Wilhelm Helfer

Wilhelm Helfer (26 December 1886 – 15 August 1954) was a German member of the ''Sturmabteilung'' (SA), the Nazi Party's paramilitary organization, who became an SA''-Obergruppenführer''. For many years, he served as the commander of the SA-''Gruppe Hochland'' in the Party's stronghold in Bavaria, and then led the Party's Reich Quartermaster Office during the Second World War. He was also a Nazi Party politician who served in the Landtag of Bavaria and the '' Reichstag''.

Early life

Helfer was born the son of a lawyer in Kaiserslautern. After attending ''Volksschule'' and ''Realschule'', he completed a commercial apprenticeship in spinning and weaving from 1904 to 1907. He next attended a textile technical school in Reutlingen for a year. From 1908 to 1910, he performed military service with the Royal Bavarian Life Guards Regiment in Munich. For the next two years, Helfer worked as a commercial cashier. Emigrating from Germany to the colony of German South West Africa in 1912, he worked as a mining official and paymaster at a diamond mining company in Lüderitz. Upon the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, Helfer became an ''Unteroffizier'' of the Imperial Schutztruppe for German South West Africa. He served in an artillery battery in Narubis, and earned the Iron Cross, 2nd class. He was captured in July 1915 and held as a prisoner of war by the British in the Transvaal until the end of the war in 1918. He resumed his career with a diamond mining company in Cape Town until returning to Germany in 1922.

Career in the SA and the Nazi Party

Helfer joined the ''Deutschvölkischer Schutz- und Trutzbund'', the largest and most active antisemitic völkisch organization in the Weimar Republic. In June 1922, he became a member of the Nazi Party and its paramilitary unit, the ''Sturmabteilung'' (SA). As a very early Party member (membership number 305) he would later be awarded the Golden Party Badge. In April 1923, he became a '' Zugführer'' (platoon leader) and deputy ''Kompanieführer'' in the SA-Regiment München, advancing to ''Kompanieführer'' in September. With his company, Helfer participated in Adolf Hitler's failed Beer Hall Putsch on 9 November 1923 in Munich, for which he would later be awarded the Blood Order. After the Party was banned in the wake of the failed coup, he joined a Munich war veterans association, the ''Frontkriegerbund'', became its ''Gauführer'' (regional leader) in Upper Bavaria and a member of its ''Bundesleitung'' (national leadership).

Helfer rejoined the Nazi Party on 28 March 1925, only a month after the ban on it was lifted. In April 1929, he was named the SA-''Brigadeführer'' of SA-Brigade I in Munich, the Party's stronghold. He became the SA-''Gausturmführer'' in February 1931, commanding all the SA units in Gau Munich-Upper Bavaria. He took part in the mass rally in Braunschweig with Hitler on 17–18 October 1931, for which he would be awarded the Brunswick Rally Badge. On 1 July 1932, he assumed command of SA-''Untergruppe'' Munich-Upper Bavaria. After the Nazi seizure of power, Helfer was promoted to SA-''Gruppenführer'' on 1 March 1933. He was appointed to the Landtag of Bavaria on 5 March and served until its dissolution by the Nazis on 14 October. On 12 March 1933, he was named the ''Sonderkommissar'' (Special Commissioner) of the Supreme SA Leadership to the regional government of Upper Bavaria. On 15 March, his command in Munich-Upper Bavaria was enlarged and renamed SA-''Gruppe Hochland''. On 15 September 1933, Helfer left his field command for an assignment to the staff of the Supreme SA Leadership. On 20 November 1933, he was named as the SA garrison commander for Munich. Also in November, Helfer was elected as a member of the '' Reichstag'' from electoral constituency 24 (Upper Bavaria-Swabia), where he served until the fall of the Nazi regime in May 1945.

Following Hitler's violent purge of the SA at the end of June 1934 known as the Night of the Long Knives, Helfer was reinstated in the key post of '' Führer'' of SA-''Gruppe Hochland'' on 10 July 1934, after the unit's commander, SA-''Gruppenführer'' Wilhelm Schmid, had been purged and executed. Helfer was promoted to the rank of SA-''Obergruppenführer'' on 9 November 1937. He remained as the SA commander in Munich and Upper Bavaria until 1 May 1941 when he was appointed as the successor to the late as '' Reichszeugmeister'' (Reich Quartermaster), and leader of ''Hauptamt'' (Main Office) VIII in the office of Franz Xaver Schwarz, the Reich Treasurer of the Nazi Party. In this position, he was responsible for the procurement of uniforms and equipment. In September 1942, he also was charged with implementation of air raid protection measures for the Nazi Party building complex in Munich. He remained at this post through Germany's surrender in the Second World War.

Little is documented of his post-war life, and he died in Laufen in August 1954.Lilla, Joachim
''Helfer, Wilhelm''
in ''Staatsminister, leitende Verwaltungsbeamte und (NS-)Funktionsträger in Bayern 1918 bis 1945''

SA ranks

References

Citations

Sources

*


i

* Lilla, Joachim
''Helfer, Wilhelm.''
in ''Staatsminister, leitende Verwaltungsbeamte und (NS-)Funktionsträger in Bayern 1918 bis 1945''
*
* Stockhorst, Erich (1985). 5000 Köpfe: Wer War Was im 3. Reich. Arndt. p.186. .

{{DEFAULTSORT:Helfer, Wilhelm
1886 births
1954 deaths
German Army personnel of World War I
German emigrants to Namibia
German prisoners of war in World War I
Members of the Landtag of Bavaria
Members of the Reichstag 1933–1936
Members of the Reichstag 1936–1938
Members of the Reichstag 1938–1945
People from Kaiserslautern
People from the Palatinate (region)
SA-Obergruppenführer