Obergeneralarbeitsführer Dr. Wilhelm Decker

[Gwar]

Name: Decker, Dr.
Vorname: Wilhelm
Geburtsdatum/-Ort: 13.12.1899
Todesdatum/-Ort: 03.05.1945*
Amtsbezeichnung/Dienstgrad: Obergeneralarbeitsführer




In his youth, Decker attended the humanistic grammar school in Rostock. From 1917 he took part in the First World War, in which he was deployed on the Western Front.


After the war, Decker studied history and German language and literature at the University of Rostock. In 1922 he received his doctorate in philosophy. From 1923 Decker wrote for the völkisch-oriented Pyritzer Kreisblatt in Pomerania. In 1924 he became editor of the newspaper Mecklenburger Warte. In 1926 Decker left the völkisch movement and joined the NSDAP on 1 June 1929 (membership number 136,932). In 1929 he became Gau and Reich speaker of the NSDAP and in November of the same year a member of the Brandenburg Provincial Committee and the district council of Niederbarnim.


From September 1930 to May 1945, Decker was a member of the Reichstag for constituency 4 (Potsdam I). As a member of parliament, Decker voted for the Enabling Act of March 1933, which formed the legal basis for the establishment of the Nazi dictatorship.


Since 1931 he had been working for the Voluntary Labour Service, and the NSDAP leadership appointed him "Inspector for Education and Training" in the Reich leadership. From 1934 he published the National Socialist journal Volk an der Arbeit, the contents of which were so well placed that Decker was appointed General Labor Leader in the Reich Labor Service in 1935. In addition, Decker was active as a composer and wrote some songs for the Reich Labor Service.


In 1935, Reich Minister of Education Bernhard Rust appointed Decker as a lecturer for labor service at the University of Berlin, where he was appointed honorary professor in June 1937. In the Arbeitsgemeinschaft für deutsche Volkskunde, founded in 1937, Decker was briefly head of the department of celebration design.


Since January 30, 1939, Decker was the holder of the Golden Party Badge of the NSDAP.


From 1940 he also served as permanent representative of the leader of the RAD, Konstantin Hierl. In addition, from 1940 Decker was a member of the advisory board of the "Research Department of the Jewish Question" within the Reich Institute for the History of New Germany.


Decker died in early May 1945 during the battles for Berlin. Whether it was suicide or whether he was mortally wounded has not yet been clarified.


After the end of the war, Decker's writings were put on the list of literature to be discarded in the Soviet occupation zone.

[Gwar]

From my photograph archives