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August Heissmeyer

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German Nazi, SS-Obergruppenführer
August Heissmeyer
Birth nameAugust Heißmeyer
Born(1897-01-11)11 January 1897
Aerzen, German Empire
Died16 January 1979(1979-01-16) (aged 82)
Schwäbisch Hall, West Germany
Allegiance German Empire
 Nazi Germany
Branch Imperial German Army
Schutzstaffel
Years of service1914–1918
1939–1945
RankObergruppenführer
Battles / warsWorld War I
World War II
AwardsIron Cross, 1st and 2nd class
Spouse(s)Gertrud Emma Scholtz-Klink (1940–1979)

August Heißmeyer or Heissmeyer, (11 January 1897 – 16 January 1979), was a German SS functionary during the Nazi era. He commanded the SS Main Office in 1935–1939. After World War II, Heissmeyer was tried and convicted as a "major Nazi offender".

Early life

After finishing school, Heissmeyer joined the Prussian military. In World War I, in August 1914 he volunteered for the Prussian army. Participant of the First World War, from October 1914 he served in the 164th Infantry Regiment, lieutenant (August 6, 1916), company commander. From August 1917 until the end of the war he was a pilot. He was awarded the Iron Cross 1st and 2nd Class for his distinguished service. After the end of the war, Heissmeier was a member of the Freikorps and in 1920 participated in the Kapp Putsch. After giving up his studies, he was employed as a driving teacher. In 1923 he first came into contact with the Nazi Party, which he joined in 1925. In early 1926, Heissmeyer joined the Sturmabteilung (SA) where he was responsible for building up the SA-Gausturm Hannover-Süd and was for a time, from 1927 to April 1928, the acting Deputy Gauleiter. In 1940 Heissmeyer, previously married with six children in his custody, married Gertrud Scholtz-Klink, the Reichsfrauenführerin (Reich Women's Leader), who had two previous marriages herself.

SS career

Heissmeyer joined the Schutzstaffel (SS) in January 1930. From 1932, Heissmeyer was posted to the SS Main Office, becoming its leader in 1935 and relieving Heinrich Himmler from that specific position. On 9 November 1936, Heissmeyer was promoted to SS-Obergruppenführer (general) and Inspector of the National Political Institutes of Education. In 1939, Heissmeyer was appointed SS Oberabschnittsleiter "East" and in 1940 as HSSPF (Higher SS and Police Leader) Spree, where he was in charge of the Berlin-Brandenburg area.

August Heissmeyer took over the command of the SS Totenkopf Standarte in 1940 from the outgoing Theodor Eicke, who in 1939 had begun commanding a combat SS division (SS Division Totenkopf) and therefore gave his supervision over the concentration camps back to the SS Leadership Main Office. Heissmeyer was provisionally in charge of this bureau until May 1942. Richard Glücks took over the position, and became the chief of the Concentration Camps Inspectorate. In April 1945, Heissmeyer was given command of Kampfgruppe "Heissmeyer", a collection of Volkssturm militia and Hitler Youth who were given the task of protecting the Spandau airfield outside Berlin.

Post-war trial and conviction

At the end of World War II in Europe, Heissmeyer and Scholtz-Klink fled from the Battle of Berlin. After the fall of Nazi Germany, in the summer of 1945, they were briefly detained in a Soviet prisoner of war camp near Magdeburg, but escaped shortly afterwards. With the assistance of Princess Pauline of Württemberg, Heissmeyer and Scholtz-Klink went into hiding in Bebenhausen near Tübingen. They spent the subsequent three years under the aliases of Heinrich and Maria Stuckebrock. On 29 February 1948, the couple were identified and arrested by French authorities near Tübingen and held for trial the following month. He served 18 months in prison before being released in 1949. The following year, he was sentenced by the denazification appeals court to three years of imprisonment and the forfeiture of property as a "major Nazi offender". His nephew Kurt Heissmeyer, an SS physician, was also convicted.

After his release, Heissmeyer went to live in Schwäbisch Hall and became the director of the West German Coca-Cola bottling plant. He died on 16 January 1979, five days after his 82nd birthday.

References

  1. Michael D. Miller & Andreas Schulz: Gauleiter: The Regional Leaders of the Nazi Party and Their Deputies, 1925–1945, Volume 1 (Herbert Albrecht - H. Wilhelm Hüttmann), R. James Bender Publishing, 2012, p. 43 ISBN 978-1-932-97021-0.

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