German passport with Kommandant stamp - 1935

[HPL2008]

What would this individuals 'job' be if he was stationed in Esterwegen camp? Gestapo?

Carl should be able to offer more insight into the internal workings of the early camps.

At least at a later stage, the admission and release of prisoners was definitely undertaken by each camp's Politische Abteilung [political department], which was staffed by personnel of the Kripo/Gestapo/SD and was subordinate to the security police command structure.

Could the signature be of Rudolf Diels? anyway to compare it to a known sample?

I can't make out the name, but it's definitely not Diels. Kriminalsekretär was a rank of the medium-grade career group and also the lowest "officer" rank of the security police, roughly equivalent to a Lieutenant.

Even at the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, Rudolf Diels was already an official of the high-grade career group. In 1935, he was Regierungspräsident in Cologne.

[huddyhuddy]

Tnx. Your knowledge on these matters is deep.
If this camp was for political prisoners it would be interesting to see his actual camp-card that was filed at the camp back then...

[CARL]

Carl should be able to offer more insight into the internal workings of the early camps.

At least at a later stage, the admission and release of prisoners was definitely undertaken by each camp's Politische Abteilung [political department], which was staffed by personnel of the Kripo/Gestapo/SD and was subordinate to the security police command structure.




I can't make out the name, but it's definitely not Diels. Kriminalsekretär was a rank of the medium-grade career group and also the lowest "officer" rank of the security police, roughly equivalent to a Lieutenant.

Even at the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, Rudolf Diels was already an official of the high-grade career group. In 1935, he was Regierungspräsident in Cologne.

The vast majority of the files related to the inmates of the Emslandlagers (Emsland camps), of which Esterwegen was one such camp, were lost during the war. However, research has shown that during the early period, i.e. 1933-1934, it was indeed possible for all police forces and departments to send Schutzhäftlinge (protective custody prisoners) to the camps. From the summer of 1943, after the SS had taken control of KL-Esterwegen, the Gestapo held the responsibility of transferring prisoners both to and from the concentration camp. The head of the department concerned with the prisoner transfers was the Kriminalsekretär, as mentioned earlier by HPL.

[huddyhuddy]

Thanks for the information.
I also understood that Esterwegen fell into the SS from 1934 to 1936 or so...it is interesting to know to where the early material was archived at in the 1930's...
Tnx again.

[huddyhuddy]

I think we can solve the mystery to why he was arrested and sent to the camp in July of 1935, this bellow is the reply I just got from Germany:

"...I guess, he was arrested by police or Gestapo shortly after his return, because he was called a "remigrant".

On January 28th, 1935 the Geheime Staatspolizeiamt in Berlin enact a decree, that German emigrants (or people, who spent a longer term abroad), returning to the country (remigrants) are to be arrested and sent to a concentration camp for "re-education", either to CC Dachau or CC Esterwegen. The decree was mainly focused on Jewish people or political opponents, because it was assumed, that they initiated or supported anti-German actions or propaganda abroad.

In Esterwegen the passport was renewed or new issued by the political department of the CC. The Kriminalsekretär, who signed the passport, was in my opinion Gestapo member Heinrich Kortenstädde. We know actually not much about him. In the Esterwegen CC he was head of the political department, which was under command of the Gestapo and among other things responsible for in- or outgoing prisoners.

After that Julius Hamburger used the passport to return to Palestine via Basel and Italy in December 1935.

The registration office of Hamburgers hometown Langenselbold remarked, that his wife Meta was taken to a "Lager" in Kassel on July 12th, 1935 and released on November 30th, 1935 for Palestine.(But we are not exactly sure about the remarks.)..."