Wilhelm Kube
Encyclopedia
Wilhelm Kube was a German
politician and Nazi
official. He was an important figure in the German Christian movement
during the early years of Nazi rule. During the war he became a senior official in the occupying government of the Soviet Union, achieving the rank of Generalkommissar for Weissruthenien (Belarus
). He was assassinated in Minsk
in 1943, triggering brutal reprisals against the citizens of Minsk.
as a student, and was an early member of the Nazi Party. In 1924 he was one of the first group of Nazi members elected to the Weimar Republic
Reichstag
. In 1928 he was appointed Gauleiter
of Brandenburg
and speaker of the tiny Nazi party fraction (6 seats) in the Prussian Landtag (Prussian state legislature).
for the ordinary election of presbyter
s and synodals within the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union on 13 November that year. The German Christians then gained about a third of all seats in presbyteries and synod
s. Kube was elected as one of the presbyters of the congregation of Gethsemane Church
in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg
. The presbyters elected him from their midst as synodal into the competent deanery
synod , and these synodals again elected him a member of deanery synodal board . When in 1933 the Nazis came to power he remained active in the German Christian movement which sought to "Nazify" the 28 Protestant church bodies
in Germany. For 23 July 1933 Hitler ordered an unconstitutional, premature re-election of all presbyters and synodals, with the German Christians now gaining 70-80% of the seats, so Kube could then further advance as head of the Berlin synod of the old-Prussian Church. Following the German conquest of Poland
in 1939 his Nazi party domain was extended to include Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia
and Reichsgau Wartheland
.
, the father-in-law of Martin Bormann
, was married to a half-Jew. In the course of a Gestapo investigation it came to light that the letter had been written by Kube, whom Buch had investigated owing to concerns over his private life and his leadership style in the Gau. Buch saw to it that Kube was removed from all his posts. Only on Hitler's orders was he allowed to remain a Gauleiter, albeit without his own Gau.
, he was appointed Generalkommissar for Weissruthenien (now known as Belarus
), with his headquarters in Minsk
. In this role Kube oversaw the extermination of the large Jewish population of this area. He was nevertheless outraged by the Sluzk Affair
in October 1941, when "Einsatzgruppen
" (death squads) of the SS massacred Jews without the authorization from the local Nazi civil administration and Security SS authorities. Non-Jewish local Belarusians were also killed, creating great resentment among the population. Kube wrote in protest to his supervisor and Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler
:
The letter concluded:
Despite these misgivings, Kube participated in an atrocity on 2 March 1942 in the Minsk ghetto
. During a search of the ghetto by German and Belarusian policeman a group of children were seized and thrown into pits of deep sand to die.
"At that moment, several SS officers, among them Wilhelm Kube, arrived, whereupon Kube, immaculate in his uniform, threw handfuls of sweets to the shrieking children. All the children perished in the sand."
.
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
politician and Nazi
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
official. He was an important figure in the German Christian movement
German Christians
The Deutsche Christen were a pressure group and movement within German Protestantism aligned towards the antisemitic and Führerprinzip ideological principles of Nazism with the goal to align German Protestantism as a whole towards those principles...
during the early years of Nazi rule. During the war he became a senior official in the occupying government of the Soviet Union, achieving the rank of Generalkommissar for Weissruthenien (Belarus
Belarus
Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...
). He was assassinated in Minsk
Minsk
- Ecological situation :The ecological situation is monitored by Republican Center of Radioactive and Environmental Control .During 2003–2008 the overall weight of contaminants increased from 186,000 to 247,400 tons. The change of gas as industrial fuel to mazut for financial reasons has worsened...
in 1943, triggering brutal reprisals against the citizens of Minsk.
Early life
Kube was born in Glogau (today's Głogów), Prussian Silesia, and studied history, economics and theology. He was active in the Völkisch movementVölkisch movement
The volkisch movement is the German interpretation of the populist movement, with a romantic focus on folklore and the "organic"...
as a student, and was an early member of the Nazi Party. In 1924 he was one of the first group of Nazi members elected to the Weimar Republic
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...
