Oberlander, Theodore

Education and career

Born in a Protestant family. In 1923 he graduated from the Berningardin Municipal Humanitarian Gymnasium and entered the Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich at the Faculty of Agriculture . In 1927 he received a diploma in the specialty "agronomist". After working for a year in his specialty, he began studying economics at the University of Koenigsberg .

In 1929 he received a doctorate in agricultural sciences in Berlin for his dissertation “Foundations of Lithuanian Agriculture”, and a year later he became a doctor of political sciences in Königsberg for his work “ Urbanization in Germany and Agricultural Policy Measures to Prevent It”.

As an employee of the German-Soviet joint-stock company Saatbau AG , he spent six months in the USSR in 1928 ^[2] . In 1932, with the aim of agricultural practice, he again visited the USSR, as well as China, Japan, Canada and the United States.

In 1933 he headed the Institute of East European Economics at the University of Koenigsberg. In 1934 he became an associate professor in agriculture and director of the Institute of Eastern Europe in Danzig . Then he was appointed Reichsleiter of the Union of the German East . Since 1937 he has been working at the University of Greifswald , and in 1938 he became an employee of the Abwehr ^[3] .

In 1940, he began working at the Department of Social and Political Sciences at Karl Ferdinand University in Prague , and in 1941 he became dean of the Faculty of Law and Social and Political Sciences.

Nazi activity

At the very beginning of the 1920s, he joined the Black Reichswehr , as well as the Bund Oberland, which in 1921 constituted the core of the Bavarian SA .

He took part in the “ Beer putsch ” ^[3] .

He had the rank of Obersturmbannführer SA. He was also a member of the German People's Union of Defense and Offensive . May 1, 1933 joined the NSDAP .

Exploring Eastern Europe

The main activity of Oberlander was the study of Eastern Europe, which was extremely important in light of the German course on the return of the eastern territories lost after the First World War . However, preparations for the war against the USSR required the development of economic and ethnic plans to establish a "new order" in Eastern Europe. The main organization at that time researching Eastern Europe was the Dahlem Publication Bureau, a branch of the State Secret Archive of Prussia and working in conjunction with the Board of Directors and the Office for the Consolidation of the German People ^[4] .

Studies have been conducted and published here regarding, in particular, Germans living in Poland and the Baltic states. Oberlander became one of the inspirers of the ethnic concept of the “new order” in Eastern Europe (“Fighting at the forefront”, 1937 ), holding the view that the economic downturn in Germany is the result of the actions of “Eastern European Jewry”, which is an agent of the Comintern .

World War II

During World War II , Oberlander’s theory that overcrowding was the cause of social problems was widely used to justify the brutality of the SS in the occupied territories and the mass forced resettlement. The main point of this theory was the need to destroy the population in order to establish German domination.

Before the war, he was appointed political leader of the Nachtigall battalion. From the autumn of 1941 to June 1943 he commanded the Bergmann battalion .

According to Soviet historians, he was one of the organizers of the "middle link" of numerous Nazi criminal acts on the territory of the USSR, often personally participated in torture and executions ^[5] .

After criticizing German politics in the occupied territories in a number of memoranda, he was removed from the post of commander and appointed liaison officer at the headquarters of the ROA .

Post-war period

In 1945-1946 he was in American captivity . He then worked as an agricultural worker in the Uelzen region, and later as a seed company manager in Bavaria.

In 1948 he joined the Free Democratic Party of Bavaria. In 1950, he became one of the founders of the Union of the Exiled and Disenfranchised (NIB) and was elected the head of its Bavarian branch. Since 1951, he was a party leader (in 1952 renamed the All-German Bloc / Union of the Exiled and Disenfranchised ), and in 1954–1955. was its chairman.

In 1950-1953 he was one of the ISS representatives in the Bavarian Landtag . From January 3, 1951 to February 24, 1953 he served as Secretary of State for Refugees in the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior.

