On this date, December 4, 1946,
Richard Drauz was executed by hanging in Landsberg Prison for war crimes. I
will post the information about him from Wikipedia.
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Richard
Drauz (PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.stadtgeschichte-heilbronn.de/index.php?id=richard_drauz)
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Richard Drauz (help·info) (April 2, 1894 – December 4, 1946)
was a Nazi German politician and Kreisleiter of Heilbronn, Germany. He was also
Member of the Reichstag from 1933 until the collapse of the Third Reich after
World War II. One of the most fanatical and violent NSDAP leaders in the last
days of the war, Drauz was put on trial and executed by American occupation
forces for war crimes in 1946.
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Richard
Drauz
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Feb 1945 Masthead of
Richard Drauz's propaganda mouthpiece, the Heilbronner Tagblatt. The box
on the right reads "Whoever Hopes, Wins!"
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Early
life
Drauz
was born in Heilbronn in Württemberg, the son of postal official Christian
Heinrich Drauz (1865–1937) and Friederike Johanna née Dederer (1866–1938). His
parents were both from old Heilbronner vintner's families. After attending middle
and high school in Heilbronn, he became a mechanic's apprentice. He enlisted in
the German Army at the start of World War I and advanced to the rank of Feldwebel
(Sergeant) by 1918. After the war he studied at the Hochschule Esslingen in Esslingen
am Neckar and from 1921 to 1928 worked at the Maschinenfabrik Esslingen as a
refrigeration engineer. There he met Wilhelm Murr, a Nazi agitator who later
became Gauleiter and then Reichsstatthalter of the German State of Württemberg.
On 1 April 1928, Drauz joined the Nazi Party as Member No. 80730 and shortly
afterwards he and his family moved to Dortmund. His employment there is unclear.
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Aerial view of
bomb-damaged Heilbronn city center, March, 1945
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Rise
to Power
In
1932 Wilhelm Murr, the new Party Gauleiter of Württemberg, called upon Drauz to
be NSDAP District Leader in Heilbronn, a city with a loyal SPD/DDP
social-democratic electorate and therefore a problem for the Party. Drauz
returned to his home city to impose "National Socialist virtue", by
force if necessary. He was made Director of the Nazi daily party newspaper, the
Heilbronner Tagblatt, a key position he would use to spread propaganda,
harass enemies and make calls to action. After the Nazi Seizure of Power on 30
January 1933, Drauz pushed all other Heilbronner newspapers out of business
through raids, property seizures and advertiser intimidation. In July 1933, a
large group of Sturmabteilung (SA) storm troopers attacked the former Lord
Mayor Emil Beutinger, who had been critical of the Nazis. Beutinger's home was
damaged but he was able to escape unharmed. Police proceedings against 40 suspects
were suppressed by Drauz.
He
was rewarded for such brutal actions, first appointed Political Commissar for
the greater Heilbronn Landkreis and then made an honorary Sturmbannführer in
the SA. From August 1933 he also gained membership on the Heilbronn City
Council, and as such, also appointed deputy to Oberbürgermeister (Lord Mayor) Heinrich
Gültig on October 12. This was merely a formality as Drauz already had
authority over Gültig in the party hierarchy. In the national elections of
November 1933, Drauz also won a seat in the Reichstag for Württemberg District
18, although by this time the Reichstag was neither democratically elected nor
politically influential.
By
1938 Drauz had gained significant positions on the Boards of many companies, associations
and unions in Heilbronn, such as: Heilbronn Maschinenbau-Gesellschaft,
Glashütte Heilbronn AG, the Portland Cement Plant in Lauffen am Neckar and even
the VfR Heilbronn football club. He answered the rejection of his request for a
supervisory board position at the food manufacturer Knorr (brand) with hate
mail and abusive articles in the Tagblatt. As the result of district
reforms on October 1, 1938, Heilbronn became seat of the newly created Heilbronn
County and the previously independent towns of Böckingen, Sontheim and
Neckargartach were annexed. Heilbronn was now the second largest city in
Württemberg, after Stuttgart, and Drauz its political master.
However,
Drauz was unpopular with many people, even in the Nazi's own ranks. There were
several proceedings against him before the Party's Internal District Court. Two
complainants accused him in 1934 of "purely arbitrary policies of
violence" and that he was leading "an immoral lifestyle that defies
description and will harm the overall movement". They pointed at notorious
street drinking sessions and numerous adulterous love affairs. All proceedings
ended with acquittal, probably due to the patronage of Gauleiter Wilhelm Murr.
Drauz responded by insulting his internal party opponents, initiating smear
campaigns and dismissing them from any party functions he could. If his
reputation was tarnished, his career remained unharmed: In 1943 he was
appointed NSDAP Oberbereichsleiter and he acquired additional district
management roles in Vaihingen an der Enz and Ludwigsburg.
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Street fighting in
destroyed Heilbronn in April 1945: US soldiers of the 100th Infantry
(“Century”) Division, 399th Infantry Regiment, 1st Battalion
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World
War II
After
news of the German defeat at Stalingrad in 1943, Drauz was continuously active
in delivering propaganda at the behest of the Party. He delivered speeches
nearly every day in front of local Nazi rallies in the City and County of
Heilbronn. His speeches typically conjured up old memories of the First World
War to emphasize how much victory depended on their attitude and loyalty.
