Wilhelm Friedrich Loeper
Encyclopedia
Wilhelm Friedrich Loeper (13 October 1883 in Schwerin
– 23 October 1935 in Dessau
) was a Nazi
politician and a Nazi Gauleiter
in the Gau
of Magdeburg
-Anhalt
.
and then completed training at the Neiße Military School. Already in 1904 he was made a lieutenant
, and after various other commands, eventually a first lieutenant in 1912. Then came his transfer to the Magdeburg Pioneer Battalion 4. Here he took over command of a searchlight platoon.
After the First World War broke out, Loeper was then deployed between 1914 and 1918 at the Western Front
as a captain and company chief of Pioneer Battalion 19. He was wounded several times. In 1915 he was decorated with the Iron Cross
and the Mecklenburg-Schwerin Military Merit Cross (Mecklenburg-Schwerinsches Militärverdienstkreuz), First Class.
After the war ended, Loeper became leader of a Freikorps
that saw deployment both in the Baltic States
and the Ruhr area
. In this capacity, he was involved in quelling the Spartakus uprising
.
With the founding of the Reichswehr
, Loeper became company chief of Pioneer Battalion 2. In 1923, he worked as a teacher at the Pionierschule in Munich
, and got to know Adolf Hitler
there. Loeper took part in the Beer Hall Putsch
on 9 November 1923 and aimed at getting the Pionierschule to fall in and follow Hitler's orders. After the putsch had been put down, Loeper was discharged from the Reichswehr in 1924 for his participation.
Loeper now began to get involved in the NSDAP. In 1925 he joined the Party. He moved to Dessau and first led the Nazi local (Ortsgruppe) there. In the same year he became the Gau's manager and in the end, in 1927, Gauleiter of the Gau of Magdeburg-Anhalt, succeeding Hermann Schmischke. Loeper gave himself over to building the Party up in his Gau, and fought against the Bauhaus
, which was located in Dessau at that time. In a letter in 1930 he wrote "as the Bauhaus belongs to Jerusalem and not to Dessau". Loeper later had a decisive part in stripping this institution of its assets.
In 1928, Loeper became a member of the Anhalt Landtag
. Anhalt had a Nazi Land government as early as 1932. As of 1930, Loeper was also a member of the Reichstag
for electoral district 10 (Magdeburg
).
Loeper became leader of the Nazi Party's personnel office and publisher of the Trommler. In 1932 he instituted at Schloß Großkühnau (in Dessau) the first Stammabteilung and the Führerschule of the Reichsarbeitsdienst. In the same year came Loeper's appointment to provincial NSDAP inspector for Middle Germany
-Brandenburg
.
After the Nazis' nationwide seizure of power
, Loeper became Reich Governor in Braunschweig
and Anhalt. He set up office in Dessau. Also in 1933, the city of Magdeburg made him an honorary citizen, a distinction of which he was posthumously stripped in 1946. In 1934, he was appointed an honorary SS
Gruppenführer
and an honorary Gau leader of the Reichsarbeitsdienst. In 1935, he became a member of the Academy for German Law (Akademie für Deutsches Recht).
On 23 October 1935, Loeper died of neck cancer
. His burial took place in the Napoleon Tower (Napoleonturm) in Mildensee near Dessau. Various honours flowed from the region. The Magdeburg borough of Ottersleben named a street Hauptmann-Loeper-Straße after him. After the Nazi régime fell, though, such honours quickly disappeared.
Schwerin
Schwerin is the capital and second-largest city of the northern German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. The population, as of end of 2009, was 95,041.-History:...
– 23 October 1935 in Dessau
Dessau
Dessau is a town in Germany on the junction of the rivers Mulde and Elbe, in the Bundesland of Saxony-Anhalt. Since 1 July 2007, it is part of the merged town Dessau-Roßlau. Population of Dessau proper: 77,973 .-Geography:...
) was a Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
politician and a Nazi 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:...
in the Gau
Gau (German)
Gau is a German term for a region within a country, often a former or actual province. It was used in medieval times, when it can be seen as roughly corresponding to an English shire...
of Magdeburg
Magdeburg
Magdeburg , is the largest city and the capital city of the Bundesland of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Magdeburg is situated on the Elbe River and was one of the most important medieval cities of Europe....
-Anhalt
Anhalt
Anhalt was a sovereign county in Germany, located between the Harz Mountains and the river Elbe in Middle Germany. It now forms part of the state of Saxony-Anhalt.- Dukes of Anhalt :...
.
Life
First Loeper became an ensign (Fahnenjunker) in Pioneer Battalion 2 in SpandauSpandau
Spandau is the fifth of the twelve boroughs of Berlin. It is the fourth largest and westernmost borough, situated at the confluence of the Havel and Spree rivers and along the western bank of the Havel, but the least populated.-Overview:...
and then completed training at the Neiße Military School. Already in 1904 he was made a lieutenant
Lieutenant
A lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer in many nations' armed forces. Typically, the rank of lieutenant in naval usage, while still a junior officer rank, is senior to the army rank...
, and after various other commands, eventually a first lieutenant in 1912. Then came his transfer to the Magdeburg Pioneer Battalion 4. Here he took over command of a searchlight platoon.
After the First World War broke out, Loeper was then deployed between 1914 and 1918 at the Western Front
Western Front (World War I)
Following the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by first invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in France. The tide of the advance was dramatically turned with the Battle of the Marne...
as a captain and company chief of Pioneer Battalion 19. He was wounded several times. In 1915 he was decorated with the Iron Cross
Iron Cross
The Iron Cross is a cross symbol typically in black with a white or silver outline that originated after 1219 when the Kingdom of Jerusalem granted the Teutonic Order the right to combine the Teutonic Black Cross placed above a silver Cross of Jerusalem....
and the Mecklenburg-Schwerin Military Merit Cross (Mecklenburg-Schwerinsches Militärverdienstkreuz), First Class.