Federal politician

In 1953 he entered the Bundestag on the Bavarian list of OB / NIB.

On October 20, 1953, Federal Chancellor Konrad Adenauer appointed Oberlander the Minister for Refugees . On February 1, 1954, the ministry was renamed the Ministry of Refugees, Migrants, and War Victims.

On July 12, 1955, the so-called Kraft -Oberlander group announced its withdrawal from the OB / NIB faction . On July 15, the group joined the CDU / CSU faction as observers. In 1956, members of the group joined the CDU, and on March 20 officially became members of its faction.

In the 1957 federal election, he was elected to the Bundestag from the CDU in the Hildesheim constituency. At the same time, a coordinated KGB action against him began to discredit Oberlander, who was charged with the murders of Jews and Polish professors in the summer of 1941 in Lvov along with fighters of the Nachtigal battalion ^[6] .

Retirement

Due to repeated allegations of Oberlander's involvement in war crimes, public pressure on him has steadily increased.

In 1960, he was accused by the Soviet authorities, in particular, for the murder in October 1942 of fifteen people in a Pyatigorsk prison ^[7] .

On April 29, 1960, for allegedly shooting several thousand Jews and Poles in Lviv, he was sentenced in absentia by an East German court to life imprisonment.

Oberlander wrote Adenauer a letter of resignation, but he rejected it. However, on May 4 , after the SPD faction demanded the creation of a parliamentary commission to investigate the Oberlander case, he again submitted a letter of resignation, which this time was accepted.

Subsequent Life

In the 1961 election , Oberlander was included in the CDU candidate list in Lower Saxony , but was defeated. However, on May 9, 1963 , a week after the death of Deputy Elizabeth Fitt, Oberlander took her seat in the Bundestag and remained there until the next election of 1965 .

In 1962, he was accused by the Soviet authorities of the murder of Stepan Bandera, as opposed to the ongoing trial of Bogdan Stashinsky .

In the 1970s, he participated in the work of the Society for Free Journalism and the Association of Germans Abroad. In 1981, he was one of the signatories of the Heidelberg manifesto, directed against further immigration to the Federal Republic of Germany.

In 1986 he was awarded the Bavarian Order of Merit .

On November 28, 1993, a Berlin court quashed the verdict of the Supreme Court of the GDR on April 29, 1960 on formal grounds ^[8] .

In 1996, a new criminal case was opened against Oberlander, in which he was charged with the murder of a civilian in Kislovodsk in 1942 ^[9] . Oberlander himself called these allegations "Soviet lies."

He is the father of history professor Erwin Oberlander and the grandfather of professor Christian Oberlander.

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• Die Landflucht in Deutschland und ihre Bekämpfung durch agrarpolitische Maßnahmen. Langensalza, [1933].
• Die agrarische Überbevölkerung Polens, Berlin: Volk u. Reich Verl., 1935.
• Die soziale Erneuerung des Auslanddeutschtums. [Königsberg]: Bund Dt. Osten, 1935.
• Der neue Weg. [Königsberg]: Bund Dt. Osten, 1936.
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• Bayern und sein Flüchtlingsproblem, München: Bayerisches Staatsministerium d. Innern, 1953.
• Die Überwindung der deutschen Not. Darmstadt: Leske, [1954].
• Das Weltflüchtlingsproblem: Ein Vortrag gehalten vor dem Rhein-Ruhr-Club am 8. Mai 1959. Sonderausg. des Arbeits- u. Sozialministers des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen. Verleger, Bonn: Bundesministerium f. Vertriebene, Flüchtlinge u. Kriegsgeschädigte. 1959.
• Der Osten und die deutsche Wehrmacht. Sechs Denkschriften aus den Jahren 1941-43 gegen die NS-Kolonialthese. Asendorf: Mut-Verl., 1987. In: Zeitgeschichtliche Bibliothek; Bd. 2. ISBN 3-89182-026-7 .