Wilhelm Kube
| Wilhelm Kube | |
|---|---|
Generalkommissar Wilhelm Kube
|
|
| Personal details | |
| Born |
13 November 1887 Glogau, German Empire |
| Died | 22 September 1943 (aged 55) Minsk, Belarus |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance |
 Nazi Germany
|
| Service/branch |
 Schutzstaffel
|
| Rank | SS-Generalkommissar |
Wilhelm Kube (13 November 1887 – 22 September 1943) was a German politician and Nazi official. He was an important figure in the German Christian movement during the early years of Nazi rule. During the war he became a senior official in the occupying government of the Soviet Union, achieving the rank of Generalkommissar for Weissruthenien (Belarus). He was assassinated in Minsk in 1943, triggering brutal reprisals against the citizens of Minsk. He was known as an extreme anti-semite, he is known to say about Jews ”What plague and syphilis are to humanity, are Jews to the white race." [1]
However, Kube behaved towards German Jews in a relatively mild way during his charge in Minsk, by trying—unsuccessfully—to protect German Jews, whom he felt as culturally closer, from extermination.
As for Minsk, he planned to level the city and replace it with a German settlement, called Asgard.
Kube was born in Glogau (today's Głogów), Prussian Silesia, and studied history, economics and theology. He was active in the Völkisch movement as a student, and was an early member of the Nazi Party. In 1924 he was one of the first group of Nazi members elected to the Weimar Republic Reichstag. In 1928 he was appointed Gauleiter of Brandenburg and speaker of the tiny Nazi party fraction (6 seats) in the Prussian Landtag (Prussian state legislature).
Kube remained an active Christian as well as a zealous Nazi, and in 1932 he organised the list of candidates of the Faith Movement of the German Christians for the ordinary election of presbyters and synodals within the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union on 13 November that year. The German Christians then gained about a third of all seats in presbyteries and synods. Kube was elected as one of the presbyters of the congregation of Gethsemane Church in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg. The presbyters elected him from their midst as synodal into the competent deanery synod (German: Kreissynode; Berlin then comprised 11 deaneries altogether), and these synodals again elected him a member of deanery synodal board (German: Kreissynodalvorstand). When in 1933 the Nazis came to power he remained active in the German Christian movement which sought to "Nazify" the 28 Protestant church bodies in Germany. For 23 July 1933 Hitler ordered an unconstitutional, premature re-election of all presbyters and synodals, with the German Christians now gaining 70–80% of the seats, so Kube could then further advance as head of the Berlin synod of the old-Prussian Church. Following the German conquest of Poland in 1939 his Nazi party domain was extended to include Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia and Reichsgau Wartheland.
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