Josef Terboven
Josef Antonius Heinrich Terboven (b. 23 May 1898 in Essen, German Empire; d. 8 May 1945 in Asker, Akershus, Norway) was a NSDAP official and politician who was the long-serving Gauleiter of Gau Essen and the Reichskommissar for Norway during the German occupation.
Life
Early life
Terboven was born in Essen, the son of minor landed gentry of Dutch descent. Josef Terboven attended volksschule and realschule in Essen until 1915 and then volunteered for military service in the First World War. He was awarded the Iron Cross, 1st and 2nd class, and attained the rank of Leutnant before being discharged on 22 December 1918.
He studied law and political science at the University of Munich and the University of Freiburg, where he first got involved in politics. He dropped out of the university in 1922 without earning a degree and trained as a bank official in Essen, working as a bank clerk through June 1925.
NSDAP
Terboven joined the NSDAP in November 1923 and participated in the Beer Hall Putsch in Munich. When the Party subsequently was outlawed, he continued to work at the bank until after the ban was lifted in February 1925. In August 1925 Terboven went to work full-time for the Party, becoming the head of a small newspaper and book distributorship in Essen. He also joined the Sturmabteilung (SA) becoming the SA-Führer in Essen. From 1927 to December 1930, Terboven was the editor of the weekly newspaper The New Front: The Weekly Sheet of the Working People.
On 1 August 1930 the Essen district officially was raised to Gau status and Terboven was named Gauleiter. He would retain this post throughout the National Socialist regime. In 1930 Terboven also became a City Councilor in Essen and a member of the Provincial Landtag of the Rhine Province. On 14 September 1930, Terboven was elected to the Reichstag from electoral constituency 23, Dusseldorf-West; he would serve as a Reichstag deputy until the end of the National Socialist regime.
After the National Socialist seizure of power, Terboven was promoted to SA-Gruppenführer on 1 March 1933 and made a member of the Prussian State Council on 10 July 1933. On 28 June 1934, Terboven married Ilse Stahl. Adolf Hitler was a witness at the wedding.
On 5 February 1935, Terboven was appointed Oberpräsident (High President) of Prussia's Rhine Province which included Gau Essen and three other Gaue. On 27 April 1935 Terboven received the Golden Party Badge. He was promoted to the rank of SA-Obergruppenführer on 9 November 1936.
Reichskommissar of Norway
Terboven was named Reichskommissar for Norway on 24 April 1940. He moved into Skaugum, the official residence of Crown Prince Olav, in September 1940 and made his headquarters in the Norwegian Parliament building. He was responsible to no one but Hitler, and within the NSDAP governmental hierarchy, his office stood on the same level as the Reich Ministries. Reichskommissar Terboven had supervisory authority over only the German civilian administration, which was very small and did not rule Norway directly. Day-to-day governmental affairs were managed by the existing seven-member Norwegian Administrative Council, which had been set up by the Norwegian Supreme Court after the king and cabinet fled into exile. On 25 September 1940, Terboven dismissed the Administrative Council and appointed a thirteen-member Provisional State Council to administer affairs. A proclamation was issued deposing King Haakon VII, outlawing the government-in-exile, disbanding the Storting and banning all political parties except Vidkun Quisling’s Nasjonal Samling. He permitted the formation of a Norwegian regime on 1 February 1942 under Quisling as Minister President. The relationship between Terboven and Quisling was tense.
From 1941, Terboven increasingly focused on crushing the Norwegian resistance movement, which engaged in acts of sabotage and assassination against the Germans. On 17 September, Terboven decreed that special SS and Police Tribunals would have jurisdiction over Norwegian citizens who violated his decrees.
In October 1944, in response to the Red Army advance in to the Finnmark region of northern Norway, Terboven instituted a scorched earth policy that resulted in the forced evacuation of 50,000 Norwegians and widespread destruction. He hoped to turn Norway into a fortress for the National Socialist regime's last stand. However, after Adolf Hitler's suicide, his successor, Großadmiral Karl Dönitz, dismissed Terboven from his post as Reichskommissar on 7 May 1945.
Death
On 8 May 1945, Terboven committed suicide by detonating 50 kg of dynamite in a bunker on the Skaugum compound in Norway. His family survived him in West Germany, and his wife, Ilse (Stahl) Terboven died in 1972.
Quotes
The war that was fought between Norwegians and Germans is a historical fallacy, which can only be explained from the fact that a clique of politicians, who had sold themselves to international capitalism and freemasonry, led people and country astray.—Josef Terboven, 30 January 1941
