70
years ago on this date, May 11, 1945, SS General, Christian Weber died in a
lorry accident. I will post information about him from Wikipedia.
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Christian Weber in 1934
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Christian Weber
(25 August 1883 in Polsingen – 11 May 1945 in the Swabian Jura) was a German
Nazi Party official and Schutzstaffel Brigadeführer.
Biography
Along
with the likes of Emil Maurice, Ulrich Graf,
and Max Amann, Weber, a bouncer at
a seedy bar, was amongst the earliest political associates of Adolf Hitler. Ever ready for a fight, Weber
carried a riding crop with him, a habit shared by
Hitler in these early years. Otto Strasser would later claim that Weber
was also a pimp at this time, although he had a hatred
of Weber whom he denounced as an "ape-like creature" and "the
most despicable of Hitler's underlings". In late 1921 Weber was one of
Hitler's cohorts when the Nazis attacked a meeting of the Bavarian League.
Hitler personally beat up the League's leader Otto Ballerstedt, an event that saw the
future Führer serve a month in prison. At some
stage before 1923 Weber lost an eye and often wore a specially made pair of
glasses as a result.
Following
the Beer Hall putsch Weber, by then a horse
trader, was owed $1000 by Hitler after he had bought the debt from Ernst
Hanfstaengl. Weber would insist on Hitler paying the debt in full. The two
however remained close and Hanfstaengl later claimed that Weber was one of the
few who could make fun of Mein Kampf in Hitler's company.
A
city councilman in Munich,
he was effectively the boss of the city following the Nazi seizure of power.
Weber became something of a hate figure in the city, particularly amongst the
middle classes and he became a by-word for corruption as it was regularly
questioned how this former hotel bellboy had come to own a number of hotels,
villas, petrol stations, a brewery, the city's racecourse and bus service as
well as a home in the Munich Residenz. Other titles that he was granted
included presidency of the Reichsjagdmuseum and the
League of German Riding Stable Owners. On the Night of the Long Knives Weber was amongst
those SS men who travelled to Bad Wiessee to purge the Sturmabteilung
leadership. Hitler personally rewarded him for his involvement by promoting him
to the rank of Oberführer in the SS.
Kristallnacht
Ever
on the lookout for a chance to enrich himself, Weber was active on Kristallnacht when he took a group of SS men,
including a young Hermann Fegelein, to Planegg where
they ransacked the estate of Jewish nobleman Baron Rudolf Hirsch. The estate
would eventually pass into Weber's possession. Weber also took care of security
arrangements for Nazi functions in Munich although he received criticism for
this when his plans failed to prevent Georg Elser's
bomb attack on the Bürgerbräukeller on 8 November 1939 which missed
Hitler and a number of other leading Nazis including Heinrich Himmler and Alfred Rosenberg by only
ten minutes. Despite this Weber remained important in Munich, although
Gauleiter Paul Giesler was his rival. The two clashed in 1943
over the continuation of horse racing in the city and the dispute was
ultimately brought to Hitler himself, where Giesler argued it should be banned
as it was not conducive to total war. Hitler agreed in principle with Giesler
but, due to the respect for his Alter
Kämpfer comrade, he allowed racing to continue at the Theresienwiese
only.
Death
Weber
died in 1945 after being arrested by the United States Army in Berlin. He was
one of a number of prisoners being carried in an open-backed lorry when the
vehicle overturned. Weber suffered terminal injuries in the accident. His body
was interred in a mass grave at Heilbronn.
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