Hermann Fegelein

Hans Georg Otto Hermann Fegelein , better known as Hermann Fegelein ( Ansbach , 30 of October of 1906 - Berlin , 29 of April of 1945 ) was General (Gruppenführer) of Waffen-SS Nazi and personal assistant of Himmler . Known in a burlesque tone as “Flegelein” (flatulent), he was brother of the SS-Standartenführer Waldemar Fegelein and brother-in-law of Eva Braun , the wife of Adolf Hitler , so they were concuñados.

Beginnings on the SS

Fegelein during his adolescence was voluntary youth of block where he became fond of horses, was united in 1925 to the Reichswehr, forming rows in the regiment Nº 17 Reiter. Fegelein was champion riding during the 20s and 30s in Germany thanks to his teacher Christian Weber.

In 1928 retires of the army to exercise like police in Munich. In 1930 he joined the SA and in 1931 joined the Nazi Party on May 15, 1933 with the file number 1,200,258 and the SS on the same day with the number 66,680. From its beginnings in the SS, Fegelein who presented / displayed a consented personality, something childish and servile counted on the favoritism of Heinrich Himmler who considered it almost like its son. ¹

From that moment he is assigned in the Southern Detachment of the SS until June 16, 1936 when Himmler appointed him Director of the SS Horse Riding School in Munich , a position he held until September 1939 when he requested to go to the Front in the Waffen SS with its entire detachment, the Haupt-Reitschule München , being sent to Poland as a member of the 1st Cavalry Battalion of the 3rd SS Totenkopf Division in Warsaw where it remained until October 1943, its division was involved in the murder of 1770 Jews in The forests of Kampinos in support of the actions of Josef Meisinger , who was in command of the Einsatzgruppen IV.

On April 23, 1941, he was charged with the removal of jewels seized from the Jews from a transport in Warsaw, but Himmler interceded for him and managed to reduce the accusation. Again on May 16, 1941, he is accused of raping a woman in Krakow , and again Himmler manages to eliminate the charges. ² At this time his unit is involved in the execution of about 3500 Jews in the region of Rogatchew .

During Operation Barbarossa , the Fegelein unit (Kampfgruppen “Fegelein”) is involved in the murder of 14,178 Jews in Ukraine . He is then sent as Chief of the Cavalry Regiment SS SS Florian Geyer to the Don river region until December 1943 where he is seriously injured in combat by a Soviet sniper and spends four months in the hospital. When he is injured again in the Fourth Battle of Kharkov Himmler he does send his plane to bring him back and appoints personal assistant SS and served as adjutant SS to Hitler from 1 January 1944. It survives with minor injuries on his left arm To the attack of 20 of July of 1944 since it was in the opposite end of the table.

Marriage

Hitler some time ago sought to marry Gretl Braun , sister of Eva Braun , in order to have an excuse to present Eva in the official functions of the regime.

Gretl Braun apparently did not have a good reputation in Obersalzberg, and Hitler, who had a reputation as a matchmaker, first tried to link her to his aide, Colonel Fritz Darges , but he preferred to be sent to the Russian front to have to marry Gretl.

Then Hitler by means of Himmler convinced to Fegelein of the advantages of a arranged marriage and this accepted. On June 3, 1944, Fegelein married in Salzburg and Hitler was able to introduce Eva Braun to society at the Berghof .

Fegelein anyway, led a hectic extramarital life in Berlin with a lover. According to reports by Traudl Junge (Hitler’s secretary) and SS-Oberscharführer Rochus Misch (head of radio at Headquarters) as well as other witnesses from Hitler’s family background, Fegelein possibly had a secret love affair with Eva before marriage. ³

Last months of life

During the last months, Fegelein exerted functions of SS liaison before Hitler; But working as an informant for Himmler who no longer had the best disposition in the presence of the Führer after his failure as commander of the Group of Armies of the Vistula (Heeresgruppe Weichsel). In this way, Fegelein moved inside the bunker of Hitler informing to Himmler of the movements of the mentioned one in the last days of the regime.