Reichstag
Reichstag (Weimar Republic)
The Reichstag was the parliament of Weimar Republic .German constitution commentators consider only the Reichstag and now the Bundestag the German parliament. Another organ deals with legislation too: in 1867-1918 the Bundesrat, in 1919–1933 the Reichsrat and from 1949 on the Bundesrat...
. In 1928 he was appointed Gauleiter
Gauleiter
A Gauleiter was the party leader of a regional branch of the NSDAP or the head of a Gau or of a Reichsgau.-Creation and Early Usage:...
of Brandenburg
Province of Brandenburg
The Province of Brandenburg was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia and the Free State of Prussia from 1815 to 1946.-History:The first people who are known to have inhabited Brandenburg were the Suevi. They were succeeded by the Slavonians, whom Henry II conquered and converted to Christianity in...
and speaker of the tiny Nazi party fraction (6 seats) in the Prussian Landtag (Prussian state legislature).
Nazification of Christianity
Kube remained an active Christian despite being a zealous Nazi, and in 1932 he organised the list of candidates of the Faith Movement of the German ChristiansGerman Christians
The Deutsche Christen were a pressure group and movement within German Protestantism aligned towards the antisemitic and Führerprinzip ideological principles of Nazism with the goal to align German Protestantism as a whole towards those principles...
for the ordinary election of presbyter
Presbyter
Presbyter in the New Testament refers to a leader in local Christian congregations, then a synonym of episkopos...
s and synodals within the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union on 13 November that year. The German Christians then gained about a third of all seats in presbyteries and synod
Synod
A synod historically is a council of a church, usually convened to decide an issue of doctrine, administration or application. In modern usage, the word often refers to the governing body of a particular church, whether its members are meeting or not...
s. Kube was elected as one of the presbyters of the congregation of Gethsemane Church
Gethsemane Church
Gethsemane Church is one out of four church buildings of the Evangelical Northern Prenzlauer Berg Congregaton , a member of the Protestant umbrella organisation Evangelical Church of Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia....
in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg
Prenzlauer Berg
Prenzlauer Berg is a locality of Berlin, in the borough of Pankow.Until 2001, Prenzlauer Berg was a borough of Berlin; in that year it was included in the borough of Pankow....
. The presbyters elected him from their midst as synodal into the competent deanery
Deanery
A Deanery is an ecclesiastical entity in both the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England. A deanery is either the jurisdiction or residence of a Dean.- Catholic usage :...
synod , and these synodals again elected him a member of deanery synodal board . When in 1933 the Nazis came to power he remained active in the German Christian movement which sought to "Nazify" the 28 Protestant church bodies
Landeskirche
In Germany and Switzerland, a Landeskirche is the church of a region. They originated as the national churches of the independent states, States of Germany or Cantons of Switzerland , that later unified to form modern Germany or modern Switzerland , respectively.-Origins in the Holy Roman...
in Germany. For 23 July 1933 Hitler ordered an unconstitutional, premature re-election of all presbyters and synodals, with the German Christians now gaining 70-80% of the seats, so Kube could then further advance as head of the Berlin synod of the old-Prussian Church. Following the German conquest of Poland
Invasion of Poland (1939)
The Invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign or 1939 Defensive War in Poland and the Poland Campaign in Germany, was an invasion of Poland by Germany, the Soviet Union, and a small Slovak contingent that marked the start of World War II in Europe...
in 1939 his Nazi party domain was extended to include Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia
Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia
The Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia was a Nazi German province created on 8 October 1939 from the territory of the annexed Free City of Danzig, the annexed Polish province Greater Pomeranian Voivodship , and the Nazi German Regierungsbezirk West Prussia of Gau East Prussia. Before 2 November 1939,...
and Reichsgau Wartheland
Reichsgau Wartheland
Reichsgau Wartheland was a Nazi German Reichsgau formed from Polish territory annexed in 1939. It comprised the Greater Poland and adjacent areas, and only in part matched the area of the similarly named pre-Versailles Prussian province of Posen...
.
