Hinrich Lohse

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Hinrich Lohse
Nazi propaganda photograph of Hinrich Lohse, as published in a Latvian newspaper in 1941.
Reichskommissar of Ostland
In office
25 July 1941 – 21 September 1944
Appointed byAdolf Hitler
Preceded byOffice established
Succeeded byErich Koch
Oberpräsident of the Province of Schleswig-Holstein
In office
25 March 1933 – 6 May 1945
Preceded byHeinrich Thon
Succeeded byOtto Hoevermann (acting)
Gauleiter of Gau Schleswig-Holstein
In office
27 March 1925 – 6 May 1945
FührerAdolf Hitler
Preceded byOffice established
Succeeded byOffice abolished
Personal details
Born2 September 1896
Mühlenbarbek, Schleswig-Holstein, Prussia, German Empire
Died25 February 1964 (aged 67)
Mühlenbarbek, Schleswig-Holstein, West Germany
Political partyNazi Party

Hinrich Lohse (2 September 1896 – 25 February 1964) was a German Nazi Party politician and a convicted war criminal, best known for his rule of the Reichskommissariat Ostland, during World War II. Reichskommissariat Ostland comprised the states of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, and parts of modern day Belarus.

Early life

Hinrich Lohse was born into a peasant family in the town of

First World War of 1914-1918 he served in the Imperial German Army
from 23 September 1915 until his discharge with war wounds on 30 October 1916.

Nazi Party career

From 1919, Lohse was first an associate at the Schleswig-Holstein Farmers' Association, and then as of 1920, general secretary of the

Völkisch-Sozialer Block list, he became the only Nazi to be elected to the city representative college (Stadtverordnetenkollegium) of Altona/Elbe. During this time, he led various nationally oriented farming associations in northern Germany
, such as the Landvolkbewegung ("Rural People's Movement"), into the Nazi Party.

In September 1925, Lohse joined the National Socialist Working Association, a short-lived group of northern and western German Gaue, organized and led by Gregor Strasser, which unsuccessfully sought to amend the Party program. It was dissolved in 1926 following the Bamberg Conference.[1]

Between 3 September 1928 and 15 April 1929, Lohse also temporarily administered the Nazi

Gau of Hamburg before the appointment of Karl Kaufmann as Gauleiter. On 15 July 1932, he was appointed as Landesinspekteur-North. In this position, he had oversight responsibility for his Gau and three others (Hamburg, Mecklenburg-Lubeck, and Pomerania). This was a short-lived initiative by Gregor Strasser to centralize control over the Gaue. However, it was unpopular with the Gauleiters and was repealed on Strasser's fall from power in December 1932. Lohse then returned to his Gauleiter position in Schleswig-Holstein.[2]

Lohse was elected to the

Nazis' seizure of power he was appointed as Oberpräsident (high president) of the Province of Schleswig-Holstein on 25 March 1933. He thus united under his control the highest party and governmental offices in the province. On 11 July 1933, Lohse was named to the recently reconstituted Prussian State Council. In 1934, he took over the chairmanship of the Nordic Association (Nordische Gesellschaft). On 1 January 1937, he was promoted to SA-Obergruppenführer. On 16 November 1942, Lohse was appointed the Reich Defense Commissioner for his Gau, as were all Gauleiters.[3]

In the Baltic states

Main article: Reichskommissariat Ostland
General Commissioner of Latvia Otto-Heinrich Drechsler, Reich Commissar for the Ostland Hinrich Lohse, Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories Alfred Rosenberg and SA Officer Eberhard Medem in Dobele (1942).

On 25 July 1941, after the German occupation of

Communists, and the oppression of the local population was its necessary corollary.[5] Lohse was not directly responsible for the murderous actions of police forces and Einsatzgruppen who were under the control of SS-Brigadeführer and Generalmajor der Polizei Franz Walter Stahlecker, later on Higher SS and Police Leader (German: Höhere SS- und Polizeiführer, HSSPF) and even more of SS General and HSSPF Friedrich Jeckeln, the chief organizer of the Rumbula massacre.[6]

Nevertheless, as the leader of the "civil" administration, he implemented, through a series of special edicts and guiding principles for the general settlement plan for Ostland, many of the preparatory acts that facilitated the subsequent police Aktionen (Nazi euphemism for killing operations). In particular, he shared with Hans-Adolf Prützmann many of the responsibilities for the enslavement and ghettoization of the Jews of Latvia.

When he fled the Reichskommissariat Ostland in the autumn of 1944, and reached Schleswig-Holstein, he exercised there absolute rule as Gauleiter and Reich defense commissioner until the end of the war.

Postwar trial and life

On 6 May 1945, Lohse was unseated as Oberpräsident of Schleswig-Holstein (by the 5 May German surrender at Lüneburg Heath) and shortly thereafter imprisoned by the British Army. (Germany itself surrendered on 7 May and was disestablished on the evening of 8 May). Lohse was sentenced in 1948 to 10 years in prison, but was released in 1951 due to illness. Two inquiries were launched by German prosecutors against him; the grant of a high-presidential pension, for which Lohse was fighting, was withdrawn under pressure from the Schleswig-Holstein Landtag. Lohse spent his twilight years in Mühlenbarbek, where he died.[7]

See also

References

  1. ISBN 978-1-932970-32-6
    .
  2. ISBN 0-8229-3183-4
    .
  3. ISBN 978-1-932970-32-6
    .
  4. ISBN 978-1-932970-32-6
    .
  5. ^ Eichholtz, Dietrich. ""Generalplan Ost" zur Versklavung osteuropäischer Völker". UTOPIEkreativ (in German) (167 - September 2004). Berlin: Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung.
  6. ISBN 978-0857456014
    .
  7. ^ Wistrich, Robert (1995). Who's Who in Nazi Germany. Routledge.

External links


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