Editing Wilhelm Gustloff

{{short description|German politician and meteorologist}}
{{About||the ship|MV Wilhelm Gustloff|the German state-owned trust set-up during the Nazi regime|Wilhelm Gustloff Stiftung}}
{{Infobox officeholder
|name         = Wilhelm Gustloff
|nick         =
|image        = Wilhelm-Gustloff.jpg
|imagesize    = 
|caption      = 
|birth_date   = {{Birth date|1895|01|30|df=y}}
|birth_place  = [[Schwerin]], [[German Empire|Germany]]
|death_date   = {{Death date and age|1936|02|04|1895|01|30|df=y}}
|death_place  = [[Davos]], [[Switzerland]]
|nationality  = German
|party        = 
|spouse       = 
|relations    =
|children     = 
|residence    =
|alma_mater   = 
|occupation   = head of the [[Switzerland|Swiss]] [[NSDAP/AO]]
|profession   = 
|signature    = 
|website      =
|footnotes    =
|branch       =
|serviceyears = 
}}

'''Wilhelm Gustloff''' (30 January 1895 – 4 February 1936) was a German politician and meteorologist who founded the [[Switzerland|Swiss]] branch of the [[Nazi Party/Foreign Organization]] (NSDAP/AO) at [[Davos]] in 1932. The NSDAP/AO was formed as the wing of the [[Nazi Party]] (NSDAP) for German citizens living outside Germany. Gustloff continued to lead the Swiss branch of the NSDAP/AO until 1936, when he was assassinated by [[David Frankfurter]], a [[History of the Jews in Croatia|Croatian Jew]] angered by the growth of the NSDAP. After killing Gustloff, Frankfurter immediately surrendered to the authorities and confessed to the [[Swiss police]] that "I fired the shots because I am a Jew."<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.wiesenthal.com/site/pp.asp?c=lsKWLbPJLnF&b=4441317 |title=A Survey of Nazi and Pro-Nazi Groups in Switzerland: 1930-1945 |access-date=2012-06-26 |archive-date=2012-05-10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120510161701/http://www.wiesenthal.com/site/pp.asp?c=lsKWLbPJLnF&b=4441317 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

==Life and assassination==

Gustloff was a son of merchant Herrmann Gustloff and his wife.<ref>info from [[Günter Grass]]'s ''[[Crabwalk]]''</ref> After his education, he worked for the Swiss government as a [[meteorologist]], and joined the NSDAP in 1927.<ref name="Bollier 30">Peter Bollier: ''Die NSDAP unter dem Alpenfirn. Geschichte einer existenziellen Herausforderung für Davos, Graubünden und die Schweiz'', Bündner Monatsblatt Verlag Desertina 2016, {{ISBN|978-3-85637-490-7}}, Page 30</ref> He assisted in the distribution of the [[antisemitic]] [[propaganda]] book ''[[The Protocols of the Elders of Zion]]'' (1903). Members of the Swiss Jewish community sued the book's distributor, the Swiss NSDAP/AO, for [[libel]].{{citation needed|date=August 2020}}

Gustloff was shot and killed in [[Davos]] in 1936 by [[David Frankfurter]], a Yugoslav [[Jew]]ish student (from what is now [[Croatia]]), who was incensed by the growth of the NSDAP and resolved to assassinate Gustloff.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |date=February 1950 |title=I Kill a Nazi Gauleiter: Memoir of a Jewish Assassin |url=https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/david-frankfurter/i-kill-a-nazi-gauleitermemoir-of-a-jewish-assassin/}}</ref> 

Frankfurter found Gustloff's address, which was listed in the phone book. On 4 February, he went to the Gustloff home; Gustloff's wife Hedwig received him and showed him into the study, asking him to wait since her husband was on the telephone.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2013-02-25 |title=David Frankfurter {{!}} Hrvatski povijesni portal |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130225101215/http://povijest.net/v5/zivotpis/hr-zivotopisi/2007/david-frankfurter/ |access-date=2025-02-04 |website=web.archive.org}}</ref>

