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| Friedrich Wilhelm Kritzinger | |
|---|---|
| Name | Friedrich Wilhelm Kritzinger |
| Birth date | 14 January 1890 |
| Birth place | Grünfier, Province of Pomerania, German Empire |
| Death date | 25 April 1947 |
| Death place | Nuremberg, Allied-occupied Germany |
| Occupation | Civil servant, Staatssekretär |
| Nationality | German |
Friedrich Wilhelm Kritzinger was a German civil servant who served as Deputy Head of the Reich Chancellery and Staatssekretär during the Third Reich. He participated in high-level meetings involving Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, Reinhard Heydrich, and other senior Nazi officials, and later testified at the Nuremberg Trials where he described discussions about the "Final Solution." Kritzinger's career intersected with institutions such as the Reich Chancellery, the Foreign Office, and the Office of the Reich Protector, and his actions placed him within the orbit of events including the Wannsee Conference, the Holocaust, and the collapse of Nazi Germany.
Kritzinger was born in Grünfier in the Province of Pomerania in 1890 into a family of Prussian civil servants, contemporaneous with figures like Kaiser Wilhelm II, Otto von Bismarck, and Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg. He pursued secondary schooling in provincial Pomerania and studied law at universities such as the University of Berlin and the University of Freiburg, where fellow students and contemporaries included Rudolf von Scheliha, Carl Schmitt, and Hans Frank. During his formative years he was influenced by the legal-administrative traditions associated with the Prussian Ministry of the Interior, the Imperial German Army, and the Wilhelmine bureaucratic culture exemplified by institutions like the Reichstag and the Prussian Landtag.
Kritzinger entered the Prussian civil service and advanced through roles in municipal and provincial administrations linked to ministries such as the Prussian Ministry of Commerce and the Prussian Ministry of Justice, alongside contemporaries from the Kaiserreich and the Weimar Republic. He served in capacities that brought him into contact with the Reich Ministry of the Interior, the Reichsjustizamt, and later the Reich Chancellery, working under successive Chancellors including Gustav Stresemann, Heinrich Brüning, Franz von Papen, and Kurt von Schleicher. His trajectory mirrored that of other career officials like Franz Gürtner and Wilhelm Frick, moving between administrative departments, the Reichswehr bureaucracy, and interdepartmental coordinating bodies such as the Reichsamt. Kritzinger's experience included liaison responsibilities with ministries such as the Foreign Office and the Prussian State Ministry as the Weimar political order fragmented and the National Socialist movement gained influence.
In the 1930s Kritzinger rose to a senior position in the Reich Chancellery as Staatssekretär and Deputy Head, serving directly under Hans Heinrich Lammers and in close operational proximity to Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, Hermann Göring, and Martin Bormann. He attended cabinet meetings and participated in conferences where officials from the SS, including Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich, and from ministries like the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA) and the Foreign Office, coordinated policies affecting occupied territories such as Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Kritzinger was present at the Wannsee Conference milieu, which involved figures like Adolf Eichmann, Reinhard Heydrich, and Wilhelm Stuckart, and his memoranda and minutes related to deportation, resettlement, and racial policies reflect interactions with agencies including the SS, the Wehrmacht High Command (OKW), and ministries responsible for finance and transport such as the Reich Ministry of Finance and the Deutsche Reichsbahn. His administrative role put him in the nexus with legal and bureaucratic architects like Carl Schmitt, Hans Lammers, and Wilhelm Keitel as the Reich implemented measures in occupied Soviet territories, the General Government under Hans Frank, and the Reichskommissariats in the East.
After the collapse of Nazi Germany, Kritzinger was detained by Allied authorities and brought to Nuremberg, where he was interrogated alongside defendants and witnesses from institutions including the Reich Chancellery, the SS, the Gestapo, and the Foreign Office. He provided testimony and deposition that referenced meetings involving Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, Reinhard Heydrich, Adolf Eichmann, and other senior officials implicated in the Holocaust, and his statements were used in proceedings of the International Military Tribunal alongside evidence about the Wannsee Conference, the Einsatzgruppen, and the Final Solution. Kritzinger cooperated to an extent with prosecutors representing the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and France, offering recollections that intersected with documentary exhibits from the Reich Security Main Office, the RSHA, and the Reich Chancellery. Although not a primary defendant in some indictments, his testimony contributed to the narratives presented against leaders such as Hermann Göring, Joachim von Ribbentrop, and Wilhelm Keitel, and he was held in detention facilities used for prisoners from the Nuremberg process.
Kritzinger's private life involved family connections within Prussian administrative circles similar to those of contemporaries like Carl Friedrich Goerdeler and Ludwig Beck, and his social milieu included officials from ministries such as the Reich Ministry of Agriculture and institutions like the Prussian Academy. He died in custody in Nuremberg in April 1947 while detained by Allied authorities during the postwar occupation overseen by military governments including the U.S. military government, and his death occurred in the context of the broader legal and political aftermath involving denazification, the Nuremberg Trials, and occupation policies administered by figures such as Lucius D. Clay and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Kritzinger's papers and statements remained part of archival collections related to the Reich Chancellery, the International Military Tribunal, and postwar scholarship on officials like Hans Lammers, Wilhelm Frick, and Hans Frank.
Category:1890 births Category:1947 deaths Category:German civil servants