Dr. August Hellmann
He was born on June 6, 1896, in Hamburg, at Brandsende 8. His father, a Social Democrat, worked as an elementary school teacher and later as the second director of the Hamburg Youth Welfare Office, as the Napola director states in his CV dated February 10, 1934. From 1903 to 1905, August attended elementary school, then seminary school, and finally the Heinrich Hertz Gymnasium. During the First World War, he fought in Field Marshal Hindenburg's 147th Infantry Regiment. In 1915, he was promoted to lieutenant. He was wounded four times. He received high decorations.
In 1918, he participated in the purge of Hitler's "November criminals" in Hamburg-Altona, as it was called in Nazi jargon. His company, along with the SMG (heavy machine gun) platoon, occupied Hamburg City Hall. In 1920, they participated in the Kapp Putsch. Hellmann sought to join the Lettow-Vorbeck Corps, which was operating in Mecklenburg.
In 1919, he studied chemistry. From 1925 to 1929, he worked as a chemist and expert for the transport of explosives at HAPAG (Hamburg-Amerikanische Packetfahrt-Actien-Gesellschaft). In 1932, he married the daughter of a doctor from Uetersen.
Around 1920, he served with the Bahrenfelders, the forerunner of the Wehrwolf. They were tasked with protecting Hamburg from communist attempts at overthrowing the state. In the same year, the Rural People's Movement, opposed to the Weimar Republic, was organized in Schleswig-Holstein. Its methods ranged from tax boycotts to acts of violence. The "farmer general" Claus Heim from Sankt Annen in Dithmarschen was particularly popular. Hellmann sympathized with the movement.
The chemist is a leading member of the Low German Homeland Association (NHB) and the ethnically oriented National Association of German Officers (NDO).
On May 17, 1930, the German Reichstag passed the Young Plan. In protest, the Wehrwolf leadership decided to light visible fires everywhere as a symbolic act of protest. August Hellmann was dissatisfied with these actions and, together with his friend, recognized the time had come for violent action. For a chemist with a doctorate (Dr. rer. nat. in 1924), the manufacture of explosives should have been easy. On March 15, 1930, the infernal machines built in the HAPAG laboratory exploded at the tax offices in Neumünster and Bad Oldesloe. Considerable property damage was caused. The police tracked down the perpetrators.
"The intellectual originator of the entire affair," reported the Volksbote (Zeitz) on December 17, 1930, "was Dr. Hellmann, a chemist, bachelor, war lieutenant with undigested front-line experience, now 34 years old, and a Wehrwolf group leader." "While on the foreign policy front, every page of the peace treaty was hotly debated for years, some madman went and planted a bomb. The bomb, by the way, contained five kilos of ammonite: fortunately, the fuse failed. Because the bedroom of the mayor of Oldesloe was above the cellar." (See prison)
In December 1930, Hellmann was sentenced to five years in prison by the Altona jury court. He was released under an amnesty in June 1932.
“These bomb attacks helped to shake up Schleswig-Holstein and contributed to this province becoming a stronghold of National Socialism,” said Friedrich Uebelhoer, NSDAP district leader in Naumburg, at Hellmann’s grave in May 1939.
In 1934 he was appointed director of the Napola Naumburg.
On May 18, 1939, August Hellmann was killed in a car accident.
