Otto Hellmuth
Otto Hellmuth | |
---|---|
Gau Mainfranken | |
In office 1 October 1928 – 8 May 1945 | |
Appointed by | Adolf Hitler |
Deputy | Wilhelm Kühnreich |
Preceded by | Position created |
Succeeded by | Position abolished |
Regierungsprasident of Lower Franconia | |
In office 1 July 1934 – 8 May 1945 | |
Personal details | |
Born | University of Würzburg. | 22 July 1896
Profession | Dentist |
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Otto Hellmuth (22 July 1896 – 20 April 1968) was a member of the Nazi Party and the Gauleiter in Lower Franconia (Unterfranken) from 1928 to 1945.
Early life
Born at
Nazi Party career
He joined the Nazi Party in 1922 before it was outlawed and re-joined in December 1925. He served as an Ortsgruppenleiter in Würzburg and joined the municipal council in Marktbreit. On 20 May 1928, Hellmuth was elected to the Bavarian Landtag.[1]
On 1 October 1928, Hellmuth was appointed Gauleiter of Lower Franconia (Gau Unterfranken). His home and office were in Würzburg the capital.[2] Three weeks before the first nationwide anti-Jewish boycott began in 1933, Hellmuth had already forced the closing of Jewish-owned stores and offices in Würzburg. In April 1929, he organized mass meetings to protest the death of a four-year-old child and alleged in an article in Der Stürmer that the child had been killed by Jews in a ritual murder. These accusations were dismissed after a police investigation.[3]
After the Nazi seizure of power, Hellmuth was elected to the
In 1936 he acquired the house of a Jewish pharmacist as his private residence by compelling the city to purchase it far below its market value. He lived here in great luxury with a large household staff.[5] When the Gaufrauenschaftsleiterin of Mainfranken paid Passau a formal visit, with a delegation of activists, Margarethe Schneider-Reichel presented them with a painting of Hellmuth.[7] Over most of his term, Hellmuth was not an impressive personality. Joseph Goebbels saw him as "a most retiring unassuming Gauleiter in whom one had not too much confidence." However, Hellmuth defended his Gau vigorously for a while in the spring of 1945, as Goebbels noted in his diary on 2 April.[8]
Aktion T4 complicity
On 23 September 1940, during an visit, Hellmuth demanded the immediate evacuation of the Werneck sanatorium and nursing home and confiscated it. From 3 October to 6 October 1940, a total of 777 patients were transferred. The patients were all transferred to
Post-war
Hellmuth and his family fled Würzburg on 2 April 1945, two days before it fell to US forces. He fled to the
Hellmuth killed himself on 20 April 1968 in Reutlingen.[10][11]
References
- ISBN 978-1-932970-21-0.
- ^ Anna Rosmus Hitlers Nibelungen, Samples Grafenau 2015, pp. f
- ^ Miller & Schulz 2012, pp. 454–455.
- ^ "Mainfranken – Historisches Lexikon Bayerns".
- ^ a b Miller & Schulz 2012, p. 458.
- ^ Miller & Schulz 2012, pp. 454, 459.
- ^ Anna Rosmus Hitlers Nibelungen, Samples Grafenau 2015, p. 177
- ^ a b Miller & Schulz 2012, p. 461.
- ^ "Geschichte in Kurzform". www.historischerverein.de. Retrieved 2023-05-30.
- ^ Anna Rosmus Hitlers Nibelungen, Samples Grafenau 2015, p. 177
- Bayerische Landesbibliothek. Retrieved 20 April 2016.
External links
- Würzburg
- Gau Mainfranken at the Wayback Machine (archived October 29, 2009)