Kurt Daluege
Kurt Daluege | |
---|---|
Chief of Order Police | |
In office 26 June 1936 – 31 August 1943 | |
Leader | Heinrich Himmler as Chief of German Police |
Preceded by | Office established |
Succeeded by | Alfred Wünnenberg |
Deputy/Acting Protector of Bohemia and Moravia | |
In office 5 June 1942 – 24 August 1943 | |
Leader | (Konstantin von Neurath as Titular Protector) |
Preceded by | Reinhard Heydrich |
Succeeded by | Wilhelm Frick |
Personal details | |
Born | Kurt Max Franz Daluege 15 September 1897 Kreuzburg, Upper Silesia, German Empire (now Poland) |
Died | 24 October 1946 Pankrác Prison, Prague, Czechoslovakia | (aged 49)
Nationality | German |
Political party | Nazi Party |
Spouse |
Käthe Schwarz (m. 1926) |
Children | 4 |
War crimes | |
Criminal penalty | Death |
Kurt Max Franz Daluege[1][2] (15 September 1897 – 24 October 1946) was a German SS and police official who served as chief of Ordnungspolizei (Order Police) of Nazi Germany from 1936 to 1943, as well as the Deputy/Acting Protector of Bohemia and Moravia from 1942 to 1943.
Daluege served in the Prussian Army during the First World War on both fronts. He was severely wounded and received the Iron Cross Second Class for his bravery. After the war, he became a member of Gerhard Roßbach's Freikorps. In 1922, Daluege joined the Nazi Party and soon entered the service of the Sturmabteilung (SA), eventually becoming the SA leader in Berlin. He transferred to the SS in 1930 and was later elected as a Reichstag deputy. In 1933, Hermann Göring appointed Daluege to the Prussian Interior Ministry and placed him in charge of the Prussian police forces. In that role, he played an important role in carrying out the Night of the Long Knives, in which Ernst Röhm and other leading member of the SA were purged. By late 1934, his authority was extended to include all of Germany, and two years later Heinrich Himmler named him chief of the Ordnungspolizei (Orpo) following the reorganisation of the German police force.
By the outbreak of the Second World War, Daluege's Orpo had as many as 120,000 active-duty personnel. The organisation took part in policing, deportations and mass murder throughout German-occupied areas and had an integral role in carrying out the Holocaust. Following Reinhard Heydrich's assassination in 1942, Daluege was named Deputy Protector of Bohemia and Moravia and directed the German reprisal actions, including the Lidice massacre. At the end of the war, Daluege was arrested and extradited to Czechoslovakia, where he was tried and convicted for crimes against humanity. He was sentenced to death and executed by hanging in October 1946.
Early life and career
Daluege, son of a Prussian state official, was born in the small Upper Silesian town of Kreuzburg (now Kluczbork) on 15 September 1897.[3] He entered the Prussian Army in 1916 and served with the 7th Guards Infantry Regiment.[4] He served on the Eastern Front. In October 1917, he attended officers training in Doberitz. During his service on the Western Front, he was severely wounded in the head and shoulder. He was hospitalised and declared 25% disabled. Daluege was awarded the Iron Cross, second class (1918) and the Wound Badge in Black (1918).[5]
1920s
After World War I, Daluege became leader of Selbstschutz Oberschlesien (SSOS) - Upper Silesian Self Defense — an Upper Silesian veterans' organization engaged in combat with the Poles in that region. In 1921, he also became active in the Freikorps Rossbach while studying engineering at the Technical University in Berlin, [3] where he eventually earned a civil engineering degree.[6] Two years later he joined the Nazi Party (NSDAP) and was assigned Party number 31,981.[7] He also joined the Greater German Workers' Party in the same year.[8] From 1924, he helped to organize the Berlin Frontbann, largely a front organization for the Nazi Sturmabteilung (SA), since it and the Nazi Party were banned in Prussia at that time.[8] In 1926 he joined the SA directly, eventually becoming both the leader of Berlin's SA and Joseph Goebbels' deputy (Gauleiter, or Party leader) in Berlin.[9] Throughout the period of 1926—1929, Daluege led the Berlin-Brandenburg division of the SA.[6]
SS and police leader
In July 1930, in accordance with
In August 1930, when Berlin SA leader Walter Stennes had his men attack the Berlin Party headquarters, it was Daluege's SS men who defended it and put the attack down. Sometime afterwards in an open letter to Daluege, Adolf Hitler proclaimed "SS Mann, deine Ehre heißt Treue!" ("SS man, your honour is loyalty"). Then, the slogan "Meine Ehre heißt Treue" (My honour is loyalty) was duly adopted by the SS as its motto.[12] Hitler promoted both Daluege and Heinrich Himmler to SS-Obergruppenführer, with Daluege the SS leader of northern Germany while Himmler controlled the southern SS units out of Munich in addition to serving as national leader for the entire SS.
