German mayor refuses to remove SS helmet from Nazi's grave
Official in Bavarian town refuses to remove headgear that belonged to German WW2 general
By Rob Hyde
The Jewish Chronicle
December 01, 2022
The helmet on Hermann Kriebel’s grave
A German mayor is refusing to remove a
decorative SS steel helmet from the tombstone of a Nazi general who was
one of Hitler’s oldest friends.
Hermann Kriebel was Obergruppenführer of the Sturmabteilung
(SA), the brutish, original paramilitary wing of the Nazi party. This
“Storm Detachment” carried out pogroms and other vicious attacks on Jews
in Nazi Germany and Austria in 1938.
Since his death aged 65 in 1941, Kriebel’s large tombstone in Aschau, Bavaria, has been adorned with a Nazi soldier’s helmet.
Kriebel (left) with Hitler, with whom he organised the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch
For
some local residents, this is an outrage. Natascha Mehler, who was born
and bred in Aschau, told the JC: “The facts about Hermann Kriebel are
horrible. I find a steel helmet as a grave decoration neither
appropriate nor contemporary, especially if you consider the biography
of Kriebel and his Nazi past.”
In 2020, historian Sabine Schalm of the Munich Institute for
Urban History and Remembrance Culture contacted the local authority
about the helmet.
She said that as the helmet bore the swastika,
it was a public display of an unconstitutional symbol, which is an
illegal act in Germany.
In response, the local authorities arranged for the swastika to
be filed off earlier this year. But now Aschau’s mayor Simon Frank is
refusing to remove the Nazi helmet from the grave, or even accept that
allowing his grave to be decorated with such a helmet is unacceptable.
When
asked by the JC why it has still not been removed, Mr Frank said he
simply saw “no need”. He added: “The issue was already discussed
privately in the municipal council in 2019 before my term of office. As a
result, there is currently no need for action from the point of view of
the municipality.”
A key problem is that although the municipal cemetery is a public area, the grave is the property of Kriebel’s family.
Now local politicians from Aschau have been joining in a series
of talks where issues including Kriebel’s grave have been discussed.
Kriebel, who was born in 1876, had a lengthy military career
that saw him serve in the Sea Battalion of the Imperial Navy and with
the German Expeditionary Corps in China.
In 1919, he was chief of staff of the Bavarian State Association of
Resident Guards, and met Hitler in 1922. He repeatedly urged him to go
ahead with a putsch and march on Berlin.
Alongside Hitler, Kriebel and fellow-Nazi Erich Ludendorff were
the driving forces in planning the Beer Hall Putsch of 8 November, 1923.
Kriebel with Hitler
The
last secret preparatory talks took place in Kriebel’s flat. Alongside
Hitler, Kriebel led a march directly into the gunfire of the Bavarian
police, who soon quashed the putsch. Hitler, Ludendorff and other
conspirators were then imprisoned. Kriebel fled to the Bavarian forest
but surrendered in January 1924.
He and Hitler were each sentenced to five years’ imprisonment in Landsberg fortress.
Visitors were allowed to come and go as they pleased, and the
prisoners were free to meet up, drink coffee, read and play music
together. The plotters were released after just one year.
Kriebel had some success as a politician in the Nazi party and
in the SA, but it paled in comparison to Hitler’s rise. Eventually, he
returned to China, as military adviser to Chiang Kai-shek and
consul-general in Shanghai.
When he died, Hitler organised a special ceremony to honour him
as a comrade-in-arms. The event was attended by leading SS and Nazi
party figures, and Hitler raised his right arm in a Sieg Heil salute as
Kriebel’s coffin was laid to rest.
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