Friedrich Karl Freiherr von Eberstein (14 January 1894 – 10 February 1979) was a member of the German nobility, early member of the Nazi Party, the SA, and the SS (introducing Reinhard Heydrich to Heinrich Himmler in July 1931). He was elected to the Reichstag and held the position of the chief of the Munich Police during the Nazi era. Eberstein was a witness at the Nuremberg Trials.
Early life and career Eberstein was born on 14 January 1894 in Halle on the Saale, of the Dillenburger branch of the von Eberstein family.Family News, 1958. The Dillenburger branch was started by Karl (1687–1725), grandson of Ernst Albrecht von Eberstein. See Familien Zeitung Nr10, 1900, foldout His father was an army Major. Eberstein attended the Royal Prussian cadet schools at Naumburg and Lichterfelde between 1904 and 1912. He then studied agriculture at the University of Halle until the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914. He enlisted as a war volunteer with the 75th Field Artillery Regiment. He served as a battery commander in the field with the 17th Field Artillery Regiment as a Leutnant of reserves, and earned the Iron Cross, 1st and 2nd class.Reichstag, Der Deutscher Reichstag, pg 136 He was also a balloon observer.
After the end of the war, Eberstein fought as a member of the Freikorps Maercker in Wittenberg in central Germany and the Freikorps Roßbach, with which he participated in the Kapp Putsch of March 1920 that attempted to overthrow the recently established Weimar Republic. He also began an apprenticeship in banking. He served in the Reichswehr as a battery chief in Artillery Regiment 16 but was discharged from the military in July 1920 in the wake of the Kapp Putsch. He joined the Halle Schutzpolizei (protection police) and helped to put down a Communist rebellion in Halle in April and May 1921. From May to September 1921, he served as a company commander and regimental adjutant with a Freikorp unit in Upper Silesia during the third Siesian uprising. From 1919 to 1924, he was also active in Der Stahlhelm, the German veterans organization.
Eberstein joined the Nazi Party in 1922, but quit after the failed Beer Hall Putsch in November 1923. He then re-joined the Party in 1925 (membership number 15,067). He was also an early member of the Schutzstaffel (SS number: 1,386) and on the staff of Heinrich Himmler.Petropoulos, p 260 According to Jonathan Petropoulos, Eberstein was part of Himmler's strategy to attract members of the nobility and aristocracy to the SS. Eberstein was commissioned as an SS-Sturmführer on 1 April 1929. However, he left the SS and transferred to the Sturmabteilung (SA) on 1 July 1930. His rise in that organization was rapid, being promoted to SA-Standartenführer in February 1931, SA-Brigadeführer in November 1931 and, finally, SA-Gruppenführer on 15 September 1932. He then left the SA and returned to the SS on 20 February 1933, shortly after the Nazi seizure of power.
At the March 1933 parliamentary election, Eberstein was elected as a deputy to the Reichstag from electoral constituency 12, Thuringia. He remained a Reichstag deputy until 1945, switching to constituency 24, Upper Bavaria–Swabia, at the March 1936 election.Friedrich Karl Freiherr von Eberstein entry in the Reichstag Members Database
Eberstein reached the rank of SS-Obergruppenführer on 30 January 1936. He held several major SS commands, as Führer of SS-Oberabschnitt Mitte, headquartered in Halle, from November 1933 to April 1936 and SS-Oberabschnitt Süd, headquartered in Munich, from April 1936 until April 1945. On 1 April 1936, he succeeded Himmler as police president of Munich and held this post until 23 October 1941. He was also named the Higher SS and Police Leader for Wehrkreis (military district) XIII based in Nuremberg from March 1938 to December 1942, as well as for Wehrkreis VII, based in Munich, from March 1938 until April 1945. As the highest SS commander in Bavaria, Dachau concentration camp fell under Eberstein's jurisdiction.
Heydrich and Himmler
Eberstein played a part in the first meeting of the two major leaders of both the SS and later the Holocaust: Reinhard Heydrich and Heinrich Himmler. Eberstein and Heydrich's families were both from Halle on the Saale. His mother was Heydrich's godmother. He was also a friend of Lina Heydrich, Reinhard Heydrich's wife. Acting on the advice of Karl von Eberstein, Himmler agreed to interview Heydrich.Williams, Max. (2001) Reinhard Heydrich: Volume 1 - The Road To War, pp. 29, 30 When Himmler cancelled Heydrich's interview in Munich due to alleged illness, Lina ignored the message, and sent Heydrich on a Munich bound train. Karl met Heydrich at the station and drove him to meet Himmler. Himmler received Heydrich and hired him as the chief of the new SS 'Ic Service' or Intelligence Service, which would later become known as the Sicherheitsdienst (SD).Williams, Max. (2001) Reinhard Heydrich: Volume 1 - The Road To War, p. 30
Role during Kristallnacht Eberstein was the police president of Munich during Kristallnacht. On 10 November 1938, at 1:20 a.m., Heydrich sent out a telegram to various police organizations giving orders for police behavior during the riots. At 2:10 Eberstein sent a telegram to the State Police HQ of Augsburg, Nürnberg, Würzburg, and Neustadt a.d. Weinstraße, the Regierungspräsident, and the Gauleiter, with the subject line "Anti-Jewish Measures". It relayed orders "from the Berlin HQ of the State Police", saying that "Anti-Jewish demonstrations" would occur, with synagogues and Jewish communal centers as targets, and that the demonstrations were not to be interfered with, except to prevent looting and excesses. The Ordnungspolizei or Orpo (uniform order police) would "...do nothing to hinder the demonstrations", but the criminal police and state police would wear plain-clothes. The SS troops could help, but the state police was supposed to maintain control. It went on to state that between 20 and 30,000 Jews would be arrested in Germany. It concluded: "...Every effort will be made to arrest immediately as many Jews as the jails will hold, primarily healthy male and well-to-do adults of not too advanced age".Eberstein, Telegram, Munich 47 768. A document from Beutel (probably Lothar Beutel), HQ of State Police Munich, six minutes later, stated that "officers of the state and criminal police" would accompany the demonstrators in plain-clothes, allow them to destroy Jewish shops and homes, but to prevent looting, after which the Orpo would secure the destroyed buildings.Beutel, Telegram, Munich 47 769.
David Irving contends that Eberstein was a witness to Hitler's anger on that night, and that his testimony at Nuremberg helped prove that Hitler did not approve of Kristallnacht. This claim was refuted at the Irving v. Lipstadt trial, when Irving sued Lipstadt for calling him a Holocaust denier. Evans, in defense of Lipstadt, claimed that it made no sense for Eberstein to send his telegram of 2:10 a.m. if he had earlier that night listened to Hitler tirade angrily against the pogrom.Evans, David Irving, Hitler. . ., 4.3.c.ii.d. The judge at the trial agreed that Irving "seriously misrepresents the available contemporaneous evidence".Nizkor Project, Irving v Lipstadt Judgment, Part XIII.Gray, Irving v Lipstadt Judgment.
Stalag VII A Moosburg and the Gestapo In late 1941, and early 1942, Eberstein was involved in a case involving Soviet Prisoners of War (POWs) at Stalag VII A, Moosburg, and the conflict between certain military officers and the SS over the murder of the POWs.
The Gestapo was having problems with certain military officers, especially Major Meinel, who were not cooperating. Meinel was the army officer in charge of POWs for Munich and its surrounding areas. The Gestapo had been "screening" Soviet POWs in Stalag VII A Moosburg, and then shipping the "screened out" people to Dachau where they were murdered. Meinel discovered the murders were going on, and refused to follow orders to send several hundred of the remaining "screened out" Soviets to Dachau. He also complained to his superiors in the military about what was happening. "Screened out" people included anyone who was Jewish, any officers, believers in communism, incurably sick people, etc., but the Gestapo told Meinel their methods of screening were not his business.See the IMT, Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Supplement A. Also see the book by Otto, and the book by Steimer.
Eberstein became involved. In the book "Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression", several telex / telegrams between the various offices involved have been translated and reproduced. These telegrams state that von Eberstein telephoned the Reich Security Main Office or Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA)McNab, Chris (2009). The SS: 1923–1945, p 41. and told them that it was "intolerable" for Meinel to stay in his position, and it would cause problems with the relationship between the military and the SS. He told the RSHA to ask the military's German High Command (OKW) to have Meinel transferred to another position. After a few meetings, this is what concurred. The OKW decreed that the POWs that Meinel had temporarily saved would be surrendered to the Gestapo and then sent to Buchenwald. Meinel was later sent to Lithuania.
Dismissal from posts Karl von Eberstein was dismissed from all posts on 20 April 1945 for "defeatism", by Gauleiter Paul Giesler, on orders from Martin Bormann. The charge of "defeatism" was made because he refused to support orders from the high command that prisoners held in camps within his administrative command be killed. Eberstein was arrested by American forces on 8 May 1945 and held until October 1948 in several internment camps including, for a time, Dachau.
Nuremberg testimony Eberstein was a witness at the Nuremberg Trials. He was interviewed by Horst Pelckmann, counsel for the SS, and Major F Elwyn Jones, junior counsel for the United Kingdom.IMT, Vol 1, . . . Defense CounselIMT, Vol 1, Prosecution Counsel In his testimony, Eberstein gave organizational and historical information about the SS, the SA, their relationship with the German nobility, the Nazi Party, the SD (Security Service) and the Gestapo (Secret State Police). Eberstein claimed that the SS was not, in the view of his peers, a criminal organization, it was not created for purposes of violence, did not participate in the invasion of Austria, that he knew nothing of SS participation in the invasions of France, Belgium, Russia, Poland and others. He also stated that "my men" in the Allgemeine-SS (general SS) did not mention atrocities when home from "front leave".IMT, Trial of the Major War Criminals, Vol 20 Day 195
With regard to his personal place in the chain of command, Eberstein stated that as a Police President, he had control over 1700 men in the Schutzpolizei (Protection Police), Ordnungspolizei (Order Police), and Kriminalpolizei (Criminal Police). He claimed the "chiefs of police had nothing to do with the political police or the security service" (meaning the Gestapo, and the SD). It is unclear from this translation if he mentioned the Sicherheitspolizei (Security Police) or SiPo.
Eberstein also discussed his perspective on the Night of the Long Knives and Kristallnacht. In the latter, he claimed that he ordered his police to protect Jewish businesses, claiming, "We in the SS considered this action downright indecent", and blamed the events on a speech by Joseph Goebbels. However, given the telegrams Eberstein sent on that night, his claims cannot be seen as carrying any weight. He also briefly discussed the treatment of downed enemy pilots, per the Geneva Convention and Hague Rules on Land Warfare.
Denied involvement in Dachau concentration camp and the HSSPF