Maikowski, Hans Eberhard.

Maikowski, Hans Eberhard, born 23-02-1908 in Berlin moved to Stuttgart in 1923, where he had first contacts with the NSDAP. He attended the Waldorf School there, which he “u. a. because of his anti-Semitic stance ”. From 1924 back in Berlin, he joined the Olympic Defense Association, disguised as a sports club, and the Frontbann Nord. From 1924 to 1925 he was a soldier in the Reichswehr. From 1926 to 1928 he completed an apprenticeship as a gardener. Maikowski was the first standard bearer of the Berlin SA in 1926 and founded the “Arbeiterjugend Charlottenburg” in 1929.

From 20-02-1931 until his death he was leader of SA Storm 33 in Berlin-Charlottenburg. By January 1932, the SA numbered approximately 400,000 men. Many of these stormtroopers believed in the socialist promise of National Socialism. The “Mördersturm 33”  was responsible for numerous murders of political opponents in the early 30s. Maikowski himself fled abroad for a short time after pleading guilty through a lawyer to having shot and killed the worker Walter Lange on December 09-12-1931 in the course of a street battle in what is now Otto-Suhr-Allee. On his return he was arrested in October 1932, but released on 23-12-1932 as part of the Christmas amnesty.  He then worked for the Völkischer Beobachter.

Death and burial ground of Maikowski, Hans Eberhard.

On 30-01-1933, Maikowski took part in the torchlight procession to celebrate Adolf Hitler’s appointment as Reich Chancellor. On the march back, Sturm 33 led by Maikowski made a provocative detour through Wallstrasse in Charlottenburg, which is mainly inhabited by KPD supporters . There was an exchange of fire with local residents in which the policeman Josef Zauritz was shot and Maikowski was so badly injured that he died in the Westend hospital.

The circumstances of the act remained unresolved. National Socialist propaganda attributed the acts to the communists. They insisted that they had not fired a shot and named a witness who accused an SA man. A large show trial of 56 defendants, almost all members of the KPD, ended with a total of 39 years ‘imprisonment and 95 years’ imprisonment, without any direct evidence of direct involvement, and an acquittal. Statements by SA comrades Maikowski to the Secret State Police Office from June 1933, which described SA Obersturmführer Alfred Buske (born 26-10-1912  and died 18-01-1934) as the perpetrator, remained secret and were destroyed in 1943. Further evidence supports Buske’s perpetration. In later editions of their memorial book Sturm 33, Hans Maikowski, his comrades erased any reference to Buske and replaced him on a photo by means of retouching by SA man Paul Foyer, one of the main accused in the trial of Otto Grüneberg’s murder.

More recent research into the process has shown that the shooting of Maikowski by Buske was probably ultimately the result of an order from the Berlin Gauleiter Joseph Goebbels: In a report that became public in 2019, German historians, Wolfram Pyta and Rainer Orth refer to a testimony of the former SA that they found out – Relatives of Karl Deh, who had been an eyewitness to the shooting of Maikowski, to the Berlin police in 1967. In this Deh reported on a meeting of senior SA leaders in the Berlin-Charlottenburg district on 27-12-1932, at which Deh, participated. During this meeting, some participants had expressed their fear that the “Political Organization” (PO), the party apparatus of the NSDAP, might try the SA in the event of a National Socialist takeover of power in the state – which would then, from the point of view of the PO, try its duty would have done and would no longer be needed – to boot out so that we would not have to share the fruits of victory with the SA, but have them to ourselves. In particular, the Berlin Gauleiter Joseph Goebbels, who was considered treacherous and scheming in SA circles, was trusted with such intentions. For this reason, the idea was expressed in the SA leaders’ meeting on December 27th that “Goebbels would have to disappear first [before one came to power]” in order to prevent such a development. Hans Maikowski, who was one of the participants in the meeting, then, according to Deh, confidently declared that “if it were necessary”, he (Maikowski) would personally take on the task of shooting Goebbels. Deh explained that, in his opinion, Maikowski’s private threat of 27-12-1932, had been deferred by another participant in the meeting – Deh suspected Standartenführer Berthold Hell, who died on 23-04-1945, age 43, in the last battle for Berlin – Goebbels and that Goebbels had thereupon arranged for Maikowski to be liquidated by Buske Man who could potentially be dangerous to him to get rid of the world. In his own cynicism, Goebbels then instrumentalized the elimination of his personal enemy Maikowski for his propaganda by having Maikowski transfigured into a “martyr” for the Third Reich after his murder by the press and radio, in order to create another myth, which was suitable to contribute to the ideological consolidation of the new regime. As evidence for his suspicion that Buske carried out the murder of Maikowski on a higher order, Deh referred to the investigators in 1966 that Buske had always had money after Maikowsi’s death until his own death in 1934, although he never had had worked and that Deh had also been promoted from SA troop leader to SA storm chief (ie by three ranks) in the shortest possible time during 1933. According to Deh’s opinion, Buske also shot the police officer Zauritz spontaneously “out of necessity”, on the one hand to carry out the attack on Maikowski, with which he was assigned, and to get rid of an unpleasant official witness by shooting Zauritz at the same time.

National Socialist propaganda exposed Maikowski as a martyr. On 05-02-1933, the Reich propaganda leader Joseph Goebbels staged a major event in the form of a state funeral for both victims in Berlin. It consisted of a funeral service by DC Pastor Joachim Hossenfelder in the Berlin Cathedral and a solemn funeral procession to the Invalidenfriedhof, where Maikowski was buried after funeral speeches by Hermann Goering and Goebbels as well as German naval officer, Fritz-Otto Busch.   Busch survived the war and died age 80 on 05-07-1971 in Limpsfield, Surrey, England. The event, which is said to have been attended by 600,000 people, was broadcast by all radio stations across the country. and excerpts from the Nazi propaganda film Germany Awakened (1933). The SA Standard 1 later bore the name “Hans Maikowski”.  In many German cities and towns, streets got his name. At the place of his death, Wallstraße 52, now “Maikowskistraße”, a memorial plaque commemorated him, as did a memorial fountain in the nearby Richard-Wagner-Straße from 1937 onwards. None of Maikowski’s numerous public honors survived the Hitler era. According to a testimony of 18-02-1943, Maikowski is said to have been shot by “SA man Buske”

Hans Eberhard Mailowski is buried at the Invaliden cemetery in Berlin, grave is in Section F, near the wall that runs along the Spandauer Kanal. His gravestone  has disappeared, as it was on the east side of the cemetery and Russion territory after the war and the Russians destroyed all east side gravestones.