Wilhelm Börger

Wilhelm Börger
Wilhelm Börger
Ministerial Director in the; Reich Ministry of Labor
	In office; 1 October 1938 – 8 May 1945
Preceded by	Hermann Rettig
Succeeded by	Office abolished
Trustee of Labour for the; Rhine Province
	In office; 13 June 1933 – 1 October 1938
Preceded by	Office established
Succeeded by	Office abolished
Additional positions
1933–1945	Member of the Prussian State Council
1933–1945	Member of the Greater German Reichstag
1930–1933	Member of the Reichstag
Personal details
Born	14 February 1896; Essen, Rhineland Province,; Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire
Died	29 June 1962 (aged 66); Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, West Germany
Nationality	German
Political party	Nazi Party
Other political; affiliations	National Socialist Freedom Party
Occupation	Locksmith
Awards	Golden Party Badge
Military service
Allegiance	German Empire; Nazi Germany
Branch/service	Imperial German Navy; Schutzstaffel
Years of service	1915–1918; 1935–1945
Rank	SS-Brigadeführer
Unit	SMS Friedrich der Grosse
Battles/wars	Battle of Jutland

Wilhelm Heinrich Börger (14 February 1896 – 29 June 1962) was a German Nazi Party functionary and SS-Brigadeführer. He held several administrative positions, including as a Trustee of Labour and a Ministerial Director in the Reich Ministry of Labor. He also sat as a member of the Reichstag and the Prussian State Council. Following the defeat of Nazi Germany in the Second World War, he was interned for three years and released.

Early life

Börger was born in Kray, a borough of Essen. After attending Volksschule, he was apprenticed as a locksmith and then worked as a journeyman at the Dahlbusch colliery in Rotthausen (today, part of Gelsenkirchen). From January 1915 to November 1918, Börger took part in the First World War as a marine artillery mechanic in the Imperial German Navy. He served with the High Seas Fleet aboard the SMS Friedrich der Grosse and participated in the Battle of Jutland. After the end of the war, he returned to the colliery. He subsequently held jobs as a locksmith on the railway, in a paper factory, a chemical factory and an agricultural machine factory. From 1925 to 1930, he was employed by the city of Neuss. Börger began to be politically active around 1920. In 1924, he ran unsuccessfully for the Landtag of Prussia as a member of the National Socialist Freedom Party.^[1]

Nazi Party career

On 1 September 1929, Börger joined the Nazi Party (membership number 150,841) and became its Ortsgruppenleiter (Local Group Leader) in Neuss that same year. As an Alter Kampfer, he would later be awarded the Golden Party Badge. Börger was employed by the Party as a public speaker and agitator. In 1930, he advanced to Kreisleiter (County Leader) and, from 1932, he was the Landesobmann-West (West Regional Chairman) of the National Socialist Factory Cell Organization. At the parliamentary election of September 1930, Börger was elected as a deputy of the Reichstag for electoral constituency 22 (Düsseldorf-East). Following the Nazi seizure of power, he retained his seat as a member of the Reichstag until the fall of the Nazi regime.^[2]

Börger received a teaching position in German Socialism at the University of Cologne in May 1933. He then briefly headed the German Metalworkers Association before being appointed as a Trustee of Labour for the Rhine Province on 13 June 1933 in the Reich Ministry of Labor under Reichsminister Franz Seldte. On 12 October 1933, Prussian Minister president Hermann Göring appointed him to the recently reconstituted Prussian State Council.^[3] Börger was appointed by Reich President Paul von Hindenburg to the board of directors of the Reichspost and by President of the Reichsbank Hjalmar Schacht to its board of directors. He was also a member of the Population and Policy Committee of the Reich Ministry of the Interior. On 16 July 1935, he received an honorary professorship and became head of the Institute for German Social Policy at the University of Cologne.^[4]

On 1 October 1938, Börger was promoted to Ministerial Director in the Labor Ministry, overseeing Main Department I (General Administration), and also was appointed as a special trustee (Sonderstreuhänder) for mining.^[5] A member of the SS since 1935 (SS number 247,066), he was assigned to the SS Race and Settlement Main Office, the organization responsible for safeguarding the "racial purity" of the SS. Börger attained his final promotion to SS-Brigadeführer on 30 January 1939.^[6]

Börger was also the editor of published works on National Socialist philosophy, including Angewandte Rassenkunde für jedermann (Applied Racial Studies for Everyone) that was published in 1933.^[1] Börger is also credited with coining the term Reichskristallnacht, in a speech at Lüneburg on 24 June 1939, to describe the Jewish pogrom of November 1938.^[7]

Post-war life

After Germany's defeat in the Second World War, Börger was detained and taken to an internment camp at Hessisch Lichtenau, then transferred to Nuremberg and was released in 1948.^[5] In his de-nazification process, he was initially classified as category III (minor offender) and later reduced to category IV (follower). He returned to Essen and became a sales representative for paints and varnishes. He unsuccessfully sued to obtain his civil service pension and died in Heidelberg in 1962.

References

^ ^a ^b Wilhelm Börger entry, p. 64 in Das Deutsche Führerlexikon 1934-1935
^ Wilhelm Börger entry in the Reichstag database
^ Lilla 2005, pp. 195, 297.
^ Wilhelm Börger biography in the Reichstag database
^ ^a ^b Wilhelm Börger curriculum vitae in the Independent Commission of Historians to Research the History of the Reich Ministry of Labor 1933–1945
^ Schiffer Publishing Ltd. 2000, p. 13.
^ Gruner, Wolf; Ross, Steven J., eds. (2019). New Perspectives on Kristallnacht: After 80 Years, the Nazi Pogrom in Global Comparison. Purdue University Press. p. 2. ISBN 978-1-557-53870-3.

Sources

Das Deutsche Führerlexikon 1934-1935. Berlin: Verlagsanftalt Otto Stollberg G. m. b. H. 1934.
Information about Wilhelm Börger in the Reichstag database
Lilla, Joachim (2005). Der Preußische Staatsrat 1921–1933: Ein biographisches Handbuch. Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag. ISBN 978-3-770-05271-4.
Schiffer Publishing Ltd., ed. (2000). SS Officers List: SS-Standartenführer to SS-Oberstgruppenführer (As of 30 January 1942). Schiffer Military History Publishing. ISBN 0-7643-1061-5.
Wilhelm Börger curriculum vitae in the Independent Commission of Historians to Research the History of the Reich Ministry of Labor 1933–1945