Hinrich Lohse

Hinrich Lohse (2 September 1896 – 25 February 1964) was a Nazi German politician and a convicted war criminal, best known for his rule of the Baltic states during World War II.

Hinrich Lohse
Nazi propaganda photograph of Hinrich Lohse, as published in a Latvian newspaper in 1941.
Reichskommissar of Reichskommissariat Ostland
In office
25 July 1941 – 26 September 1944
Appointed byAdolf Hitler
Preceded byOffice created
Succeeded byErich Koch
Oberpräsident of the Province of Schleswig-Holstein
In office
25 March 1933 – 6 May 1945
Preceded byHeinrich Thon
Succeeded byOtto Hoevermann (acting)
Gauleiter of Gau Schleswig-Holstein
In office
27 March 1925 – 6 May 1945
LeaderAdolf Hitler
Preceded byOffice created
Succeeded byOffice abolished
Personal details
Born2 September 1896
Mühlenbarbek, Schleswig-Holstein
Died25 February 1964 (aged 67)
Mühlenbarbek
Political party NSDAP

Early life

Hinrich Lohse was born into a peasant family in the town of Mühlenbarbek in the Province of Schleswig-Holstein. From 1903 to 1912 he attended the Volksschule in his home town, and afterwards the higher trade school. In 1913 he worked as an employee at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg. During the First World War of 1914-1918 he served in the Imperial German Army from 23 September 1915 until his discharge with war wounds on 30 October 1916.

Nazi Party career

From 1919, Lohse was first an associate at the Schleswig-Holstein Farmers' Association, and then as of 1920 General Secretary of the Schleswig-Holsteinische Bauern- und Landarbeiterdemokratie. In 1923 he joined the Nazi Party and became on 27 March 1925 the NSDAP Gauleiter for Schleswig-Holstein. In 1924, as a member of the Völkisch-Sozialer Block list, he became the only Nazi to be elected to the city representative college (Stadtverordnetenkollegium) of Altona/Elbe. During this time, he led various nationally-oriented farming associations in northern Germany, such as the Landvolkbewegung ("Rural People's Movement"), into the Nazi Party. Between 3 September 1928 and 15 April 1929, Lohse also temporarily administered the Nazi Gau of Hamburg before the appointment of Karl Kaufmann as Gauleiter. On 15 July 1932 came his appointment as Landesinspekteur-North, In this position, he had oversight responsibility for his Gau and three others (Hamburg, Mecklenburg-Lubeck, & Pomerania). This was a short-lived initiative by Gregor Strasser to centralize control over the Gaue. However, it was unpopular with the Gauleiters and was repealed on Strasser's fall from power in December 1932. Lohse then returned to his Gauleiter position in Schleswig-Holstein.[1]

Lohse was elected to the Reichstag for electoral constituency 13, Schleswig-Holstein, in November 1932. Shortly after the Nazis' seizure of power he was appointed as Oberpräsident (High President) of the Province of Schleswig-Holstein on 25 March 1933. He thus united under his control the highest party and governmental offices in the province. In 1934, he took over the chairmanship of the Nordic Association (Nordische Gesellschaft). On 1 January 1937 he was promoted to SA-Obergruppenführer.[2] In 1942, Lohse was appointed Reich Defence Commissar, as were all Gauleiters.

Occupation official in the Baltic states
Main article: Reichskommissariat Ostland
General Commissioner of Latvia Otto-Heinrich Drechsler, Reich Commissar for the Ostland Hinrich Lohse, Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories Alfred Rosenberg and SA Officer Eberhard Medem in Dobele (1942).

On 25 July 1941, after the German occupation of Baltic states from the Soviet Union, Lohse was appointed "Reichskommissar for the Ostland".[3] Lohse retained his functions in Schleswig-Holstein and shuttled between his two seats of Riga and Kiel. As Reichskommissar for Ostland and Alfred Rosenberg's deputy, he was responsible for the implementation of Nazi Germanization policies built on the foundations of the Generalplan Ost: the killing of almost all Jews, Romani people and Communists and the oppression of the local population were its necessary corollaries.[4] Lohse was not directly responsible for the murderous actions of police forces and Einsatzgruppen who were under the control of SS-Brigadeführer and Generalmajor der Polizei Franz Walter Stahlecker, later on Higher SS and Police Leader (German: Höhere SS- und Polizeiführer, HSSPF) and even more of SS General and HSSPF Friedrich Jeckeln, the chief organizer of the Rumbula massacre.[5]

Nevertheless, as the leader of the "civil" administration he implemented, through a series of special edicts and guiding principles for the general settlement plan for Ostland, many of the preparatory acts that facilitated the subsequent police Aktionen (Nazi euphemism for killing operations). In particular he shared with Hans-Adolf Prützmann many of the responsibilities for the enslavement and ghettoization of the Jews of Latvia.

When he fled the Reichskommissariat Ostland in the autumn of 1944, and reached Schleswig-Holstein, he exercised there absolute rule as Reich Defence Commissar until the end of the war.

Post-war trial and life

On 6 May 1945, Lohse was unseated as Oberpräsident of Schleswig-Holstein (by the 5 May German surrender at Lüneburg Heath) and shortly thereafter imprisoned by the British Army. (Nazi Germany itself surrendered on 7 May and was disestablished on the evening of 8 May.) Lohse was sentenced in 1948 to 10 years in prison, but was released in 1951 due to illness. Two inquiries were launched by German prosecutors against him; the grant of a High-Presidential pension which Lohse was fighting for was withdrawn under pressure from the Schleswig-Holstein Landtag. Lohse spent his twilight years in Mühlenbarbek where he died.[6]

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See also

References
  1. Orlow, Dietrich: The History of the Nazi Party: 1919-1933 (University of Pittsburgh Press), 1969, PP. 273; 295 ISBN 0-8229-3183-4.
  2. Michael D. Miller & Andreas Schulz: Gauleiter: The Regional Leaders of the Nazi Party and Their Deputies, 1925-1945, Volume II (Georg Joel - Dr. Bernhard Rust). R. James Bender Publishing, 2017, p. 244, ISBN 1-932970-32-0.
  3. Miller and Schulz, 2017, p.249.
  4. Eichholtz, Dietrich. ""Generalplan Ost" zur Versklavung osteuropäischer Völker". UTOPIEkreativ (in German). Berlin: Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung (167 - September 2004).
  5. Angrick, Andrej; Klein, Peter (2012). The 'Final Solution' in Riga: Exploitation and Annihilation, 1941-1944. Translation from German by Ray Brandon. Berghahn Books. p. 147n44. ISBN 978-0857456014.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  6. Wistrich, Robert (1995). Who's Who in Nazi Germany. Routledge.
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