Stroelin, Karl

Born in the family of Württemberg Chief Lieutenant Karl von Ströllin and his wife, daughter of Württemberg General von Seybold. In 1892, the family moved from Berlin to Stuttgart, and in 1900 returned to Berlin.

He studied at the cadet corps in Karlsruhe , graduated from a military school in Berlin. Since 1910 - Fenrich (ensign) of the 125th (7th Württemberg) Infantry Regiment "Kaiser Friedrich of Prussia". Since 1911 - lieutenant. At the beginning of World War I he was twice wounded, lost a finger. After leaving the hospital in 1915, he served as a battalion adjutant of the training ground in Deberitsa and as an instructor in the preparation of candidates for officers, based on combat experience, wrote the book “The Way of Fighting Our Enemies”. He was promoted to lieutenant.

In 1916 he returned to the Western Front, for some time he was responsible for training the Württemberg regiments as an officer of the 1st machine-gun reserve company of the 13th Army Corps. Since May 1916 he commanded the machine-gun company of the 123rd Ulm Regiment, participated in battles on the Somme . In 1917 he was appointed an officer of the General Staff, he served in the headquarters of the 64th General Special Purpose Command in Colmar. In June 1918 he was promoted to Hauptmann (captain) and appointed instructor for training candidates for officers at the Münsingen training ground.

In 1919 he served in the military police - in the 121st security company. In May 1919, he participated in hostilities against the Bavarian Soviet Republic , which ended with the liquidation of the latter. There is unconfirmed documented information that, as the chairman of the military field court, he sentenced 52 foreign members of the Council of Workers 'and Soldiers' Deputies to death. Then he commanded a company in the newly created Reichswehr, and in 1920 left military service.

He studied socio-political sciences at the universities of Giessen and Vienna , received a Ph.D. at the University of Vienna (thesis topic: "The economic situation of the working class and middle class of the city of Stuttgart before and after the war"). He studied under the renowned economist, sociologist and philosopher Otmar Spann , a former supporter of the theory of the “estate state”, an opponent of Marxism and liberalism.

Since 1923, Stroelin worked in Stuttgart: first as a research fellow at a gas company, and then as the economic director of an electric company. For a long time he was close to the NSDAP, although he officially joined the party only at the end of 1930 . In 1932, he ran unsuccessfully from the Nazi party to the post of mayor of Stuttgart, then he was an economic adviser to the top and district leaders of the NSDAP.

After the Nazis came to power in 1933, he was appointed state commissioner of Stuttgart (from March 16 ). May 1, 1933 officially became the chief mayor of the city. In this capacity, he dismissed politically unreliable officials, replacing them with the Nazis, and reorganized the administrative apparatus, creating a more flexible city management system. Like in other German cities, in Stuttgart, the voting in the council of the city community was canceled (he became not elected, but appointed and at the same time received only an advisory vote), and authoritarian power was concentrated in the hands of the chief mayor. Under Shtrelin, urban areas were expanded at the expense of nearby villages; he was actively engaged in the fight against unemployment and housing construction.

As the mayor of Stuttgart, Ströllin served as chairman of the German Foreign Institute located in this city. He led the annual congresses of the Volksdeutsche (Germans living abroad). In 1933, he visited London (where he was called the "strange Nazi" for emphasizing the independence of behavior), in 1936 - the United States , also visited France . Since 1938, Shtryolin was a member of the Imperial leadership of the NSDAP on municipal policy in the rank of Reichsamslater on municipal economic policy.

During World War II, more than 2,000 Jews living in Stuttgart were deported to concentration camps, where they died as a result of the Holocaust (the same tragedies occurred in other German cities). At the same time, there is information that he was opposed to the introduction of clothing stripes in the form of a six-pointed star for Jews and helped Jews who wished to leave Germany to leave the country.

During his work in Stuttgart, Ströllin was in conflict with the fanatical Nazi, Gauleiter of Württemberg, Wilhelm Murr, who was his party line chief. He sought to defend his independence as the head of the city, tried to protect the interests of the evangelical church. In 1943, the leadership of the Nazi Party took the side of Murr in this conflict, and in January 1944, Štrölin was dismissed from the post of Reichsamstersleiter, retaining only the post of chief mayor.

In August 1943, Strölin sent a memo to the Reich Ministry of the Interior, in which he proposed limiting the party’s influence on governing bodies, checking the situation in concentration camps, curtailing the struggle against the church and changing the policies pursued in the occupied territories and in Alsace and Lorraine . Strölin’s proposals were not accepted; he himself received a strict warning; The issue of initiating a lawsuit against him was discussed, however, in the end, he avoided serious troubles.

During the Second World War, Ströllin established contacts with the conservative wing of the anti-Nazi opposition in the person of the former mayor of Leipzig Karl Friedrich Goerdeler , Ambassador Ulrich von Hassel and the Minister of Finance of Prussia Johannes Popitz . His rapprochement with the opposition was associated with the recognition of the inevitability of defeat in the war, including under the influence of the Allied bombing of Stuttgart. In 1943-1944, Strölin repeatedly met with Field Marshal Erwin Rommel , prompting him to speak out against Adolf Hitler . He was a supporter of such a speech even before the landing of the Anglo-American troops in France so that the German Wehrmacht remained as strong as possible, and Germany in this case would not be left to the mercy of the winner.

After the failure of the assassination attempt on Hitler on July 20, 1944, Strölin publicly condemned the conspirators. The Nazi leadership did not trust him too much (a search was carried out in his apartment in August 1944), but, apparently, no concrete evidence confirming the involvement of the mayor in the plot was found.

In the last period of the war, Ströllin opposed the “scorched earth” policy, saved the Stuttgart post “Bertger Steg” from which the city water supply passed. April 22, 1945 officially transferred the city to the French and Americans. He resigned by proposing to the Allies the candidacy of his successor - the anti-Nazi lawyer Arnulf Klett, who then for many years was the mayor of Stuttgart.

In 1945, Ströllin was imprisoned, witnessed the defense at the Nuremberg trials, was detained in the Hohenasperg fortress. He was categorized as the "least guilty" of the Nazi regime and released.

Returning to Stuttgart, he founded the Kiffhäuser war veteran union in Württemberg. He barely managed to get a pension by the decision of the Stuttgart City Court. He continued to consider himself a “national socialist”, he believed that National Socialism as a principle is a good political idea, but was discredited by practice. He collaborated with right-wing political organizations, wrote several works about his activities and contacts with the Resistance.

• Breuninger V. Opponents of Hitler in the NSDAP, 1921-1945. M., 2006. S. 304-324.