When Gustloff, who was in the adjoining room, entered his office where Frankfurter was sitting opposite a picture of [[Adolf Hitler]], the young man pulled out his revolver and shot Gustloff five times: in the head, neck and chest. He left the premises and prepared to commit suicide. However, he was unable to follow through.<ref name=":1" />

Frankfurter surrendered immediately to the [[Swiss police]], confessing "I fired the shots because I am a Jew".<ref>{{cite book|title= German Orientalisms |last=Kontje |first= Todd Curtis |pages =222}}</ref> Unlike [[Maurice Conradi]], who killed [[Vatslav Vorovsky|a Soviet diplomat]] in Lausanne in 1923 with similar political motives, he was convicted and sentenced to 18 years imprisonment.<ref name=":0"/>

He was incarcerated during the war years in a Swiss prison.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/12/andrey-karlov-turkey-1914/511124/|title=Why the Shooting in Ankara Won't Start World War III|last=Frum|first=David|date=December 19, 2016|newspaper=[[The Atlantic]]|language=en-US|author-link=David Frum|access-date=December 20, 2016}}</ref> On May 17, 1945<ref name="JTA1945"/> — shortly after [[V-E Day]] — Frankfurter was pardoned by a Swiss court.<ref name="JTA1945">{{cite news |title=David Frankfurter, Who Killed Swiss Nazi Leader, Pardoned; Served Nine Years|url=http://pdfs.jta.org/1945/1945-05-18_113.pdf |access-date=29 October 2017 |work=JTA Daily News Bulletin|publisher=Jewish Telegraphic Agency |date=18 May 1945 |language=en-us}}</ref>

==Aftermath==

Gustloff was given a [[state funeral]] in his birthplace of [[Schwerin]] in [[Mecklenburg]], with [[Adolf Hitler]], [[Joseph Goebbels]], [[Hermann Göring]], [[Heinrich Himmler]], [[Martin Bormann]] and [[Joachim von Ribbentrop]] in attendance. Thousands of [[Hitlerjugend|Hitler Youth]] members lined the route. His coffin, transported on a special train from [[Davos]] to Schwerin, made stops in [[Stuttgart]], [[Würzburg]], [[Erfurt]], [[Halle, Saxony-Anhalt|Halle]], [[Magdeburg]] and [[Wittenberg]]. Gustloff's widow, mother and brother attended the funeral and received personal condolences from Hitler. [[Ernst Wilhelm Bohle]] was the first at Gustloff's funeral to recite a few lines in his honour.

Gustloff was proclaimed a ''[[Blutzeuge]]'' of the Nazi cause. His murder became part of the propaganda that served as pretext for the 1938 [[Kristallnacht]] [[pogrom]]. His wife Hedwig, who had been Hitler's secretary, received from Hitler personally a monthly "honorary pay" of {{Reichsmark|400|link=yes}}, the equivalent of some US$13,000 today.

Unlike the [[assassination]] of the German diplomat [[Ernst vom Rath]] by [[Herschel Grynszpan]] in Paris in 1938, Gustloff's death was not immediately politicized to incite ''Kristallnacht''. Hitler did not want to risk any domestic bouts of [[antisemitism]] to cause Germany to lose the recently awarded right to host the [[1936 Summer Olympics]]. His antisemitic policies had already led to some calls to relocate the games. Nevertheless, an editorial on the front page of ''[[Völkischer Beobachter]]'' demanded Frankfurter's execution.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite news |last=Times |first=Otto D. Tolischus wireless To the New York |date=1936-02-07 |title=NAZIS URGE SWISS TO EXECUTE KILLER; Hitler's Paper Demands Death Penalty for Gustloff's Slayer, but Berne Law Bars It. PROTEST RALLIES IN REICH Party Orders Those Engaging in Anti-Semitic Violence Be Expelled on the Spot. |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1936/02/07/archives/nazis-urge-swiss-to-execute-killer-hitlers-paper-demands-death.html |access-date=2023-10-01 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref>

===Namesakes===

The German cruise ship [[MV Wilhelm Gustloff|MV ''Wilhelm Gustloff'']] was named for Gustloff by the [[Nazi Germany|Nazi regime]]. The ship was sunk by the [[Soviet submarine S-13|Soviet submarine ''S-13'']] on 30 January 1945 (coincidentally the 50th anniversary of her namesake's birth) in the [[Baltic Sea]] while carrying civilian refugees and military personnel fleeing from the advancing [[Red Army]]. About 9,400 people died, the greatest death toll from the sinking of a single vessel in human history. The disaster remains relatively unknown.

