| Hans (Heinz) Friedrich Karl Franz Kammler | |
|---|---|
NSDAP Id photograph, 1932 |
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| Born | 26 August 1902 Stettin, Germany |
| Died | Unknown |
| Allegiance | Nazi Germany |
| Service/branch | Schutzstaffel |
| Rank | Obergruppenführer |
| Battles/wars | World War II |
General Dr Ing. Hans (Heinz) Friedrich Karl Franz Kammler (26 August 1901 – May 1945?[1]) was a civil engineer and high-ranking officer of the SS. He oversaw SS construction projects, and towards the end of World War II was put in charge of the V-2 missile programme.
He is most commonly referred to as Heinz Kammler or Hans Kammler.
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Kammler was born in Stettin, Germany (now Szczecin, Poland). In 1919, after volunteering for army service, he served in the extreme right Rossbach Freikorps. From 1919 to 1923, he studied civil engineering at the Technische Hochschule der Freien Stadt Danzig and Munich, and was awarded his Ph.D. in November 1932, following some years of practical work in local building administration.[2]
Kammler joined the NSDAP on 1 March 1932, and held a variety of administrative positions when the Nazi government came to power in 1933, initially as head of the Aviation Ministry's building department. He joined the SS (no. 113,619) on 20 May 1933.
Kammler eventually became Oswald Pohl's deputy at the SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt (WVHA), which oversaw Amtsgruppe D (Amt D), the Administration of the concentration camp system, and was also Chief of Amt C, which designed and constructed all of the concentration and extermination camps. In this latter capacity he oversaw the installation of cremation facilities at Auschwitz-Birkenau, as part of the camp's conversion to an extermination camp.[3][4]
Following the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943, Heinrich Himmler assigned him to oversee the demolition of the ghetto in retaliation.
Kammler was also charged with constructing facilities for various secret weapons projects, including manufacturing plants and test stands for the Messerschmitt Me 262 and V-2. Following the Allied bombing raids on Peenemünde in Operation Hydra in August 1943, Kammler was assigned to moving these production facilities underground, which resulted in the Mittelwerk facility and its attendant concentration camp complex, Mittelbau-Dora, which housed slave labour for constructing the factory and working on the production lines. The project was pushed ahead under enormous time pressures despite the consequences for the slave laborers employed on it. Kammler's motto at the time was reportedly, "Don't worry about the victims. The work must proceed ahead in the shortest time possible".[5]
Albert Speer made Kammler his representative for "special construction tasks", expecting that Kammler would commit himself to working in harmony with the ministry's main construction committee. But in March 1944 Kammler had Goering appoint him as his delegate for "special buildings" under the fighter aircraft programme, which made him one of the war economy's most important managers, and robbed Speer of much of his influence.[6]
In 1944, Himmler convinced Adolf Hitler to put the V-2 project directly under SS control, and on 8 August Kammler replaced Walter Dornberger as its director. From January 1945, Kammler was appointed head of all missile projects and in April 1945 was created "Fuehrer's general plenipotentiary for jet aircraft" by Hitler.[6]
In March 1945, as US forces were advancing through Germany, the slave workers housed in the Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp were to be executed as security risks. It is believed that the order for their murder was received by Kammler, but he did not comply with it.
There are different accounts of Kammler's death:
On 9 July 1945 Kammler's widow petitioned to have him declared dead as of 9 May 1945, adducing a sworn statement by Kammler's driver, Kurt Preuk, according to which Preuk had personally seen "the corpse of Kammler and been present at his burial" on 9 May 1945. The District Court of Berlin-Charlottenburg ruled on 7 September 1948 that his death was officially established as 9 May 1945.
In a later sworn statement on 16 October 1959, Preuk stated that Kammler's date of death was "about 10 May 1945", but that he did not know the cause of death. However, it must be recognised that many ex Nazis made many sworn statements, to suit many ends. On 7 September 1965, Heinz Zeuner (a wartime aide of Kammler's), stated that Kammler had died on 7 May 1945 and that his corpse had been observed by Zeuner, Preuk and others. All the eyewitnesses consulted were certain that the cause of death was cyanide poisoning.[7] In addition to testifying to Kammler's suicide by cyanide, Zeuner also claimed earlier that Kammler had asked Zeuner to shoot him. However, doubt has been cast on Zeuner's evidence since he is reported to have told an earlier denazification hearing in February 1948 that he was already in US custody on 2 May 1945.. Zeuner's evidence in several sworn statements has subsequently been shown to conflict directly with declassified records.
In their accounts of Kammler's movements Preuk and Zeuner claimed that he left Linderhof near Oberammergau on 28 April 1945 for a tank conference at Salzburg and then went to Ebensee (where tank tracks were manufactured). According to Preuk and Zeuner he then travelled back from Ebensee to visit his wife in the Tyrol region, when he gave her two cyanide tablets. The next day, 5 May, he is said to have departed Tyrol for Prague.
However, Preuk and Zeuner's testimony clashes with the known movements of US Divisions throughout Austria in May 1945. By 4 May 1945 the US 103rd Infantry was already at Innsbruck, preventing Kammler from travelling from Ebensee to Tyrol. The US 88th Infantry division had arrived from Italy cutting off any route to the Tyrol from the south while the US 44th Infantry Division established a command post at Imst in Tyrol on 4 May 1945 and together with the 103rd entirely controlled the Tyrol region preventing Kammler from visiting his wife. Preuk is quite clear that they drove everywhere so that it would have been impossible to bypass US checkpoints.
A further complication is that the 80th Infantry Division reached Ebensee on 4 May 1945,[8] and the concentration camp itself was liberated by two M-18 tank destroyers of the US 80th Division at 2.50pm on 5 May 1945. This would have made it highly likely that Kammler would have been apprehended by US forces.
Author Bernd Ruland, in his 1969 book Wernher von Braun: Mein Leben fur die Raumfahrt, reports an altogether different account of Kammler's death. According to Ruland, Kammler arrived in Prague by aircraft on 4 May 1945, following which he and 21 SS men defended a bunker against an attack by more than 500 Czech resistance fighters on 9 May. During the attack, Kammler's aide-de-camp Sturmbannfuehrer Starck shot Kammler to avoid him falling into enemy hands.[9] This version can reportedly be traced to Walter Dornberger, who in turn is said to have heard it from eyewitnesses.[10]
In recent years Kammler has become associated with apocryphal Nazi super weapons such as "Die Glocke". The first suggestion along these lines came from author Nick Cook, who in his "The Hunt for Zero Point" (2001) raised the possibility that Kammler was brought to the United States along with other German scientists as part of Operation Paperclip as a result of his supposed involvement in secret German projects. Joseph P. Farrell's "Reich of the Black Sun" (2005) casts further doubt upon the facts surrounding his death,[11] however Farrell's only source is the book "Blunder! How the U.S. Gave Away Nazi Supersecrets to Russia" (1985) by self-identified "British Intelligence agent" Tom Agoston.[12]