Erich Hilgenfeldt
| Erich Hilgenfeldt | |
|---|---|
| Born | 2 July 1897 Heinitz/Ottweiler |
| Died | 25 April 1945 (aged 47), likely in Berlin |
| Occupation | Nazi Welfare official |
Georg Paul Erich Hilgenfeldt (born 2 July 1897 in Heinitz/Ottweiler; likely died in April/May 1945 in Berlin) was a high Nazi Party government official.
Hilgenfeldt was born on 2 July 1897 in Heinitz. He went to the Oberrealschule in Saarbrücken, whereafter he went to Halle until Obersekunda (roughly Grade or Year 11) on the "Frankesch" endowment.
Married on 24. April 1922 to Marie-Charlotte Köhler, they separated around 1935 and finally divorced 30 November 1940. They had two children together, Reinhard (2 March 1923 – killed in action 2 November 1943 at the Trigno River area 1 km south of Tufillo/Italy) and another boy (1 October 1927). Hildgenfeldt then remarried on 6 December 1940 to Leopoldine Statischek (23 September 1907 at Novi Sad/Serbia – suicide by poison ? April/May 1945 at Berlin) from Wien.
Hilgenfeldt served in the First World War as an officer and pilot. After school, he was first an office staffer in the timber industry and head of sales for a building business. From 1928, Hilgenfeldt was a staffer at the Reich Statistical Office.
On 1 August 1929, Hilgenfeldt became an NSDAP member (no. 143642), and by 1932 he had become NSDAP Kreisleiter (District Leader) and by 1933 NSDAP Gauinspektor for Inspektion I Groß-Berlin. By 1931 he was a municipal councillor for Berlin-Welmersdorf.
Hilgenfeldt worked as office head at the NSDAP Office for People's Welfare and in close association with the Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt (NSV), or the National Socialist People's Welfare. By organizing a charity drive to celebrate Hitler's Birthday on 20 April 1931, Joseph Goebbels named him the head of the NSV. The NSV was named the single Nazi Party welfare organ in May 1933. On 21 September 1933 he was appointed as Reich Commissioner for the Winterhilfswerk (Winter Support Programme). Under Hilgenfeldt the programme was massively expanded, so that the régime deemed it worthy to be called the "greatest social institution in the world." One method of expansion was to absorb, or in NSDAP parlance coordinate, already existing but non-Nazi charity organizations. NSV was the second largest Nazi group organization by 1939, second only to the German Labor Front.
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