Bequest Konrad Morgen

In 2005, friends and neighbours of the Morgens offered the bequest of Konrad Morgen (1909-1982) as a gift to the Fritz Bauer Institute. Konrad Morgen was a SS judge and witness at the First Frankfurt Auschwitz trial. Before her death, Morgen's wife had transferred her husband's bequest with all rights to the couple living in the neighbourhood of their vacation home in Niedernhausen im Taunus. Konrad Morgen was born on June 8, 1909 in Frankfurt (Main). He studied law at the University of Frankfurt (Main), Rome, Berlin and The Hague. In 1933, he joined the NSDAP and the SS. In the following year, he passed the first state law examination and the second in 1938. In 1936, he earned his doctorate at the University Frankfurt (Main) writing on the topic of "war propaganda and war prevention" ("Kriegspropaganda und Kriegsverhütung"). He subsequently worked as an assessor for the Amtsgericht Usingen, Naugard and Szczecin and as a legal counsel for the German Labour Front in Szczecin. In 1939, he was conscripted into the Waffen SS and was transferred to the SS's court martial as a judge at the Hauptamt SS-Gericht in Munich. From 1941 onwards, he was an assistant judge at the SS and police court in Krakow. In 1942, he was suspended from this office by the Reichsführer SS, Heinrich Himmler, degraded and removed to the eastern front. In May 1943, Himmler appointed Morgen to the Reichskriminalpolizeiamt in Berlin, reinstated him in his former rank and assigned to him the investigation and arraignment of the so called "cases of corruption" in concentration camps. This targeted economic felonies through which the camp personnel enriched themselves from the prisoner's property. Among other things, Morgen investigated the former camp commandant of the Buchenwald concentration camp Karl Koch, and property crimes at Auschwitz, Flossenbürg, Dachau and Lublin concentration camp. In November 1944, Morgen was put on leave and as an SS senior judge (SS-Chefrichter) moved to Krakow and then to Breslau. In 1945, he was interned in Nuremberg and Ludwigsburg. He testified at the trial of the major war criminals in Nuremberg, the subsequent Nuremberg trial I (Doctors' trial), IV (WVHA trial), XI (Wilhelmstrasse trial) and at the Buchenwald trial. From 1950 onwards, he established himself as a lawyer in Frankfurt (Main). To the end of the 1970s, he testified at several Federal German proceedings regarding Nazi violent crimes (NSG-Verfahren), for example, the First Frankfurt Auschwitz trial and the Dusseldorf Majdanek trial. Morgen died in Frankfurt (Main) on February 4, 1982. His bequest includes personal documents, diaries, manuscripts, typescripts and correspondences of the years 1900 to 1980. These documents are complemented by a comprehensive collection of material compiled by the Fritz Bauer Institute from 2008 onwards, regarding his person and his testimony at the trial of the major war criminals in Nuremberg, the subsequent Nuremberg trials and the First Frankfurt Auschwitz trial. After description, demetallization and filing, the bequest Konrad Morgen contains 64 archival units with a total extent of 1.05 running meters. Originally, it was only structured rudimentarily. During indexing in October 2016, the processor Johannes Beermann-Schön reorganized the collection. It follows the "rules for the description of personal papers and autographs" (RNA, Regeln zur Erschließung von Nachlässen und Autographen). The bequest Konrad Morgen is structured in four sections: "opus" ("Werk"), "correspondence" ("Korrespondenzen"), "personal documents" ("Lebensdokumente") and "collections" ("Sammlungen"). The section "opus" ("Werk") contains all records created by Konrad Morgen himself, for example, his diaries of the years 1945 to 1971, his notebook, his dissertation "Kriegspropaganda und Kriegsverhütung", as well as many typescripts and fragments of typescripts. The section "correspondence" ("Korrespondenzen") covers an extensive exchange of letters between Konrad Morgan and his future wife from the years 1941 to 1948 with a focus on Morgen's time at the detention camp between 1945 and 1948. The section also contains an exchange of letters between Konrad Morgen, his future wife, and Morgen's parents between 1939 and 1947, as well as correspondence with friends and acquaintances and fellow prisoners. The section "personal documents" ("Lebensdokumente") is structured chronologically according to the periods of Morgen's life. It contains material of his private and professional life. For example, receipts, remembrances of his school and college days, dissertation and preparatory service, documents from his time as a court assessor in Szczecin, and as a judge at the SS and police court in Cracow, from his time at the detention camps in Nuremberg and Ludwigsburg, as well as from his testimony at proceedings regarding Nazi violent crimes (NSG-Verfahren), and regarding the investigation proceedings against him in the years 1959, 1961, 1968 and 1970. The section "personal documents" ("Lebensdokumente") is complemented by the section "collections" ("Sammlungen"). It includes material gathered by the Fritz Bauer Institute concerning Morgen's testimony at the trial of the major war criminals in Nuremberg, the subsequent Nuremberg trial VI (WVHA trial) and XI (Wilhelmstrasse trial) and the First Frankfurt Auschwitz trial. It also contains the official minutes of the SS jurists Günther Reinecke and Hans Bernhard Brausse at the trial of the major war criminals in Nuremberg.