siemens: Horst Wessel. Death and Transfiguration of a National Socialist , Siedler, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-88680-926-4 .

Archival material

• Federal archive: SS leader personnel file
• Federal Archives: Documents from the Race and Settlement Main Office