In April 1932, Daluege was elected a Nazi Party deputy to the
Evidence of Daluege's ruthlessness goes beyond his intrigue against his former SA comrades, and is discernible in his remarks about anyone he considered a threat to society. He once argued that "the consciously asocial enemies of the people (Volksfeinde)" must be eliminated by state intervention "if it hopes to prevent the outbreak of complete moral degeneration."[19] Historian George Browder claims that Daluege "bragged that the Police Institute for detective training had especially been reorganized according to NS viewpoints", and that advancement within this organization was contingent to a considerable degree on the internalization of Nazi ideology.[20]
By November 1934, Daluege's authority over the uniformed police was extended beyond Prussia to include all of Germany.[21] That meant he commanded municipal police forces, the rural gendarmerie, traffic police, the coastguard, the railway police, the postal protection service, fire brigades, the air-raid services, the emergency technical service, the broadcasting police, the factory protection police, building regulations enforcement, and the commercial police.[22]
In 1936, the entire German police force was reorganized with the administrative functions previously exercised by the now largely defunct federal states reassigned to the nominal control of the Reich Interior Ministry, but under the actual control of Himmler's SS.
By August 1939, the strength of the Orpo under Daluege's command and control had reached upwards of 120,000 active-duty personnel.[28]
Further indications of the brutality coming from Daluege's office (Chief of the
During the war in 1941, he attended a mass shooting of 4,435 Jews by
Massacre of Lidice
In 1942 Daluege became the
Personal life
On 16 October 1926, Daluege married Käthe Schwarz (born 23 November 1901) who later became a member of the Nazi Party (member no. 118,363).[36] In 1937, Daluege and his wife adopted a son. Afterwards, Daluege's wife bore three biological children, two sons born in 1938 and 1940 and a daughter born in 1942.[36]
In May 1943, Daluege became seriously ill after a massive heart attack. In August, he was relieved of all of his day-to-day responsibilities and spent the rest of the war living on a property in western Pomerania, given to him by Hitler.[37]
Arrest, trial, conviction and sentence
In May 1945, Daluege was arrested by British troops in Lübeck and interned in Luxembourg and then at Nuremberg, where he was charged as "a major war criminal".[31] In September 1946 after being extradited to Czechoslovakia, he was tried for his many crimes against humanity committed in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.[31] Throughout his trial, Daluege was unrepentant, claiming he was beloved by "three million policemen", only following Hitler's orders, and had a clear conscience.[38] He was convicted on all charges and sentenced to death on 23 October 1946. Daluege was hanged in Pankrác prison in Prague on 24 October 1946.[32][39]
Summary of SS career
- Dates of promotion
- SS-Oberführer: 25 July 1930[4]
- SS-Gruppenführer: 1 July 1932[4]
- Generalmajor der Landespolizei: 14 September 1933[4]
- SS-Obergruppenführer: 9 September 1934[4]
- Generalleutnant der Landespolizei: 20 April 1935[4]
- General der Polizei: 17 June 1936[4]
- SS-
- Decorations
- Iron Cross, second class (1918)[40]
- Wound Badge in Black (1918)[40]
- Golden Party Badge (1934)[40]
- War Merit Cross with Swords, second class (1941) and first class (1941)[40]
- German Cross in Silver (10 September 1942)[40]
- Knights Cross of the War Merit Cross, with swords (7 September 1943)[40]
See also
References
Notes
- ^ Bert Hoppe and Hildrun Glass: Sowjetunion mit annektierten Gebieten I: Besetzte sowjetische Gebiete unter deutscher Militärverwaltung, Baltikum und Transnistrien, page 145, Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Juden durch das nationasozialistische Deutschland 1933-1945 Band 7, Oldenbourg Verlag, München 2011
- ^ Kurt F. Rosenberg: "Einer, der nicht mehr dazugehört": Tagebücher 1933-1937, page 219, Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2012
- ^ a b Wistrich 2001, p. 35.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Miller 2006, p. 216.
- ^ Miller 2006, pp. 216, 224.
- ^ a b Longerich 2012, p. 133.
- ^ a b Miller 2006, p. 215.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-300-16670-5. pp. 68–69
- ^ Read 2005, pp. 154–155.
- ^ Longerich 2012, pp. 133–134.
- ^ Koehl 2004, p. 55.
- ^ Weale 2012, pp. 59–61.
- ^ Miller 2006, p. 217.
- ^ a b Miller 2006, p. 218.
- ^ Lilla 2005, pp. 198, 297.
