Jakob Sprenger | |
|---|---|
 Sprenger in 1942 | |
| Gauleiter of Hesse-Nassau South | |
| In office 1 April 1927 – 1 January 1933 | |
| Preceded by | Karl Linder |
| Succeeded by | Position abolished |
| Gauleiter ofGau Hesse-Nassau | |
| In office 1 January 1933 – 7 May 1945 | |
| Preceded by | Position created |
| Succeeded by | Position abolished |
| Reichsstatthalter of thePeople's State of Hesse | |
| In office 5 May 1933 – 7 May 1945 | |
| Preceded by | Position created |
| Succeeded by | Position abolished |
| Minister-President of thePeople's State of Hesse | |
| In office 1 March 1935 – 25 March 1945 | |
| Preceded by | Philipp Wilhelm Jung |
| Succeeded by | Heinrich Reiner (acting) |
| Oberpräsident of theProvince of Nassau | |
| In office 1 July 1944 – 24 April 1945 | |
| Preceded by | Position created |
| Succeeded by | Hans Bredow |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 27 July 1884 Oberhausen,Kingdom of Bavaria,Germany |
| Died | 7 May 1945 (aged 60) Kössen,Nazi Germany |
| Political party | National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) |
| Other political affiliations | German Party National Socialist Freedom Party |
| Occupation | Postal official |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance |  German Empire |
| Branch/service |  Imperial German Army |
| Years of service | 1914–1919 |
| Rank | Leutnant |
| Unit |
|
| Battles/wars | World War I |
| Awards | Iron Cross, 2nd class |
Jakob Sprenger (24 July 1884 – 7 May 1945) was aNazi Party official andpolitician who was the Party'sGauleiter of Hesse-Nassau South from 1927 to 1933 andGau Hesse-Nassau from 1933 to 1945. He was also theReichsstatthalter (Reich Governor) andMinister-President of thePeople's State of Hesse, theOberpräsident of thePrussianProvince of Nassau and anSA-Obergruppenführer.
Sprenger, the son of a farmer, was born inOberhausen in theRhenish Palatinate. He attendedvolksschule there and after graduating from thegymnasium inBad Bergzabern in 1901, he served as aone-year volunteer with the 18th Royal Bavarian Infantry Regiment “Prince Ludwig Ferdinand,” headquartered inLandau. From 1902 he was employed in the administrative service of theImperial Postal Service, first inMannheim, then inHamburg and from October 1912 inFrankfurt.[1]
Sprenger volunteered for service in theFirst World War in August 1914. He was assigned to his old regiment as anOffizierstellvertreter (Officer Deputy) training volunteers and reservists. He was then deployed to thewestern front and was wounded in action in November 1914, losing a toe on his right foot. He was decorated for valor and awarded theIron Cross 2nd Class. After discharge from the hospital in January 1915, he was assigned as azugführer (platoon leader) with a machine gun company. Promoted toLeutnant in April 1916, he was deployed to theeastern front in June 1916 with the 1st Royal BavarianLandsturm Regiment. He subsequently served as a deputycompany commander and apoison gas defense officer (gasschutzoffizier) inPinsk andRivne inUkraine. After the war ended, he returned to Germany in December 1918. Discharged from the service in July 1919, he resumed his career as a postal official in Frankfurt in December.[2]
In 1922, Sprenger became a member of theNazi Party. When the Party was banned in the wake of the failedBeer Hall Putsch, he briefly joined the German Party (Deutsche Partei, DP) a Nazifront organization in January 1924. He became the leader of the DP in Frankfurt,Hesse, andHesse-Nassau, and worked as a campaign speaker. In June of that year, he gravitated to theNational Socialist Freedom Party, another Nazi front group, and was put on its executive board. After co-founding itsOrtsgruppe (Local Group) in Frankfurt, Sprenger became theBezirksleiter (District Leader) for Frankfurt, Hesse, and Hesse-Nassau. On 28 April 1925 he was elected to the Frankfurt City Council and served there until 1933. Sprenger formally rejoined the Nazi Party on 14 August 1925 (membership number 17,009). He wasanti-Semitic, and rose quickly through the ranks. He immediately was madeOrtsgruppenleiter (Local Group Leader) andSA leader of Frankfurt and became aBezirksleiter in Hesse-Nassau South on 31 October 1926. He was appointedGauleiter of Hesse-Nassau South on 1 April 1927, succeedingKarl Linder. On 17 November 1929, he became a member of the municipalLandtag ofWiesbaden and the provincialLandtag of Hesse-Nassau. In January 1930 he became the Nazi faction leader in both bodies and, in addition, was made a member of thePrussian State Council.[3]
