Carl Röver

Carl Georg Röver (12 February 1889 in Lemwerder – 15 May 1942 in Berlin) was a German Nazi Party official. His main posts were as Gauleiter of Weser-Ems and Reichsstatthalter of Oldenburg/Bremen.

Carl Georg Röver
Gauleiter of Weser-Ems
In office
1929–1942
Succeeded byPaul Wegener
Reichsstatthalter of the Free State of Oldenburg
In office
1933–1942
Prime MinisterGeorg Joel
Preceded byNone
Succeeded byPaul Wegener
Reichsstatthalter of the Free City of Bremen
In office
1933–1942
Preceded byNone
Succeeded byPaul Wegener
Minister-President of the Free State of Oldenburg
In office
1932–1933
Preceded byFriedrich Cassebohm
Succeeded byGeorg Joel
Personal details
Born(1889-02-12)February 12, 1889
Lemwerder, German Empire
DiedMay 15, 1942(1942-05-15) (aged 53)
Berlin, Germany
Political partyNational Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP)

Early years

Röver saw service in the First World War, initially with the regular army before joining the Propaganda department of the Oberste Heeresleitung. He became a member of the Nazi Party in 1923.[1] He also joined the Sturmabteilung, rising to the rank of Obergruppenführer.[1]

Nazi career

Already before the Nazis came to power, Carl Röver acted as Gauleiter in Oldenburg, that by 1932 was already ruled by the National-Socialists. When in September 1932 the Oldenburg superior church council, the executive board of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Oldenburg, decided to give permission to use the St. Lambert's Church in Oldenburg city for the sermon of the African Pastor Robert Kwami. Röver reacted immediately, directing racist tirades against Kwami, the Norddeutsche Mission and the superior church council demanding to postpone the sermon. The Nazi-party called upon the State Ministry of Oldenburg, the Nazi-dominated state government, to stop the sermon.[2] Despite the public threats by the local Nazis that were later become known as the so-called Kwami Affair, the sermon was carried out as planned September 20, 1932. Röver was appointed to the post of Reichsstatthalter for the states of Oldenburg and Bremen in April 1933 after the Nazi regime reorganised local government in Germany.[3] In this post he played a role in the perpetration of the Holocaust as he personally signed the order for every Jew deported from Bremen during his life.[4]

However, in this role Röver also clashed with Hermann Göring as the Reichsmarschall, as Minister President of Prussia, made no secret of his desire to incorporate Bremen into Prussia. Röver, however, opposed the move consistently and managed to convince Adolf Hitler to decline Göring's requests.[5]

He was something of a favourite of Martin Bormann, a fact that helped to ensure that when an Arbeitsbereich ("working sphere" - an external unit of the Nazi Party) was set up in the neighbouring occupied Netherlands most of its staff were drawn from Weser-Ems.[6]

Death

Röver supposedly suffered a stroke in May 1942 and died soon afterwards, Paul Wegener succeeding him as Gauleiter.[7] His official cause of death is listed in some sources as pneumonia[1] and in others as heart failure.[8] His state funeral proved a lavish event, with Adolf Hitler himself in attendance and Alfred Rosenberg delivering the eulogy.[9]

Röver's cause of death is disputed by David Irving, who claims in his book Hitler's War that Röver was killed by Nazi agents who had been sent specifically by Martin Bormann.[10] This is also the conclusion of Bormann’s biographer Jochen Von Lang, who states that Röver’s increasingly erratic behaviour was caused by progressive dementia brought on by late stage syphilis, supposedly contracted before the First World War: “Bormann ordered that the nature of the disease be kept secret. From Munich he dispatched two agents to Oldenburg who, on May 15, were able to report to him that Röver had died, officially from heart failure.”[11]

References

  1. Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich. Wer war was vor und nach 1945. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Zweite aktualisierte Auflage, Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 504.
  2. Georg Joel und Jens Müller an das Oldenburger Staatsministerium. Printed in: Klaus Schaap: Oldenburgs Weg ins „Dritte Reich“. Quellen zur Regionalgeschichte Nordwest-Niedersachsens, Heft 1. Oldenburg 1983, Dokument Nr. 157. See also: Bekenntnisgemeinschaft und bekennende Gemeinden in Oldenburg in den Jahren der nationalsozialistischen Herrschaft. Evangelische Kirchlichkeit und nationalsozialistischer Alltag in einer ländlichen Region, Bd. 39, Teil 5, p. 52.
  3. Peter D. Stachura, The Shaping of the Nazi State, Taylor & Francis, 1978, p. 216
  4. David Cesarani, Holocaust: The "final solution", Routledge, 2004, p. 83
  5. Maiken Umbach, German federalism: past, present, future, Palgrave Macmillan, 2002, p. 131
  6. Dietrich Orlow, The History of the Nazi Party 1933-1945 Volume 2, David & Charles, 1973, p. 306
  7. Orlow, The History of the Nazi Party , p. 352
  8. Lang, Jochen von; Sibyll, Claus (1979). The secretary : Martin Bormann, the man who manipulated Hitler. Internet Archive. New York : Random House.
  9. Orlow, The History of the Nazi Party , p. 358
  10. David Irving, Hitler's War, p. 392
  11. Lang, Jochen von; Sibyll, Claus (1979). The secretary : Martin Bormann, the man who manipulated Hitler. Internet Archive. New York : Random House.
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