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Hans Lukaschek

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Hans Lukaschek
Personal details
Born22 May 1885
Breslau, Lower Silesia, German Empire (now Wrocław, Poland)
Died26 January 1960 (1960-01-27) (aged 74)
Freiburg im Breisgau, West Germany
NationalityGerman
Political partyCenter Party
Christian Democrats
OccupationPolitician
Lawyer

Hans Lukaschek (22 May 1885 – 26 January 1960) was a German lawyer and politician.

Lukaschek, born 1885 in Breslau (now known to English speakers by its Polish name, Wrocław), had started his political career in the Catholic Center Party as a mayor and landrat in Upper Silesian Rybnik and Hindenburg (Zabrze). After the First World War served as German propaganda chief throughout the Upper Silesia plebiscite.[1] Lukaschek headed a committee that investigated all possibilities to engage in plebiscite propaganda. The Silesian Committee was to create common propaganda themes to which all factions could subscribe, and was helped in its task by money from German government. Lukaschek propaganda actions were also sponsored by state finances.[2] He remained in Polish Silesia till 1927, officially as a member of mixed Polish-German Commission organised under the auspice of League of Nations, in secret he organised a spying network for Germany in Polish Upper Silesia during that time. When the network was discovered in years 1926–1927, Polish minister Zaleski asked the commission for cancellation of Lukaschek's position.[3] Lukaschek offered his resignation in Berlin, after the first attempt was rejected by German state, he offered it second time, stating that he no longer is able to conduct his mission.[4]

He was Oberpräsident (chief administrator) of the Prussian Province of Upper Silesia, in this role he was active against Poles in his region; after a Polish gymnasium was opened in Bytom he issued a letter to German government claiming that it represented a threat to German interests, and ordered close surveillance of both teachers and Polish pupils.[5] As a state official Lukaschek tried to conceal his anti-Polish stance, while discreetly opposing re-approachment between Poles and Germans pursued by some German catholic and pacifist organisations in his region.[6]

He was removed from his offices by the Nazis and, as a lawyer practicing in Breslau joined the anti-Nazi resistance (Kreisauer Kreis) until his imprisonment in 1944/45.[7] The Nazi court acquitted him in trial[8] The July 20th plotters who wanted to remove Hitler from power, but also to keep Poland occupied by Germany and restore borders from 1914, planned to make Lukaschek the governor of Silesia.[9]

After the war, Lukaschek joined the Christian Democrates in the Soviet Occupation Zone and became minister in Thuringia before he fled to the Allied occupation zones in 1947 and in April of the following year was appointed vice president of the British and US zones' supreme court.[7] From 1949 to 1953, he was minister for the expellees in West Germany.[7] In August 1952 Lukaschek was reported by British press as saying that Germany's former eastern territories, ' including those occupied by Czechoslovakia will become German again, the paper naming him a "neo-nationalist voice".[10][11] He was also an honorary chairman of General Association for the Protection of Officials an organisations focused on the interests of those who managed to successfully pass the denazification process, and which was engaged in vigorous propaganda on behalf of Germans expelled from Central and Eastern Europe, Lukashek was also engaged in convincing German ministry of finance to provide 350 million marks annually by the West German state for former officials of Nazi Germany.[12]

Sources

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  • Edward Długajczyk "Afera szpiegowska Hansa Lukaschka z przełomu lat 1926/1927" in Historia i archiwistyka. Studia z dziejów Polski, Polonii i archiwistyki. Księga dedykowana księdzu doktorowi Romanowi Nirowi" editor: Faryś, Janusz Gorzów Wielkopolski 2004, pp. 71–87
  • Wywiad polski na Górnym Śląsku 1919-1922 Edward Długajczyk, Muzeum Śląskie, 2001

References

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  1. ^ T. Hunt Tooley, "National identity and Weimar Germany: Upper Silesia and the eastern border, 1918-1922", U of Nebraska Press, 1997, p. 176 (Google Print)
  2. ^ National identity and Weimar Germany: Upper Silesia and the eastern border, 1918-1922 T. Hunt Tooley, page 156 University of Nebraska Press 1997
  3. ^ Stosunki polsko-niemieckie, 1919-1932: Jerzy Krasuski. - Wyd. 2. Instytut Zachodni, p. 301, 1975
  4. ^ Lech. Gazeta Gnieźnieńska: codzienne pismo polityczne dla wszystkich stanów 1927.01.04 R.29 Nr2
  5. ^ Polski ruch narodowy w Niemczech w latach 1922-1939 Wojciech Wrzesiński, Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, p. 192, 1993.
  6. ^ Niemiecki ruch obrońców pokoju: 1892-1933 Karol Fiedor Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego, p. 153, 1993
  7. ^ a b c Amos, Heike (2011). Vertriebenenverbände im Fadenkreuz: Aktivitäten der DDR-Staatssicherheit 1949 bis 1989. Schriftenreihe der Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte. Oldenbourg Verlag. p. 15.
  8. ^ Regina Kostrzewa Wizja powojennych Niemiec Koła z Krzyżowej Helmuta Jamesa von Moltke, Annales Academiae Paedagogicae Cracoviensis Folia 28 Studia Historica IV (2005), p. 227
  9. ^ Hitler's legacy: West Germany confronts the aftermath of the Third Reich John P. Teschke P. Lang, p. 132, 1999
  10. ^ The Manchester guardian weekly, Guardian Publications Ltd., 1952, volume 67
  11. ^ The Labour monthly, Volume 34 Labour Pub. Co, 1952
  12. ^ Adenauer's Germany and the Nazi Past: The Politics of Amnesty and Integration Norbert Frei, pp. 44–45, Columbia University Press
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