Himmler, seeing his leader in disgrace and faced with the inability to openly negotiate with the allies and that they had clearly stated their intention not to negotiate with Hitler, made the decision to betray Hitler and negotiate through an intermediary with the allies.

For his part, on 26 April 1945, Fegelein took money, civilian clothes and absent himself from the bunker by going to a private apartment in the suburbs of the Berlin capital. The idea of Fegelein was to escape with his lover to Sweden .

On April 28, in the afternoon, when Fevlelein was betrayed, Fegelein was summoned to Hitler’s presence and when it was discovered that he was not in his post, the Gestapo was ordered to stop him accused of desertion .

That same night he is arrested, thanks to the information provided by the SS-Obersturmbannführer Erich Kempka , without uniform, in full drunkenness, in a Berlin apartment in the company of a foreign woman, who was also arrested on suspicion of espionage. Eva Braun, according to some versions, interceded for Fegelein before Hitler trying to convince to him that his sister was pregnant and that the death of his brother-in-law did not contribute anything; But there was no way. ⁴

Fegelein was taken to the bunker parking lots, where he was interrogated by SS-Gruppenführer Heinrich Müller (head of the Gestapo ) and Rattenhuber and SS-Brigadeführer Wilhelm Mohnke . He was tried to form a court-martial, but his advanced state of affairs thwarted the possibility of being able to self-defend himself from the serious accusations. The SS-Brigadeführer Mohnke stated about this event:

I decided that the man accused [Fegelein] deserved a trial by senior officers. I prepared the court-martial in a room next to my command post. The military judges had on our table the manual of the German Army for the War Courts, which was the Code that we were going to use. As soon as we sat down, the accused began to act in such a scandalous way that the trial could not even begin. Drunken, mad, his eyes bulging, Fegelein questioned the authority and authority of our Court. He continued babbling that he was responsible to Himmler and only to Himmler, and not to Hitler … He refused to defend himself. The man was in a miserable state: screaming, moaning, vomiting, trembling like a leaf of aspen moved by the wind. I suddenly found myself in an impossible situation. On the one hand, on the basis of all available evidence, including his previous statements, that officer was guilty of desertion in a clear and flagrant manner. However, the army manual clearly stated that no German soldier could be tried unless he had full control over his mental and physical abilities and that he was able to hear the evidence against him. […] In my opinion and in that of my colleagues, Hermann Fegelein was not in a position to face a trial, or to stand up. I closed the procedure. I returned Fegelein to SS-Gruppenführer Rattenhuber and his security team. I never saw that man again. ⁵

Once stripped of his military rank, he was executed summarily by strafing in the subterranean of the chancellery, on the morning of 29 of April of 1945 by direct order of Hitler on charges of being involved in unauthorized efforts to negotiate an agreement Peace held by Heinrich Himmler through Count Folke Bernardotte .

His body is probably still under ground meters in one of the mass graves that were set up around the ruined Chancellery.

After his death

At the time of his death, Gretl his wife was pregnant, giving birth to her only daughter Eva Barbara Fegelein the 5 of maypole of 1945 . His widow moved to Munich after the war and married Kurt Berlinghoff the 6 of February of 1954 .

Eva Barbara Fegelein, her daughter, committed suicide for passional reasons the 25 as April as 1975 being buried in Germany . It should be taken into consideration that her boyfriend lost his life in a car accident, being the main reason for the decision to take his own life.

Awards and decorations

Eisernes Kreuz II. Klasse (12/15/1939)
Eisernes Kreuz I. Klasse (06/28/1940)
Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes (03/02/1942)
Deutsche Kreuz (In gold) (01/11/1943)
Eichenlaub zum Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes (22/12/1943)
Schwertern (No. 83) (Schwertern zum Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes) (30/07/1944)
Olympischen Spiele Abzeichen (1st class)
Deutsch Reiterabzeichen (In gold)
Deutsches Sportabzeichen (In bronze)
SA Sportabzeichen (In bronze)
Dienstauszeichnung der NSDAP 10 Jahre (In bronze)
Allgemeines Sturmabzeichen (In silver)
Infanterie Sturmabzeichen (In silver)
Nahkampfspange (In silver)
Verwundetenabzeichen (In silver)