Lammers, Hans

(1879-1962)

   bureaucrat; despite radical rightist views, he served in the Prussian Interior Ministry under Carl Severing,* a Social Dem-ocrat. Born in the Upper Silesian town of Lublinitz (now Lubliniec in Poland*), he studied law and political science before entering the civil service* in 1901. He earned a doctorate in 1904 and spent several years as an assistant judge before appointment in 1912 to Beuthen's provincial court. A reserve officer, he was activated in 1916 and served at the front until he lost an eye in 1917. Posted to the General Government in Warsaw, he was awarded two Iron Crosses for bravery.

   Lammers was assigned to the Prussian Interior Ministry after the war. Blessed with energy and intelligence, he was appointed ministerial counselor in 1922. While he was characterized in the SPD press as "of the extreme Right," his talent enabled him to retain key posts in Prussia's* bureaucracy. Moreover, he repeatedly represented the Reich government against the states (Lander) in pro-ceedings before the Supreme Court. Yet Lammers struggled to preserve a non-political demeanor; in late 1931, for example, he was reprimanded for attending the anti-Weimar meeting at Bad Harzburg (see Harzburg Front).

   A monarchist, Lammers despised the November Revolution* and the Repub-lic and refused to take an oath of allegiance to the Constitution.* A member of the DNVP and the Stahlhelm,* he joined the NSDAP in February 1932. Hitler* appointed him State Secretary in the Chancellery on 30 January 1933. But the Nazis suspected his monarchism,* while Lammers, an aging bureaucrat, never fully embraced the NSDAP. Although he was named Reichsminister and Chan-cellery Chief in 1937, his access to Hitler was gradually blocked by Martin Bormann.

   For war crimes and crimes against humanity, Lammers was sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment on 11 April 1949 in the Wilhelmstrasse Trial. In 1952 he was released.

   REFERENCES:Benz and Graml, Biographisches Lexikon; Caplan, Government without Administration; Giles, Students and National Socialism; NDB, vol. 13; Peterson, Limits of Hitler's Power; Speer, Inside the Third Reich.