- ^ a b Stackelberg 2007, p. 189.
- ^ a b Zentner & Bedürftig 1991, p. 180.
- ^ For more details on this event see: Höhne (2001). The Order of the Death's Head: The Story of Hitler's SS, pp. 93–131.
- ^ Rabinbach & Gilman 2013, p. 335.
- ^ Browder 1996, pp. 99–100.
- ^ Weale 2012, p. 86.
- ^ Weale 2012, p. 133.
- ^ Longerich 2012, p. 204.
- ^ Longerich 2012, p. 240.
- ^ Bracher 1970, p. 353.
- ^ MacDonald 1990, p. 29.
- ^ MacDonald 1990, p. 175.
- ^ "Vortrag ueber die Deutsche Ordnungspolizei, Gehalten am 2. September 1940," T580 (Captured German Documents Microfilmed at the Berlin Document Center. Collection of the National Archives)/Roll 96. Cited from Edward B. Westermann, "Friend and Helper: German uniformed police operations in Poland and the general government, 1939–1941", The Journal of Military History 58 no.4 (Oct 1994): 643.
- ^ "Der Chef der Ordnungspolizei, Berlin, den 5. September 1939," T580/Roll 96. Cited from: Edward B. Westermann, "Friend and Helper: German uniformed police operations in Poland and the general government, 1939–1941", The Journal of Military History 58 no.4 (Oct 1994): 643.
- ^ Miller 2006, pp. 219, 221, 223.
- ^ a b c Miller 2006, p. 223.
- ^ a b Snyder 1994, p. 61.
- ^ Bracher 1970, p. 347.
- ^ MacDonald 1990, p. 174.
- ^ Burian, Michal; Knížek, Aleš; Rajlich, Jiří; Stehlík, Eduard (2002). Assassination — Operation Arthropoid, 1941–1942 (PDF). Prague: Ministry of Defence of the Czech Republic.
- ^ a b Miller 2006, p. 225.
- ^ McKale 2011, p. 104.
- ^ McKale 2011, pp. 104–105.
- ^ Some sources state he was hanged on 23 October 1946. Miller (2006) p. 215; Zentner & Bedürftig (1991) p. 180.
- ^ a b c d e f Miller 2006, p. 224.
Bibliography
- Bracher, Karl-Dietrich (1970). The German Dictatorship: The Origins, Structure, and Effects of National Socialism. New York: Praeger Publishers. ASIN B001JZ4T16.
- Browder, George (1996). Hitler's Enforcers: The Gestapo and the SS Security Service in the Nazi Revolution. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-510479-X.
- Höhne, Heinz (2001). The Order of the Death's Head: The Story of Hitler's SS. New York: Penguin Press. ISBN 978-0-14-139012-3.
- Koehl, Robert (2004). The SS: A History 1919–45. Stroud: Tempus. ISBN 978-0-7524-2559-7.
- Lilla, Joachim (2005). Der Prußische Staatsrat 1921–1933: Ein biographisches Handbuch. Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag. ISBN 978-3-770-05271-4.
- Longerich, Peter (2012). Heinrich Himmler. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-959232-6.
- McKale, Donald M (2011). Nazis after Hitler: How Perpetrators of the Holocaust Cheated Justice and Truth. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-4422-1316-6.
- MacDonald, Callum (1990). The Killing of SS Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich. New York: Macmillan Publishing. ISBN 0-02-034505-4.
- Miller, Michael (2006). Leaders of the SS and German Police, Vol. 1. R. James Bender Publishing. ISBN 93-297-0037-3.
- Rabinbach, Anson; Gilman, Sander L. (2013). The Third Reich Sourcebook. Univ of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-20867-4.
- Read, Anthony (2005). The Devil's Disciples: Hitler's Inner Circle. New York: Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-32697-0.
- ISBN 978-1-56924-917-8.
- Stackelberg, Roderick (2007). The Routledge Companion to Nazi Germany. New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-30861-8.
- Weale, Adrian (2012). Army of Evil: A History of the SS. New York: Caliber Printing. ISBN 978-0-451-23791-0.
- Westermann, Edward B. "Friend and Helper: German uniformed police operations in Poland and the general government, 1939–1941." The Journal of Military History 58 no.4 (Oct 1994): 643.
- Wistrich, Robert (2001). Who's Who In Nazi Germany. New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-11888-0.
- Zentner, Christian; Bedürftig, Friedemann (1991). ISBN 0-02-897500-6.
External links
- Media related to Kurt Daluege at Wikimedia Commons
- Quotations related to Kurt Daluege at Wikiquote
- Information about Kurt Daluege in the Reichstag database
- Newspaper clippings about Kurt Daluege in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW