Kurt Blanke
Kurt Blanke (18 November 1900 in Emden; - 1997) was a German lawyer and local politician (DP, CDU). From 1964 to 1973, he was Mayor of the Lower Saxon town of Celle.
Life
Blanke was chairman of the local lawyers association and had worked for 25 years for the State Examination Office at the Lower Saxony Ministry of Justice. From 1957 to 1977, he was a member of the Lower Saxony State Court, and was elected in 1964 to the mayor of Celle.
For his services as a local politician, he was awarded the Grand Cross of Merit. Two years after his death, the city council Celle decided to name a street after Blanke.
In early 2008, Constance historian Martin Jungius pointed out in his dissertation his entanglements in the persecution of Jews in France during the time of National Socialism. Blanke, who had resigned (appointed Member since July 9, 1933 on May 1, 1938 as adjutant in the Sturmbann II / 7) on 14 November 1938 after Kristallnacht resigned under protest from the SA (and had previously responsible also before the Supreme party court of the NSDAP), was Head of the "Entjudung" unit in the economic department of the Military Commander in France for the monitoring and was responsible for enforcement of the "Aryanization" in the occupied zone.
As a consequence of these findings, the Council of the town of Celle at the end of May 2008 decided to rename the Kurt-Blanke-Straße.
Awards
- 1969: Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
- 1979: Lower Saxony Order of Merit
- 1999: Naming a street in Celle (2008 unnamed)
Literature
- Joseph Billig: Dr. Kurt Blanke. Hôtel Majestic in: Le Monde juif, Paris, No. 4, 1956
- Martin Jungius: Der verwaltete Raub. Die "Arisierung" der Wirtschaft in Frankreich 1940-1944 Thorbecke, Ostfildern 2008 ISBN 978-3-7995-7292-7
- ders. & Wolfgang Seibel: Der Bürger als Schreibtischtäter. Der Fall Kurt Blanke in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, Vol. 56, 2/2008, S. 265 - 303. Oldenbourg, München ISSN 0042-5702 (PDF)
- engl.: The Citizen as Perpetrator. Kurt Blanke and Aryanization in France 1940–1944. Zs. Holocaust and Genocide Studies 2008 Jg. 22 Heft 3, S. 441-474; Oxford UP, United Kingdom (online siehe Weblinks)
External links
- Elmar Maibaum: "Die Reichspogromnacht in Celle"
- Heiner Thies: "Bitte fragen Sie nicht weiter"
- The citizen as perpetrator: Kurt Blanke and aryanization in France 1940–1944 von Martin Jungius, Berlin und Wolfgang Seibel. In Holocaust and Genocide Studies 22, #3, Winter 2008, S. 441–474.
- This article incorporates information from the equivalent article on the German Wikipedia.