Hans Lammers
Dr.Jur. Hans H. Lammers | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Allegiance | Germany |
| Years of service | 1914-1945 |
| Rank | Obergruppenführer |
| Commands held | Reichsminister und Chef der Reichskanzlei |
| Awards | Eisernes Kreuz I |
Dr. Jur. Hans Heinrich Lammers (27 May 1879– 4 January 1962) was a prominent Nazi and head of the Reich Chancellery.
Born in Lublinitz (present-day Lubliniec, Silesian Voivodeship) in Upper Silesia, the son of a veterinarian, Lammers completed law school in Breslau and Heidelberg, and was a judge in Beuthen in 1912.
Lammers received the Iron Cross, First and Second Class, during the First World War, then resumed his career as a lawyer and joined the German National Peoples Party (DNVP), reaching the position of Undersecretary of the Interior by 1922.
In 1932, Lammers joined the Nazi Party and achieved rapid promotion, appointed a police department head in 1933, and soon afterwards a State Secretary and chief of the Reich Chancellery. In this position, he became the center of communications and chieflegal adviser for all government departments. From 1937, he was a member of Adolf Hitler's cabinet as a Reich Minister without Portfolio, and from 30 November 1939 a member of the Council of Ministers for the Defense of the Reich. In this position he was able to review all pertinent documents regarding national security and domestic policy even before they were forwarded to Hitler personally.
Beginning in January 1943, Lammers served as President of the cabinet when Hitler was absent from their meetings. Along with Martin Bormann, he increasingly controlled access to Hitler. In February 1943, following Stalingrad, Bormann with Lammers attempted to create a three-man junta representing the Party (Bormann), The State (Lammers), and the Army which would have been led by Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, chief of the OKW (armed forces high command). This Committee of Three would have exercised dictatorial powers over the home front. Joseph Goebbels, Albert Speer, Hermann Göring and Heinrich Himmler all saw this proposal as a power grab by Bormann and Lammers and a threat to their power, and combined to block it. However, this scheme eventually collapsed due to the frequent infighting and mistrust the party, military, and the various ministries had amoungst one another as Lammers himself eventually lost power and influence due to the increasing irrelevancies of his post due to the war.
In April Lammers was arrested by Hitler's forces during the final days of the Third Reich, in connection with the upheaval surrounding Hermann Göring, who thought that Hitler had stepped down. Hitler vehemently opposed giving up power and wanted Lammers shot. He was rescued, but in the meanwhile his wife committed suicide near Obersalzberg (the site of Hitler's mountain retreat) in early May 1945, as did his daughter two days later.[citation needed]
After the war in April 1946 Lammers was a witness at the Nuremberg tribunal. In April in 1949 he was put under Subsequent Nuremberg Trials in the Ministries Trial and sentenced to 20 years in prison. The sentence was later reduced to 10 years, and he was pardoned and released in 1952. He died on 4 January 1962 in Düsseldorf, and was buried in Berchtesgaden in the same plot as his wife and daughter.
See also
External links
- 1879 births
- 1962 deaths
- People from Lubliniec
- People from the Province of Silesia
- German Nazi politicians
- People convicted by the United States Nuremberg Military Tribunals
- SS generals
- Nazi leaders
- German military personnel of World War I
- Recipients of the Iron Cross
- University of Wrocław alumni
- University of Heidelberg alumni
- German prisoners and detainees
- Prisoners and detainees of the United States military