Hitler’s adjutant Wilhelm Brückner, felt in disgrace.

28-11-2018

gestapo

Wilhelm Brückner born 11 December 1884 and raised in Baden-Baden. He did his Abitur there. Afterwards he studied law and economics in Strasbourg  Freiburg, Heidelberg and Munich.

In the First World War, Wilhelm Brückner was an officer in a Bavarian infantry regiment and was discharged as a leutnant. After the war, he joined the Freikorp Franz von Epp   and participated in Schützenregiment 42 as a member of the Reichswehr  in suppressing the Bavarian Soviet Republic.

Towards the end of 1919 Brückner was once again going to university, but became for three years a film recording technician. In late 1922 he joined the NSDAP  and on 1 February 1923 became leader of the Munich Sturmabteilung (SA) Regiment

.   He was among those who were active in spurring on the Putsch. He delivered the quote: “The day is coming when I cannot hold the people. If nothing happens now, then the people will slip away.”

Brückner  became Adolf Hitler’s adjutant and one of his bodyguards. At the time there were only five men in the personal squad, including SS Brigade Führer Ulrich Graf  , SS Oberführer and driver of Hitler Emil Maurice , Christian Weber , and SS Obergruppenführer Julius Schaub . Bruckner was “well liked” by the men. On 9 November 1923 Brückner took part in the Beer Hall Putsch in Munich , as a result of which he was sentenced to a year and a half in prison. After the war ended, in 1948 Ulrich Graf was sentenced to five years of hard labor. He died in 03 March 1950, age 71.

Christian Weber died on 11-05-1945, age 61, after being arrested by the United States Army in Berlin. He was one of a number of prisoners being carried in an open-backed lorry which overturned. Weber suffered fatal injuries in the accident. His body was interred in a mass grave at Heilbronn.

Brückner, here with SS Oberstgruppenführer Sepp Dietrich  was released only four and a half months later and once again took over his old SA regiment’s leadership. Shortly thereafter, he worked until 1927 as the third general secretary at the Association for the German Community Abroad. Over the next few years he lived on his income as a sales representative, until 1929 when he found a steady job at the German Foreign Institute.

Brückner later rose to be Hitler’s chief adjutant

Joseph Goebbels 

On 9 November 1934, he was appointed an SA-Obergruppenführer  by Hitler. It was through a car accident later that same year that Brückner managed to procure for Hitler his personal doctor, Karl Brandt

  , who stayed with Hitler for years.  On 19-08-1947, Brandt was found guilty on counts 2-4 of the indictment. With six others, he was sentenced to death by hanging, and all were executed at Landsberg Prison on June 2, 1948, age 44.

On 15 January 1936, Brückner became an honorary citizen of Detmold (he was stripped of this honour by city council on 9 November 1945). Brückner, who was well liked by applicants and everyday visitors at the Reich Chancellery for his straightforwardness and affability, lost ever more importance with the war’s outbreak and defiantly lost his job after an incident with Kannenberg. Brückner’s demise was triggered by Artur Kannenberg  , Hitler’s house manager. Kannenberg and an unnamed adjutant had a falling out, which led Hitler to dismiss the adjutant. At this point Brückner intervened, saying that the adjutant in question had been blameless. Hitler once again sided with Kannenberg, and dismissed Brückner, despite his years of service. Hitler seemed to value sycophants like Kannenberg and Theodor Morell extremely highly. He was replaced in October 1940 by SS Obergruppenführer  Julius Schaub. Martin Bormann , then chief of staff in the office for Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess  was behind Brückner being replaced by Schaub, who was closer to Bormann. Brückner joined the Wehrmacht, becoming a colonel by war’s end. He  died on 18 August 1954, age 69, in Herbsdorf, Upper Bavaria. Alas the webmaster couldn’t find a grave of him anymore on the small cemetery of Herbsdorf. Arthur Kannenberg, born 23. Februar 1896 in Charlottenburg, died age 66 on 26. Januar 1963 in Düsseldorf