After the war ended, Loeper became leader of a Freikorps
Freikorps
Freikorps are German volunteer military or paramilitary units. The term was originally applied to voluntary armies formed in German lands from the middle of the 18th century onwards. Between World War I and World War II the term was also used for the paramilitary organizations that arose during...
that saw deployment both in the Baltic States
Baltic states
The term Baltic states refers to the Baltic territories which gained independence from the Russian Empire in the wake of World War I: primarily the contiguous trio of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania ; Finland also fell within the scope of the term after initially gaining independence in the 1920s.The...
and the Ruhr area
Ruhr Area
The Ruhr, by German-speaking geographers and historians more accurately called Ruhr district or Ruhr region , is an urban area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With 4435 km² and a population of some 5.2 million , it is the largest urban agglomeration in Germany...
. In this capacity, he was involved in quelling the Spartakus uprising
Spartacist League
The Spartacus League was a left-wing Marxist revolutionary movement organized in Germany during World War I. The League was named after Spartacus, leader of the largest slave rebellion of the Roman Republic...
.
With the founding of the Reichswehr
Reichswehr
The Reichswehr formed the military organisation of Germany from 1919 until 1935, when it was renamed the Wehrmacht ....
, Loeper became company chief of Pioneer Battalion 2. In 1923, he worked as a teacher at the Pionierschule in Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
, and got to know Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
there. Loeper took part in the Beer Hall Putsch
Beer Hall Putsch
The Beer Hall Putsch was a failed attempt at revolution that occurred between the evening of 8 November and the early afternoon of 9 November 1923, when Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler, Generalquartiermeister Erich Ludendorff, and other heads of the Kampfbund unsuccessfully tried to seize power...
on 9 November 1923 and aimed at getting the Pionierschule to fall in and follow Hitler's orders. After the putsch had been put down, Loeper was discharged from the Reichswehr in 1924 for his participation.
Loeper now began to get involved in the NSDAP. In 1925 he joined the Party. He moved to Dessau and first led the Nazi local (Ortsgruppe) there. In the same year he became the Gau's manager and in the end, in 1927, Gauleiter of the Gau of Magdeburg-Anhalt, succeeding Hermann Schmischke. Loeper gave himself over to building the Party up in his Gau, and fought against the Bauhaus
Bauhaus
', commonly known simply as Bauhaus, was a school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It operated from 1919 to 1933. At that time the German term stood for "School of Building".The Bauhaus school was founded by...
, which was located in Dessau at that time. In a letter in 1930 he wrote "as the Bauhaus belongs to Jerusalem and not to Dessau". Loeper later had a decisive part in stripping this institution of its assets.
In 1928, Loeper became a member of the Anhalt Landtag
Landtag
A Landtag is a representative assembly or parliament in German-speaking countries with some legislative authority.- Name :...
. Anhalt had a Nazi Land government as early as 1932. As of 1930, Loeper was also a member of the 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...
for electoral district 10 (Magdeburg
Magdeburg
Magdeburg , is the largest city and the capital city of the Bundesland of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Magdeburg is situated on the Elbe River and was one of the most important medieval cities of Europe....
).
Loeper became leader of the Nazi Party's personnel office and publisher of the Trommler. In 1932 he instituted at Schloß Großkühnau (in Dessau) the first Stammabteilung and the Führerschule of the Reichsarbeitsdienst. In the same year came Loeper's appointment to provincial NSDAP inspector for Middle Germany
Middle Germany
Central Germany is an economic and cultural region in Germany. Its exact borders depend on context, but it is often defined as being a region within the federal states of Saxony, Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt, or a smaller part of this region .The name dates from the German Empire, when the region...
-Brandenburg
Brandenburg
Brandenburg is one of the sixteen federal-states of Germany. It lies in the east of the country and is one of the new federal states that were re-created in 1990 upon the reunification of the former West Germany and East Germany. The capital is Potsdam...
.
After the Nazis' nationwide seizure of power
Machtergreifung
Machtergreifung is a German word meaning "seizure of power". It is normally used specifically to refer to the Nazi takeover of power in the democratic Weimar Republic on 30 January 1933, the day Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany, turning it into the Nazi German dictatorship.-Term:The...
, Loeper became Reich Governor in Braunschweig
Braunschweig
Braunschweig , is a city of 247,400 people, located in the federal-state of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is located north of the Harz mountains at the farthest navigable point of the Oker river, which connects to the North Sea via the rivers Aller and Weser....
and Anhalt. He set up office in Dessau. Also in 1933, the city of Magdeburg made him an honorary citizen, a distinction of which he was posthumously stripped in 1946. In 1934, he was appointed an honorary SS
Schutzstaffel
The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...
Gruppenführer
Gruppenführer
Gruppenführer was an early paramilitary rank of the Nazi Party, first created in 1925 as a senior rank of the SA.-SS rank:...
and an honorary Gau leader of the Reichsarbeitsdienst. In 1935, he became a member of the Academy for German Law (Akademie für Deutsches Recht).
On 23 October 1935, Loeper died of neck cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
. His burial took place in the Napoleon Tower (Napoleonturm) in Mildensee near Dessau. Various honours flowed from the region. The Magdeburg borough of Ottersleben named a street Hauptmann-Loeper-Straße after him. After the Nazi régime fell, though, such honours quickly disappeared.
Literature/Source
- Gerald Christopeit, Magdeburger Biographisches Lexikon, 2002, Magdeburg, ISBN 3-933046-49-1