Denunciation of Buch
In 1936 it was claimed in an anonymous letter that Party Judge Walter BuchWalter Buch
Walter Buch was a German jurist and SS-Obergruppenführer war criminal, as well as being Martin Bormann's father in law.-Life:...
, the father-in-law of Martin Bormann
Martin Bormann
Martin Ludwig Bormann was a prominent Nazi official. He became head of the Party Chancellery and private secretary to Adolf Hitler...
, was married to a half-Jew. In the course of a Gestapo investigation it came to light that the letter had been written by Kube, whom Buch had investigated owing to concerns over his private life and his leadership style in the Gau. Buch saw to it that Kube was removed from all his posts. Only on Hitler's orders was he allowed to remain a Gauleiter, albeit without his own Gau.
SS career
Kube joined the SS in 1934 and attained the rank of Rottenführer (Private First Class). In 1940 he served for a period at the concentration camp at Dachau. In July 1941, in the wake of the German occupation of the western parts of the Soviet UnionSoviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, he was appointed Generalkommissar for Weissruthenien (now known as Belarus
Belarus
Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...
), with his headquarters in Minsk
Minsk
- Ecological situation :The ecological situation is monitored by Republican Center of Radioactive and Environmental Control .During 2003–2008 the overall weight of contaminants increased from 186,000 to 247,400 tons. The change of gas as industrial fuel to mazut for financial reasons has worsened...
. In this role Kube oversaw the extermination of the large Jewish population of this area. He was nevertheless outraged by the Sluzk Affair
Sluzk Affair
The Sluzk Affair refers to the massacre of thousands of Jews and others that occurred in Slutsk, Belarus in the Soviet Union, in October 1941, near the city of Minsk while under German occupation during World War II. The perpetrators were a combination of Gestapo special forces and Lithuanian...
in October 1941, when "Einsatzgruppen
Einsatzgruppen
Einsatzgruppen were SS paramilitary death squads that were responsible for mass killings, typically by shooting, of Jews in particular, but also significant numbers of other population groups and political categories...
" (death squads) of the SS massacred Jews without the authorization from the local Nazi civil administration and Security SS authorities. Non-Jewish local Belarusians were also killed, creating great resentment among the population. Kube wrote in protest to his supervisor and Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943, Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo...
:
The town was a picture of horror during the action. With indescribable brutality on the part of both the German police officers and particularly the Lithuanian partisans, the Jewish people, but also among them Belarusians, were taken out of their dwellings and herded together. Everywhere in the town shots were to be heard and in different streets the corpses of shot Jews accumulated. The Belarusians were in greatest distress to free themselves from the encirclement.
The letter concluded:
I am submitting this report in duplicate so that one copy may be forwarded to the Reich Minister. Peace and order cannot be maintained in Belarus with methods of that sort. To bury seriously wounded people alive who worked their way out of their graves again is such a base and filthy act that the incidents as such should be reported to the Fuehrer and Reichsmarshal.
Despite these misgivings, Kube participated in an atrocity on 2 March 1942 in the Minsk ghetto
Minsk Ghetto
The Minsk Ghetto was created soon after the German invasion of the Soviet Union. It was one of the largest in Eastern Europe, and the largest in the German-occupied territory of the Soviet Union...
. During a search of the ghetto by German and Belarusian policeman a group of children were seized and thrown into pits of deep sand to die.
"At that moment, several SS officers, among them Wilhelm Kube, arrived, whereupon Kube, immaculate in his uniform, threw handfuls of sweets to the shrieking children. All the children perished in the sand."
Assassination
On 22 September 1943 Kube was assassinated in his Minsk apartment. His death was caused by a bomb hidden in a hot water bottle, which was placed in his bed by a maid, Yelena Mazanik. In retaliation, the SS killed more than 1,000 male citizens of Minsk, though SS leader Heinrich Himmler reportedly said the assassination was a "blessing" since Kube did not support some of the harsh measures mandated by the SS. Mazanik escaped the reprisals and joined the partisans. She was later awarded the title Hero of the Soviet UnionHero of the Soviet Union
The title Hero of the Soviet Union was the highest distinction in the Soviet Union, awarded personally or collectively for heroic feats in service to the Soviet state and society.-Overview:...
.