Konrad Morgen's Career Gap

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little grey rabbit
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Konrad Morgen's Career Gap

#1

Post by little grey rabbit » 28 Sep 2015, 16:35

OK, this is a tiny bit speculative.

I have been looking at the Amazon free sample of Konrad Morgen: The Conscience of a Nazi Judge - I'm afraid thus far I am too mean to buy it.

And it has a little chronology of lebenslauf
May 1942 Morgen is dismissed and demoted to the rank of private.
July 1942 Morgen in basic combat training
December 1942 Morgen joins Division "Wiking" in the Soviet Union
May 1943 Morgen is recalled from the front to the SS Judiciary in Munich. Morgen is transferred to the Reich Criminal Office in Berlin
Well, that was quite a roller-coster. Now generally when SS people get demoted they liked to make a big song and dance about it to the Allies to show how regime hostile they were. And so while I daresay the biography as the whole story, I was interested in what Morgen said about it immediately after the war. There are a lot of statements from Morgen, not always of good reproductions, but what I found was

a) 1 October 1945
Morgen was born 8 July 09 in Frankfurt/Main. He studied law in Frankfurt, Berlin, Paris, Rome, The Hague and Kiel, graduating Dusseldorf in 1938. He had joined the party in 1933, and in 1939 became adviser to the DAF (German Labor Front). Later in 1939 he joined the Waffen SS and in 1940 he became an assistant judge in the special court of the SS Gerichtsbarkeit (Special Jurisdictional system of the SS). As an SS judge he was in charge of a great number of investigations of high ranking party members, many of whom were working in the various concentration camps.
b) 11 April 1947
Nach dem Frankreich Feldzug im October 1940 wurde ich sum Hauptamt SS.Gerich nach Muenchen als Hilfsrichter versetzt und kam dann am 1 Januar 1941 sum SS. und Polizeigericht VI in Krakau. Das Gericht in Krakau hatte das gasamte Polen das damalige Generalgouvernement und zwar waren wir nur fuer Waffen-SS und Polizei zustaendig, nicht aber fuer Polen und deutsche Zivilisten. Die SS-Gerichtsbarkeit is eine Kriegsgerichtsbarkeit, ein Teil der militaerischen Strafjustiz und entspricht genau den Kriegsgericht der Wehrmacht. Pfingsten 1942 wurde ich durch Verfuegung des Reichsfuehrers SS meinen Amtes enthoben und kam an die Front nach Russlan. Am Mai 1943 wurde ich auf Befehl des Reichsfuehrers SS zum Reichskriminalpolizeamt Berlin.
Its not explicit about being demoted down to private and doing basic training etc, but it sort of fits. Is it just me but does Verfuegung des Reichsfuehrers SS sound suspiciously like someone being transferred to.....oh I don't know.....one of the Einsatzgruppen? He has very much the background to have been in demand for that kind of service, rather than retraining as a private. If he was seconded to an Einsatzgruppe, and if the Wiking Division is a clue, then he would have been in Einsatzgruppe D down in the Caucasus.

Has anyone read the biography and can say how it treats this period?

steve248
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Re: Konrad Morgen's Career Gap

#2

Post by steve248 » 02 Oct 2015, 08:28

Welcome back LGR, I was beginning to think the biological amnesty had intervened and taken you elsewhere.

I think you should buy a copy of this book. It is not particularly expensive for a publication of Palgrave Macmillan. The authors have used Morgen's Nachlass (publicly available at the Fritz Bauer Institute) and various other sources of Morgen's papers.

But the period between his dismissal and reinstatement when he served in the Waffen-SS Wiking Div as an ordinary trooper is fairly skated over. Probably need a Wiking-buff to tell us more. This posting was by no means out of the ordinary. Not all dismissal cases ended up in the Einsatzgruppen - very few in fact - many more went into the Waffen-SS or the punitive battalions. On other aspects of Morgen's career the book is informative.


Peter
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Re: Konrad Morgen's Career Gap

#3

Post by Peter » 05 Apr 2016, 13:58

I have almost finished reading the book and am pleased that I added it to my library. Morgen's Waffen-SS service period is not covered in any detail at all but the book states that as at April 1943 he was an SS-Sturmmann (page 161, note 4 to Chapter 14) and then (page 160, note 2, Chapter 14) suggests that "in all probability Morgan served in the division not as a combatant but rather in one of the field tribunals that accompanied combat units".

Peter
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Re: Konrad Morgen's Career Gap

#4

Post by Peter » 05 Apr 2016, 14:05

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 2#p1551278

QUOTE - Yes, according to his denazification file he was degraded to SS-Sturmmann in April 1942 and transferred to a penal company in Stralsund, northeast Germany. December 1942 he was transferred to the regiment "Germania" of the division "Wiking".

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