Wolfgang Spielhagen
Kurt Werner Wolfgang Friedrich Spielhagen (born March 21, 1891 in Berlin - Charlottenburg ; † January 28, 1945 in Breslau ) was a German lawyer, ministerial official and most recently second mayor of Breslau.
family
Wolfgang Spielhagen was born as the son of Walter Spielhagen (1857-1930) and his wife Elsa Spielhagen (1864-1942) in Charlottenburg / Berlin. He was the grandson of the writer Friedrich Spielhagen (1829–1911) on his mother's side . His uncle Friedrich Spielhagen (1864–1931) was the personal physician of Victoria ("Kaiserin Friedrich"), the mother of Kaiser Wilhelm II. Wolfgang Spielhagen had been with Eva Spielhagen, born on April 5, 1934. Thiel (1901–1989) married, and had with her the two daughters Gisela (1935–2006) and Sonnhild (Sonny, 1939–2013). (See family tree below right.) Sonnhild was a successful photo model in Great Britain in the 1960s under the name Sonny Freeman and, according to British author and journalist Philip Norman, the inspiration behind the Beatles song Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown) .
Life
In the spring of 1909 he passed the Abitur at the Kaiserin-Augusta Gymnasium in Charlottenburg, then studied law at the Universities of Lausanne and Berlin and in the spring of 1913 passed the legal trainee examination at the Court of Appeal in Berlin. In 1915 he received his doctorate .
After the end of the First World War , the now assessor Wolfgang Spielhagen came to the Reich Ministry of Finance and was appointed to the government council. On April 1, 1927, he was senior government councilor at the Reichsparkommissar, later the presidential department of the Court of Auditors , and on July 1, 1929, promoted to ministerial councilor. On May 1, 1937, he joined the NSDAP , membership no. 5,920,070.
Wolfgang Spielhagen was member no. 7 and first chairman of the Ziering-Moritz-Alemann family association (based in Berlin), whose research and work he devoted himself intensively.
In 1940 Wolfgang Spielhagen was appointed provisionally to Breslau to take over the administration of the city. On May 1, 1941, he was appointed second mayor of Wroclaw.
In January 1945 the Red Army stood before Breslau, until February 15, 1945 the siege ring was closed. The Nazi Gauleiter Karl Hanke , who was appointed to Lower Silesia in February 1938 , declared Breslau a fortress on January 21, 1945 , which should be defended by all means. Wolfgang Spielhagen had spoken out against this order in view of the overwhelming Soviet power and advised to surrender in order to prevent even more civilian casualties. On January 20, 1945, he took his wife and two children to the capital of Berlin, which he believed was safer . Before this trip, he obtained the travel permit from his superior, Lord Mayor Ernst Leichtenstern . On January 26, 1945, he returned to Breslau so as not to give the impression that he had fled the city.
On 27 January 1945 Wolfgang Spielhagen was arrested on the orders of Gauleiter Hanke and the next day at 6 am summarily shot . His body was thrown into the Oder . Hanke posted posters that Spielhagen had withdrawn from Breslau out of excessive cowardice in order to look for a new post in Berlin. Hanke only used this lie as a pretext to make an example of deterrence on a man who had repeatedly criticized him and who had opposed his order to the fortress of Breslau .
Wroclaw was 70% destroyed in the fighting and, according to estimates by British historian Norman Davies , a total of 170,000 civilians, 6,000 German and 7,000 Soviet soldiers were killed in the battle for Wroclaw .
Web links
- Literature by and about Wolfgang Spielhagen in the catalog of the German National Library
- Wolfgang Spielhagen in the online version of the Reich Chancellery Files Edition . Weimar Republic
Individual evidence
- ^ Bundesarchiv Berlin: NSDAP membership card from Wolfgang Spielhagen
- ↑ a b Georg Reitor: In the fortress Breslau. In: From the camp to the chair. 2000, p. 48.
- ↑ a b c The Russians are coming ( Memento from November 5, 2014 in the Internet Archive ). Website of stern.de. Retrieved November 5, 2014.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Spielhagen, Wolfgang |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Spielhagen, Kurt Werner Wolfgang Friedrich (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German municipal official, deputy mayor of Wroclaw |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 21, 1891 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Berlin - Charlottenburg |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 28, 1945 |
| Place of death | Wroclaw |