Jump to content

Walter Huppenkothen

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Walter Huppenkothen
Born31 December 1907
Died5 April 1978 (1978-04-06) (aged 70)
EducationOpladen Gymnasium, University of Cologne, University of Düsseldorf
Political partyNSDAP/Nazi Party

Walter Huppenkothen (31 December 1907 in Haan, Rhineland – 5 April 1978 in Lübeck)[1] was a German lawyer, Sicherheitsdienst (SD) leader, and Schutzstaffel (SS) prosecutor in the Hauptamt SS-Gericht.

Huppenkothen attended school in Opladen and studied Law and Political Science at the University of Cologne and University of Düsseldorf and then qualified as a lawyer. On 1 May 1933, he joined the Nazi Party and the Allgemeine SS. Unable to find employment in government service he joined the SD (the intelligence service of the SS) in Düsseldorf. He also served for a brief time as head of State Police and as an SD Chief in the East Prussian-town of Tilsit (now Sovetsk, Russia), and was replaced in both positions by fellow Gestapo member Dr. Heinz Gräfe in October and November 1937.[2]

World War II

[edit]

Role in the Holocaust

[edit]

Following the German invasion of Poland, Huppenkothen was involved in the Holocaust in various areas of occupied Poland (part of the Nazi-controlled General Government). He worked as a liaison with the SD's Einsatzgruppen during his time as part of the Gestapo, as well as an SD Chief in Kraków[3] and as head of the Gestapo in Lublin in February 1940 .[4] In July 1941, he was appointed to the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) in Berlin with the rank of Sturmbannführer (Major) in charge of a Gestapo unit dealing with political enemies of the Reich as the successor to Walter Schellenberg.[2]

Prosecutions

[edit]

As an SS Standartenführer (Colonel) he was appointed the prosecutor of the SS and police court in Munich. On 6 April 1945, he prosecuted Hans von Dohnanyi in Sachsenhausen concentration camp while the defendant lay semi-conscious on a stretcher having contracted a serious infection and the proceedings ended with him being condemned to death by Sturmbannführer Otto Thorbeck.[5]

Memorial to members of the German resistance prosecuted by Walter Huppenkothen

On 8 April 1945, under orders from Ernst Kaltenbrunner, he was the prosecutor at a drumhead court-martial presided over by Otto Thorbeck without witnesses, records of proceedings or a defence in Flossenbürg concentration camp. Among the condemned were Lutheran clergyman Dietrich Bonhoeffer, General Hans Oster, Army Chief Judge Dr. Karl Sack, Captain Ludwig Gehre and former head of the Abwehr Admiral Wilhelm Canaris.[5] The prisoners were accused of making an assassination attempt by bombing on Adolf Hitler at his headquarters of Wolf's Lair, which killed four and wounded Hitler himself.[3] The court's prosecution employed torture methods such as thumb screwing and mechanical stretching devices on the accused, who were subsequently sentenced to death after a brief trial and executed by hanging on 9 April 1945, only around two weeks before the camp's liberation. Otto Thorbeck later testified that the conspiracy trials lasted three hours under Huppenkothen's direction and that he shouted the accusation at them, then permitted a brief answer period before the death sentence was imposed.[6] A commemorative plaque for the prisoners executed, as well as a statue of Bonhoeffer, exists at the former site of the camp, now a memorial site.[7][8]

Post-war

[edit]

Collaboration with US military

[edit]

Huppenkothen was captured at Gmunden on 26 April 1945.[1] After the war, Huppenkothen was interned by the Americans and worked for the Counterintelligence Corps of the US Army until January 1949. The Army's counterintelligence division took a particular interest in Huppenkothen's knowledge of Communism and his work as a Gestapo official in searching for members of the Communist resistance and espionage group, the Red Orchestra.[3][9]

Trials and testimonies

[edit]

From 1949–1956, Walter Huppenkothen was tried multiple times for torture and murder in his 8 April 1945 prosecution.[10] For the charge(s) of murder, Huppenkothen was acquitted, but he was still sentenced to 7.5 years on charges of torture, although the acquittal of his murder charge(s) has continued to arouse criticism in modern times. Huppenkothen was released from prison in 1959.[9][11][6][12]

Huppenkothen also testified at the May 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem, Israel, though his family reported that he was reluctant to do so.[13][14]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b Walter Huppenkothen at munzinger.de (German language) Retrieved 22 September 2013
  2. ^ a b Wildt, Michael (2009). An Uncompromising Generation: The Nazi Leadership in the Reich Main Security Office. University of Wisconsin Press. pp. 219, 329–330. ISBN 978-0299234645.
  3. ^ a b c Nelson, Anne (2009-04-07). Red Orchestra: The Story of the Berlin Underground and the Circle of Friends Who Resisted Hitle r. Random House Publishing Group. pp. 300–304. ISBN 9781588367990.
  4. ^ Birn, Ruth (June 2011). "FIFTY YEARS AFTER: A CRITICAL LOOK AT THE EICHMANN TRIAL". Case Western Reserve Journal of Law. 1/2: 443.
  5. ^ a b Peter Hoffman (1996). The History of the German Resistance, 1933–1945. McGill-Queen’s Press. ISBN 0-77-3515313.
  6. ^ a b "Hitler's Advocate". Time 57. February 26, 1951. Retrieved 2018-04-26.
  7. ^ "KZ-Gedenkstätte Flossenbürg: Memory". www.gedenkstaette-flossenbuerg.de. Retrieved 2018-05-03.
  8. ^ Purucker, Erwin. "Flossenbürg - KZ-Gedenkstätte". www.fotos-reiseberichte.de. Retrieved 2018-05-03.
  9. ^ a b Breitman, Richard; Goda, Norman J. W.; Naftali, Timothy; Wolfe, Robert (2005-04-04). U.S. Intelligence and the Nazis. Cambridge University Press. pp. 149, 299. ISBN 9780521617949.
  10. ^ Steinweis, Alan E.; Rachlin, Robert D. (2013-03-30). The Law in Nazi Germany: Ideology, Opportunism, and the Perversion of Justice. Berghahn Books. p. 172. ISBN 9780857457813.
  11. ^ Sifton, Elisabeth; Stern, Fritz (2013). No Ordinary Men: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Hans Von Dohnanyi, Resisters Against Hitler in Church and State. New York Review of Books. pp. 115, 139. ISBN 9781590176818. walter huppenkothen.
  12. ^ "Frode Weierud's CryptoCellar | Huppenkothen Message". cryptocellar.org. Retrieved 2018-04-27.
  13. ^ Bigart, Homer (May 9, 1961). "Huppenkothen Reluctant". New York Times. ProQuest 115376723.
  14. ^ "Eichmann trial: Testimony taken abroad". www.nizkor.org. Retrieved 2018-04-27.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Walter_Huppenkothen&oldid=1217602084"