Hanns Kerrl
Hanns Kerrl ( born December 11, 1887 at Faller life (now Wolfsburg ), † 15 December 1941 ) was a Nazi politician. He exercised among others, the offices of the Prussian Landtag President, Prussian Minister of Justice of 21 April 1933 to 22 June 1934, the Reich Minister for Church Affairs ( Reich Church Minister ) from 1935, in the latter he was responsible for the direct connection of the churches in the German Reich. Since 1935, also head of the Reich Office for Regional Planning, he was derisively called the Minister of space and eternity.
Life
Hanns Kerrl was born to Protestant parents in Faller life. His father was the headmaster. After participation in the First World War, in which he received as a lieutenant with the Iron Cross First and Second Class Kerrl was judicial officer. Hanns Kerrl already joined the Nazi Party in 1923 and became involved in local politics. 1928 to 1933 he was in the Prussian Landtag and was established in November 1933 member of the Reichstag for Südhannover Brunswick. He was from 1933 to 1934 the Prussian Minister of Justice and issued at this time prohibitions of Jewish lawyers and notaries.
Because of his Protestant upbringing and his relatively scandal -free career and, not least, its low party number he appeared Hitler as the right man for the post of President of the Prussian Landtag after the NSDAP in 1932 there won the majority of seats. Hitler hoped that during his " seizure of power" the Conservatives with a strict Protestant, and thus superficially " urpreußischen " Education citizens to appease at the top of the Parliament.
After Kerrl had pushed through a resolution of the Parliament and call new elections for March 5, 1933, so that the NSDAP was able to win a two-thirds majority, he sat by the Enabling Act, bringing Prussia after 234 years independence finally subdued the kingdom. On April 21, Kerrl took over the office of the Prussian Minister of Justice until 22 June 1934. Starting March 25, 1933 to 1935, he also served as Reich Commissioner for the Prussian Ministry of Justice. Kerrl introduced a system of Nazi indoctrination of newly trained lawyers: All trainees had to undergo an eight-week training camp clerk Jiiterbog. This camp was named the communal camp Hanns Kerrl and was visited from 1933 to 1939 of 20,000 young lawyers.
Kerrl enriched himself in the fruits of it operates persecution of the Jews. Around 1935 he moved into the villa of the previously expelled Jewish merchant family Lindemann On Rupenhorn No. 5, the high bank above the Stoessensee in Berlin. The 1929/1931 built by Bruno Paul in the Bauhaus style villa was Kerrl 1937 by Friedrich Hetzelt expand.
As of June 22, 1934 Kerrl was appointed Reich Minister without portfolio, after he previously had to cede his position as Prussian Minister of Justice Franz Gurtner. Since March 29, 1935 Kerrl also held the head of the newly Zweckverbandes Nuremberg Rally, which was responsible for the development and maintenance of the local Nazi Party Rally Grounds. On 16 July 1935 he was made Reich Minister for Church Affairs at the forefront of a new and short-lived ministry. In his new role, he should take care especially for the final Gleichschaltung of the German Evangelical Church. The Catholic Church had already largely withdrawn by the Reich Concordat of 1933, the political neutrality.
Kerrl was SA -Obergruppenführer and was a sympathizer of sympathizing with the Nazi German Christians.
He noted the role of mediator between strictly anti-clerical NSDAP leaders (such as Heinrich Himmler ) and the existing god -related ideologies of National Socialism ( belief in God ) to, at least outwardly. Through his background could Kerrl both the official functionaries of the churches as well as their unofficial intelligences occur. He was a central figure of the church struggle.
With the arrest of leading representatives of the NSDAP distant church like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Niemöller, inter alia, the regime decided to church dispute for themselves. Kerrl was no longer in demand in the decisions that he was not even admitted to Hitler.
The heart disease since 1936 Kerrl died at the age of 54 years on 14 December 1941 in Paris and was transferred the next day to Berlin. On December 20, there was a celebration for him in the New Reich Chancellery, then he was buried in the forest cemetery Dahlem. After his death, his Secretary of State Hermann Muhs led the ministerial office as acting until 1945.