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Ernst Wilhelm Bohle

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Ernst Wilhelm Bohle
Bohle on trial, 1947.
Gauleiter of Auslands-Organisation (AO)
In office
17 February 1934 – 8 May 1945
Preceded byPosition created
Succeeded byPosition abolished
Head of Department for Germans Abroad
In office
8 May 1933 – 17 February 1934
State Secretary in the Reichsministry of Foreign Affairs
In office
21 December 1937 – 8 May 1945
Personal details
Born(1903-07-28)28 July 1903
Bradford, England
Died9 November 1960(1960-11-09) (aged 57)
Düsseldorf

Ernst Wilhelm Bohle (28 July 1903 – 9 November 1960) was the leader of the Foreign Organization of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP; Nazi Party) from 1933 until 1945.

Early life

Bohle was born in Bradford, England, the son of Hermann Bohle (1876–1943), a college teacher and engineer who emigrated to England. In 1906 Bohle moved to Cape Town, where his father was appointed to a professorship of electrical engineering, and attended a high school there. Bohle studied political sciences and business administration in Cologne and Berlin and graduated in business management at the Handelshochschule, Berlin, in December 1923. He married Gertrud Bachmann on November 14, 1925. Bohle was employed as branch manager and agent in the import-export business for several enterprises in the Rheinland from 1924 until 1930 and established and thereafter directed a large automotive firm in Hamburg from 1930 to June 1933.

Nazi career

Bohle joined the NSDAP on 1 March 1932 (membership number 999,185) and on 13 September 1933 he joined the SS (membership number 276,915) at the rank of SS-Brigadeführer. Bohle was promoted SS-Gruppenführer on 20 April 1937 and SS-Obergruppenführer on 21 June 1943.

In early 1932 he became adjutant to Hans Nieland, the leader of the Foreign Organisation of the NSDAP (NSDAP Auslands-Organisation; NSDAP/AO), responsible for South and South-West Africa and later for North America. The NSDAP/AO was founded on 1 May 1931 in Hamburg, and "Reich Organisation Leader" (Template:Lang-de) Gregor Strasser appointed Nieland as its chief. Nieland resigned from office on 8 May 1933 (because he had become head of the Hamburg police and would later become a member of the Hamburg provincial government). Bohle was charged with the leadership of the NSDAP Department for Germans Abroad (Abteilung für Deutsche im Ausland) which from October 1933 reported to Deputy-Führer Rudolf Hess. However, on 17 February 1934 the office was redesignated Auslands-Organisation der NSDAP and Bohle was raised to the rank of Gauleiter.[1] (Ernst Bohle's father Hermann Bohle [de] served as NSDAP/AO Landesgruppenleiter (Leader of the National Committee) in the Union of South Africa from 1932 until 1934, and he became president of the Berlin-based German South-African Society (Template:Lang-de) in 1938.)

From 12 November 1933 till the end of Nazi Germany in 1945, Bohle was a member of the Reichstag for the constituency "Württemberg", and from December 1937 to May 1945 he was a State Secretary in the Foreign Office.[2] The influence of the Foreign Office was greatly exaggerated to the extent that Bohle was mentioned in the foreign press as a likely successor to Joachim von Ribbentrop.[3][need quotation to verify] He was also a confidant and on the staff of Rudolf Hess, the Deputy Führer until Hess' failed peace-mission to Great Britain in May 1941.

Trial and conviction

Bohle surrendered to US forces on 23 May 1945 at Falkenau and was interned with other high ranking Nazi officials.[4] Bohle appeared on the 25th of March 1946 as a defense witness at the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg. Subsequently, Bohle was tried as a defendant in the "Ministries Trial" ("Wilhelmstraßen-Prozeß"), one of the Nuremberg follow-up trials. Although he was acquitted of crimes against humanity, Bohle was found guilty of having been a member of SS and sentenced to five years in prison on 11 April 1949. After the U.S. military instituted a system which allowed Nazi war criminals tried under their jurisdiction to slightly shorten their sentences for good behavior, Bohle, who had been in custody since his arrest, was released on 21 December 1949, several months before his full sentence expired. After his release, Bohle worked as a merchant in Hamburg. He also advocated for the reformation of an organization for the development of German South-African interstate commerce. He died in Düsseldorf. Robert Kempner dedicated a short obituary to Bohle, who he'd met while visiting Landsberg Prison. He remarked that Bohle was one of the few inmates who seemed genuinely remorseful and had asked for forgiveness for his complicity in the Nazi regime.[5]

See also

References

Notes

  1. ^ Miller & Schulz 2012, pp. 59–60.
  2. ^ Miller & Schulz 2012, p. 58.
  3. ^ McKale, Donald M. (1977). The Swastika Outside Germany. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press. p. 118. ISBN 0-87338-209-9.
  4. ^ Miller & Schulz 2012, p. 69.
  5. ^ Heller, Kevin Jon (2012-10-11). The Nuremberg Military Tribunals and the Origins of International Criminal Law. OUP Oxford. ISBN 978-0-19-165286-8.

Bibliography

  • Literature by Ernst Wilhelm Bohle in the catalogue of the "Deutsche Bibliothek" (the German National Library in Frankfurt on the river Main and Leipzig)[permanent dead link‍]
  • Ehrich, Emil: Die Auslands-Organisation der NSDAP. - Berlin: Junker u. Dünnhaupt, 1937. - 32 pp. - (Schriften der Deutschen Hochschule für Politik : 2, Der organisatorische Aufbau des Dritten Reiches; 13)
  • Grams, Grant W.(2021). Return Migration of German Nationals from the United States and Canada, 1933–1941, Jefferson, North Carolina, McFarland Publications.
  • Jong, Louis de: The German fifth column in the Second World War / translated from the Dutch by C.M. Geyl. - Rev. ed. - London : Routledge, 1956. - 308 p. : maps. - (Translation of: De duitse vijfde colonne in de tweede wereldoorlog)
  • McKale, Donald M.: The swastika outside Germany. - Kent, Ohio : Kent State Univ. Press, 1977. - xvi, 288 p. - ISBN 0-87338-209-9
  • Miller, Michael D.; Schulz, Andreas (2012). Gauleiter: The Regional Leaders of the Nazi Party and Their Deputies, 1925-1945. Vol. I (Herbert Albrecht – H. Wilhelm Huttmann). R. James Bender Publishing. ISBN 978-1-932970-21-0.
  • Müller, Jürgen: Nationalsozialismus in Lateinamerika : die Auslandsorganisation der NSDAP in Argentinien, Brasilien, Chile und Mexiko, 1931 - 1945. - Stuttgart : Akademischer Verlag Heinz, 1997. - 566 p. : ill. - (Historamericana ; 3). - ISBN 3-88099-672-5. - (Originally presented as the author's thesis (doctoral) - Heidelberg, 1994/95). - EUR 34,50
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