Friedrich Kritzinger Represented Adolf Hitler

Officially, Friedrich Kritzinger represented Hans Lammers, head of Reich Chancellery (Office of the Chancellor) and Lammers represented Adolf Hitler (the Chancellor) … however, in the end, Kritzinger did represent Hitler.

Although, almost certainly, Hitler did not even know about Wannsee Conference – being preoccupied with the war (that did not go very well for Germany) Der F;hrer had neither time nor desire to care about such “trivial” matters.

He definitely approved the “final solution of the Jewish question” as proposed by Heydrich and Himmler (which made Hitler just as guilty of the Holocaust) but there is no evidence that he knew about the existence of six killing centers – let alone Wannsee Conference.

He was definitely informed about the progress of the Final Solution – but there is no evidence that he cared about how exactly the Jews were disposed of. All he wanted to know that they were gone. Removed from the face of the Earth.

Kritzinger was the son of a Protestant pastor (of all people) in Gr;nfier (today, Zielonowo in Poland – of all places). He was a Great War hero – fought on the western front, attained the rank of Leutnant in the reserves and earned the Iron Cross both 1st and 2nd class and the Order of Hohenzollern (second only to the famous Blue Max – Pour le M;rite).

He got his doctorate in law (as did more than half of the attendees of Wannsee Conference) and subsequently practiced international and constitutional law in the Ministry of Justice. 

Kritzinger welcomed the Nazi seizure of power and was involved in drafting legislation that supported the Nazi regime – including legislation that established the legal basis for expropriating the property of the outlawed trade unions.

He was no stranger to providing legal cover for mass murder: after the Night of the Long Knives, he worked on a law that legitimized as “acts of self-defense” the extrajudicial murders of SA leaders and other political opponents of Hitler.

On February 1, 1938, Kritzinger accepted the transfer to the Reich Chancellery as head of Division B (which among other duties dealt with “Jewish matters”) with the civil service rank of Ministerialdirektor. Membership in NSDAP was a requirement – so he joined the Party.

He was involved with the drafting of draconian wartime legislation such as the so-called Regulation Against Public Pests of September 5, 1939, which imposed the death penalty for acts like looting and arson (not a bad idea at wartime).

Other laws sought to further deprive the German Jewish population of its remaining rights. The 11th Regulation of the Citizenship Law issued on November 25, 1941 stipulated that all German Jews who had emigrated retrospectively lost their German citizenship, and their assets will be confiscated by the state.

At 51, Kritzinger was the oldest of the participants at the Wannsee Conference. There is no record of any comments by him in the Wannsee Protocol. There also is no documentation that he vocally or openly opposed the plans discussed at Wannsee, though evidence suggests that he sought to distance himself from the whole murderous affair.

He did not attend the follow-up meeting on March 6, 1942, opting to send a less senior official who was instructed not to discuss policy positions but only to report back on the meeting. This was most likely the approach taken by Kritzinger at Wannsee Conference.

Kritzinger stayed on at the Reich Chancellery and, as the management of the Second World War consumed more and more of Adolf Hitler’s time and energy, Lammers was usually with the F;hrer at his military field headquarters.

Consequently, Kritzinger took on more of the day-to-day operations of the Chancellery in Berlin. He continued to serve as the Chancellery’s State Secretary in the Flensburg government set up under Hitler’s appointed successor, Gross-Admiral Karl D;nitz.

Kritzinger was arrested by British soldiers on 23 May 1945 along with the rest of the Flensburg government. He testified as a witness at Nuremberg trials (plural) and was the only one of the Wannsee Conference participants to admit of his own accord that he had been present.

He acknowledged the criminal nature of the conference, and he testified that he had been ashamed of German politics during the war, admitting that Hitler and Himmler were mass murderers. Serial mass murderers, actually.

He was released in April 1946 but then arrested again in December. Due to health-related reasons, he was released again and died of natural causes in April 1947 at the age of 57.