Willy Sachs

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Willy Sachs (1933)

Willy Sachs (born July 23, 1896 in Schweinfurt , † November 19, 1958 in Oberaudorf ) was a German industrialist , SS-Obersturmbannführer and military economic leader during the Third Reich . He was a bearer of the Federal Cross of Merit and an honorary citizen of Schweinfurt, Mainberg and Oberaudorf.

Life

Mainberg Castle (2005)

Willy Sachs was the only son of the Schweinfurt industrialist Ernst Sachs . After a less than successful school career, he completed internships a. a. at Bosch in Stuttgart and in various companies in the USA. In 1920, at the age of 24, he joined the Corps Franconia Darmstadt . After several years of internship at various international companies, Sachs became a member of the board in 1923 and, after the death of his father, was the sole owner of Fichtel & Sachs AG in Schweinfurt from 1932 . Throughout his life, Sachs saw himself as a caring patriarch who was often characterized by spontaneous generosity. The impulsive and occasionally clumsy heir saw it as his life's task to pass on his father's work to the next generation. However, he had inherited little of his father's talents. Although he carried the title of “General Director”, the management of the company with its 7,000 employees in 1939 was actually in the hands of loyal directors such as Heinz Kaiser, Rudolf Baier and Michael Schlegelmilch. From an early age he used the hunt, women and alcohol as escape points. The lavish parties at Mainberg Castle and on the Rechenau are legendary. "Wherever there was fun, the consul was there," it later said. He owed the title of Royal Swedish Consul to the relationships with his father, who in 1929 had sold the company's rolling bearing production to Svenska Kullagerfabriken (SKF).

In 1933 he became a member of the SS (membership number 87.064) and the NSDAP (membership number 2.547.272). As the head of an armaments company, he was a military economist . Heinrich Himmler awarded him medals and honorary titles (SS-Obersturmbannführer in 1943) and, after the divorce from Elinor von Opel, helped in the struggle for custody of the children, in return several hundred thousand marks were made in donations. Hermann Göring was a guest at Sachs hunts in Mainberg and on the Rechenau; Reinhard Heydrich received a loan from Sachs. He undoubtedly got intoxicated by his closeness to the Nazi greats. Nevertheless, he was internally certified that he had no idea of ​​ideological issues and that he did not meet the requirements of a Nazi manager .

Willy Sachs Stadium (2017)

As a patron of 1. FC Schweinfurt 05 , Sachs donated the Willy Sachs Stadium named after him in 1936 , at that time one of the most modern and spacious facilities in southern Germany. This gift to the city ensured him lasting popularity beyond death. The campaign for a renaming of the stadium, which was initiated by the Schweinfurt “Initiative against forgetting” because of its Nazi involvement and supported by the press (including Süddeutsche Zeitung, Gerhard Fischer, Werner Skrentny), met with little approval from the general public.

In May 1945, Sachs was arrested by the US military in Oberaudorf and interned until February 1947. In denazification him the ranks Spruchkammer Schweinfurt country twice as a "fellow traveler" (Category IV). Book author Wilfried Rott describes this process as “white washing” and writes “To instrumentalize Jewish acquaintances for yourself afterwards and simply to ignore the cold Aryanization of business partner Max Goldschmidt, is one of the darkest moments of this denazification, which was otherwise as euphemistic and belittling as that most comparable cases ”.

After his release from internment, he officially retired from active management at the age of 51, took over the chairmanship of the supervisory board and limited himself to representative tasks within the company. In recognition of his social responsibility as an entrepreneur (including the re-establishment of Ernst Sachs Aid as a company pension scheme), he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit in 1957.

Sachs spent most of the last years of his life at Gut Rechenau near Oberaudorf / Inn, where he committed suicide with a gun on November 19, 1958 at the age of 62. Depression and the fear of blackmail had taken hold of him. At the funeral, 20,000 people from Schweinfurt gave the “consul” their last escort .

family

Sachs family grave (2007)

From 1925 to 1935 Willy Sachs was married to Elinor von Opel , daughter of Wilhelm von Opel and granddaughter of Opel founder Adam Opel . There are two sons from the marriage:

In 1937 he married Ursula Meyer, b. Prey (divorced in 1947).

Since the late forties he lived with his partner Katharina Hirnböck. Son Peter Sachs (born April 27, 1950), to whom Willy Sachs gave his family name in 1957, comes from this connection .

Publications

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Willy Sachs - Munzinger biography. Munzinger Archive, accessed January 3, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Dr. Peter Hess: History of the Corps Franconia in Darmstadt . Mainz 1998, p. 604 .
  3. ↑ The transfer from the SA to the SS took place in August 1933 (Rott, Sachs, p. 124). The information about SS membership before 1933 with Werner Skrentny is therefore incorrect: Willy-Sachs-Stadion - this name does not have to be . Spiegel Online , July 14, 2001. Werner Skrentny (Ed.): The great book of German football stadiums . Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-89533-306-9 , p. 316
  4. ^ Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . Second updated edition. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 , p. 517.
  5. ↑ Quote Wilfried Rott: Sachs - entrepreneurs, playboys, millionaires . Munich 2005, p. 252.
  6. ↑ sueddeutsche.de on March 1st, 2008: In the interview: Gunter Sachs "Even playboys are getting wiser"
personal data
SURNAME Sachs, Willy
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German industrialist and SS-Obersturmbannführer, Swedish consul
DATE OF BIRTH July 23, 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH Schweinfurt
DATE OF DEATH November 19, 1958
Place of death Oberaudorf