In 1933{{citation needed|date=May 2020}} the [[Nazism|Nazi Party]] created the ''Wilhelm-Gustloff-Stiftung'' ("The Wilhelm Gustloff Foundation"), a national corporation funded by properties and wealth confiscated from Jews. It ran the ''Gustloff Werke'' ("Gustloff Factories"), a group of businesses that had been confiscated from their Jewish owners or partners.

The small arms factory [[Simson (company)#1934–48|Berlin Suhler Waffen und Fahrzeugwerke]] was renamed [[Simson (company)#1934–48|Wilhelm Gustloff Werke]] in Gustloff's honour in 1939.

==See also==

*''[[Assassination in Davos]]'', a 1975 Swiss feature film concerning the assassination.
*''[[Crabwalk]]'' – the assassination of Gustloff is an element of the plot of this 2002 novel, even though its main subject is the sinking of the passenger ship named in his memory. 
*[[Herbert Norkus]]
*[[Horst Wessel]]
*[[Beer Hall Putsch#Nazis who died in the Putsch|List of Nazis who died in the Beer Hall Putsch]]

==References==

{{More footnotes|date=March 2009}}
{{Reflist}}

== Further reading ==

* Peter Bollier, ''4. Februar 1936: das Attentat auf Wilhelm Gustloff''; in: Roland Aergerter (Hrsg.), ''Politische Attentate des 20. Jahrhunderts'', Zürich, NZZ Verlag, 1999
* Matthieu Gillabert, ''La propagande nazie en Suisse, L'affaire Gustloff 1936'', Lausanne, [[Presses polytechniques et universitaires romandes]], 2008
* Emil Ludwig; Peter O. Chotjewitz; Helmut Kreuzer (Hrsg.), ''Der Mord in Davos'', Herbstein, März, 1986
*Roger Weston: [https://www.amazon.com/Fatal-Return-Thriller-Roger-Weston-ebook/dp/B008QPW2YI/ref=pd_sim_sbs_kstore_18?ie=UTF8&refRID=17EEMEB72TT69MRM59VH Fatal Return], 2012. Novel linked to the history and sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff.

==External links==
* {{Dodis|P4271}}
*[http://www1.uni-hamburg.de/rz3a035//pogrom.html The "Reichskristallnacht" Pogrom of the 9/10 November 1938.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110522160607/http://www1.uni-hamburg.de/rz3a035//pogrom.html |date=22 May 2011 }}
*[http://www.wiesenthal.com/site/pp.asp?c=lsKWLbPJLnF&b=4441317 A Survey of Nazi and Pro-Nazi Groups in Switzerland: 1930-1945] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120510161701/http://www.wiesenthal.com/site/pp.asp?c=lsKWLbPJLnF&b=4441317 |date=2012-05-10 }}
* {{PM20|FID=pe/006767}}

{{Swiss far right}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gustloff, Wilhelm}}
[[Category:1895 births]]
[[Category:1936 deaths]]
[[Category:Assassinated Nazis]]
[[Category:Deaths by firearm in Switzerland]]
[[Category:German conspiracy theorists]]
[[Category:German expatriates in Switzerland]]
[[Category:German people murdered abroad]]
[[Category:Nazi Party politicians]]
[[Category:Protocols of the Elders of Zion]]
[[Category:People from Schwerin]]
[[Category:People from the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin]]
[[Category:People murdered in Switzerland]]
[[Category:People murdered in 1936]]
[[Category:Politicians assassinated in the 1930s]]