Hans Nieland

Hans Nieland (3 October 1900 in

German Nazi-Party (NSDAP) and Lord Mayor of Dresden

from 1940 until 1945.

Career

Nieland was drafted into the Imperial Army in June 1918 just after his final examinations at modern grammar school. He remained a soldier until one month after the end of World War I (discharge in December 1918). From February 1919 he studied political science at the universities of Göttingen and Hamburg.^[1] After the end of his studies in July 1922 he worked as a commercial clerk for three years in two Hamburg export firms. Hereupon followed a job training in the local and provincial administration. Afterwards Nieland went to the small town Kirchhörde (which now forms part of Dortmund) as a candidate for the career of a Westphalian bailiff. His political career started as a head of the district authority in his native town Hagen, later on Nieland became district president in Münster. In 1925 he received his doctorate in Hamburg. His doctoral thesis, completed in June 1925, was entitled "Power as a governmental concept of law: An analysis of the German Reich's constitutional law situation under the rule of the Versailles Treaty"^[1] (German: "Die Macht als staatlicher Rechtsbegriff: Zugleich eine Untersuchung über die staatsrechtliche Stellung des Deutschen Reiches unter der Herrschaft des Versailler Vertrages").

On 30 January 1926 Hans Nieland joined the

NSDAP^[1]

(membership number 33 333), became Bezirksführer (English: District Leader) at home and then Sektionsführer (English: Section Leader) in Hamburg. Moreover, he entered the SS (membership number 61 702), was promoted SS Major General

constituency

.

On 1 May 1931 Hans Nieland was appointed Leader of the NSDAP Foreign Organization (

Groß-Hamburg Gesetz came into force in April 1937 Nieland was awarded the title Senator and the position of a city treasurer for life. In February 1940 he was appointed Lord Mayor of regional capital Dresden at the suggestion of Reichsstatthalter (English: Imperial Governor) Martin Mutschmann by Reich Minister of the Interior Wilhelm Frick.^[4] After the heavy air raids of 13 and 14 February 1945, which destroyed the baroque historic section totally, Nieland left precipitously Dresden on 23 February 1945, disappeared completely for 8 days and turned up in Berlin on 3 March 1945.^[4]

From 2 June 1945 until August 1948 Nieland was detained in several British internment facilities, for example in Neumünster-Gadeland and in Civil Internment Camp No 5 Staumühle (near Paderborn).^[4] In August 1948 a fine was imposed on Nieland in the course of a "Spruchkammerverfahren" (English: "proceedings before denazification tribunals") in Bielefeld, which was regarded as compensated by the term of imprisonment, however. In 1949 he was classified as minderbelastet (English: marginally incriminated) and in 1950 as Mitläufer (English: follower or nominal member). After being released he worked for a time as a banker in Reinbek bei Hamburg.^[5]