On
16 January 1944 Drauz attended an NSDAP meeting which adopted "Struggle,
Work, Faith" as slogan of the year, and on January 30 in Heilbronn's Marktplatz
he announced a policy of "Endsieg". In August 1944, he ordered the
managers of Heilbronn-based companies to an information session, during which
he demanded full mobilization of all available resources for "Total War".
One result was the discontinuation of the Metropolitan Orchestra and Municipal
Theater. Any remaining cultural life in the city was finally broken after the
first heavy bombing raids on September 10, 1944, to be replaced only by
Drautz's "Rallying Calls".
Despite
his arbitrary leadership, behind the scenes Drauz became more serious about
evacuation plans for the city, although far too late. Initial air raids had
killed about 300 people, and Drauz carefully argued a case to his boss, Gauleiter
and now Military Defense Commissar Wilhelm Murr, that any large-scale attack on
the densely populated city center would result in heavy loss of life because of
its confined position on the Neckar. Murr refused to permit any evacuation, not
only because it would be "defeatist" but, more practically, any
evacuees would by now have no place to go. Drauz's prediction became a tragic
reality on 4 December 1944. That night a major raid completely destroyed the
city center and over 6500 people were killed, including 1000 children, the
majority incinerated in a fire storm. It became the worst bombing experience of
any city in Württemberg.
In
the final months of the war, Drauz became increasingly desperate and violent in
trying to follow Hitler's most absurd commands. As a result of the Nero Decree
in March 1945, Drauz sought to turn what remained of the ruined city into scorched
earth, for example giving orders to blow up the Neckarsulm Vehicle Factory. His
goal was largely resisted by the population because defeat was obvious, however
it partly succeeded through his orders to withdraw any remaining fire brigades.
He also ordered every district village be turned into a bastion and fight to
the last on penalty of death. On 3 April 1945, as Allied ground forces
approached, Drauz had 57-year old Ortsgruppenleiter Karl Taubenberger shot
because he failed to prevent residents from removing a tank barricade. He left
Taubenberger's corpse on display 24 hours a day on the main road. A sign with
the inscription "I am a national traitor" was hung around his neck.
The
final Battle of Heilbronn began on April 4, 1945. By April 6, recognizing the
city center could not be held but refusing to accept defeat, Drauz disbanded
his District Office, burned records and the Party Flag, then fled in two cars
with a large escort. On reaching Schweinsbergstraße, the entourage saw white
flags flying from five or six homes, including that of City Council member Karl
Kübler. The inhabitants had been advised to raise the flags by retreating Wehrmacht
troops, who had described the superior strength of approaching American forces.
Drauz stopped the car and ordered "get out, shoot, shoot everything!"
Three companions indiscriminately shot at anyone who showed up at a window or
opened a door. Kübler's wife Anna, standing protectively in front of her
husband, was murdered as well as Kübler himself, the 72-year old pastor Gustav
Beyer and 46-year old Elsa Drebinger. Heilbronn Dairy director Karl Weber, who
barely escaped the hail of bullets, later reported that Kübler had been given
authority by mayor Heinrich Gültig to surrender the city without a fight, but
Drauz "was too powerful and would not allow surrender."
Drauz's
actions directly left a total of 14 civilians dead, and his orders to fanatical
paramilitary units to fight to the end culminated in another week of bitter
hand to hand fighting, needlessly costing hundreds more lives and further
destroying what was left of the city. Unlike Stuttgart, whose mayor Karl
Strölin had quietly negotiated his city's surrender, Heilbronn was not spared
this final agony because of Drauz.
Arrest
and Execution
At
war's end in May 1945, Drauz was already being sought by the US Army because of
his involvement in the summary execution of an American POW that previous
March. Now a fugitive, he fled initially to Tübingen with his family. The
couple then left their children behind with a tutor and escaped under false
papers into the Rhineland, where they took shelter at Dernbach Monastery in Montabaur.
In July 1945, when his wife learned their children had been abandoned by the
tutor, she went back across American lines and brought them to her hometown of Talheim.
There the US Counter Intelligence Corps was waiting for her. After a long
interrogation, the CIC learned her husband's location and his false name of
"Richard Binder". CIC agent Al Sandwina and investigator Helmut F.W.
Frey then drove by jeep to the monastery, where with guns drawn they found a
man in a small garden house answering to the name "Binder". The
agents, of course, already knew this name in the false passport. When
confronted, Drauz fell apart and was arrested without further incident.
He
was tried by the American General Military Government Court (US vs. Richard
Drauz, Case Number 12-1182-1) in the Dachau Trials. The court determined
that on March 24, 1945 he shot and killed a downed American Airman who had
surrendered in the village of Dürrenzimmern, in the Heilbronn district of Brackenheim,
a war crime under the Third Geneva Convention. In his defense he stated that
the American pilot represented "Anglo-American air gangsters" who had
indiscriminately murdered hundreds of thousands of civilians in Dresden,
Hamburg, and other cities. Drauz was found guilty and sentenced to death on
December 11, 1945. Transferred to Landsberg Prison, he was executed by hanging
on December 4, 1946.
In
the aftermath, Heilbronn's new newspaper, the Heilbronner Stimme (Voice
of Heilbronn), remarked that "he was a particularly nasty specimen of the
Nazi movement." For his brutality, indiscriminate murder, and responsibility
in the final agony of their city, Drauz remains a figure of contempt in
Heilbronn to this day
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