In September 1930 Sprenger was elected a member of theReichstag for electoral constituency 19, Hesse-Nassau. He would become the Nazi faction's specialist oncivil service issues and was given a seat on theReichstag Committee on Civil Service Matters. The same year, he founded a Nazi newspaper in Frankfurt calledFrankfurter Volksblatt. From 1930 to 1933 he also sat on the Board of Directors of the German Postal Service, though leaving his employment with the postal service in November 1932. In early 1931, Sprenger joined theNational Socialist Motor Corps with membership number 5. In April 1931, Sprenger became the Reich Specialist for Civil Service Questions in the PartyReichsleitung (National Leadership). He would become head of its Civil Service Department from September 1931 through July 1933. Sprenger became the leader of the German Civil Servants Association from April to June 1933, and then continued as the Honorary President of the German Civil Service through the end of the Nazi regime. He was also made a member of theAcademy for German Law.[4]
On 15 July 1932 came his appointment asLandesinspekteur-Southwest. In this position, he had oversight responsibility for his Gau and four others (Baden, Hesse-Darmstadt,Hesse-Nassau North &Württemberg-Hohenzollern). This was a short-lived initiative byGregor Strasser to centralize control over theGaue. However, it was unpopular with theGauleiters and was repealed on Strasser's fall from power in December 1932. Sprenger then returned to hisGauleiter position in Hesse-Nassau South.[5]
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When his Gau was merged with the neighboring Gau of Hesse-Darmstadt (comprising the federalPeople's State of Hesse) on 1 January 1933, Sprenger became theGauleiter of the unifiedGau Hesse-Nassau. On 10 April 1933, he became the leader of the Nazi faction in the Prussian State Council. On 5 May 1933, he was appointedReichsstatthalter (Reich Governor) of thePeople's State of Hesse. In the process of theGleichschaltung, in particular due to theReichsstatthaltergesetz (Reich Governors Law) of 30 January 1935, he was also appointedMinister-President and took over leadership of the state government fromPhilipp Wilhelm Jung on 1 March 1935. Sprenger was promoted toSA-Obergruppenführer on 9 November 1938. He was a holder of theGolden Party Badge.[6]
In the Hessian town ofHadamar, the psychiatric clinic there was converted into theHadamar Killing Facility where over 14,000 mentally and physically disabled men, women and children were murdered with either poisonous gas or lethal injection as part of theAktion T4 program between January 1941 and March 1945. This certainly was done with the knowledge of Sprenger, the chief Party and government official in the region.[7]
It is estimated that some 7,000 Jews emigrated from Frankfurt in the time betweenKristallnacht in November 1938 and the formal ban on Jewish emigration of 23 October 1941.[8] From that time forward, Jews were rounded up and deported by train from Frankfurt toghettos andextermination camps in the east. It is estimated that over 10,600 Jews were deported and that only about 600 Frankfurt Jews survived the war. In May 1943, Sprenger declared Frankfurt to be"Judenfrei".[9]
When theSecond World War broke out on 1 September 1939, Sprenger was namedReich Defense Commissioner forWehrkreis (Military District) XII, based in Wiesbaden. This encompassed the western half of his Gau along withGau Koblenz-Trier,Gau Saarpfalz and part ofGau Baden. In this new position, Sprenger had responsibility forcivil defense including air defense and evacuation measures, as well as administration of wartimerationing and suppression ofblack market activity. On 16 November 1942, the jurisdiction of the Reich Defense Commissioners was changed from theWehrkreis to the Gau level, and he remained Commissioner for only his Gau of Hesse-Nassau. In 1943, theOberpräsident (High President) of the Prussian Province ofHesse-Nassau,Philipp von Hessen, fell out of favor and was removed from office. Subsequently, the province was partitioned in two, effective 1 July 1944, and Sprenger was appointedOberpräsident of the new PrussianProvince of Nassau. He thus united under his control the highest party and governmental offices in the province, as he had already done in the State of Hesse. On 25 September 1944, Sprenger became commander of theVolkssturm forces in his Gau.[10]
On 15 March 1945, with U.S. Army forces already across theRhine river, Sprenger issued orders to hisKreisleiters on the need to keep the German population “in check” by having theGestapo arrest “rumor mongers” and send them to concentration camps. He also ordered the destruction of secret documents relating to concentration camps and the “extermination of some families.” The memo also stated:
Germans who do not defend themselves on the approach of the enemy or who wish to flee, are to be shot down ruthlessly, or, where suitable, hanged to frighten the population.[11]
As American armed forces approached Frankfurt, Sprenger issued further orders on 23 March 1945 prohibiting any able-bodied man or woman from leaving the city. Despite this, on the night of 25 to 26 March just before the start of theBattle of Frankfurt, Sprenger himself fled from Frankfurt toKössen in easternTyrol,Austria where the Russians and U.S. Army were executing a pincer maneuver to envelop the whole country. Trapped, Sprenger and his wife committed suicide by ingesting poison on 7 May 1945.[12]
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