Günther Schwägermann

Günther August Wilhelm Schwägermann (24 July 1915; date of death unknown) served in the Nazi government of German chancellor Adolf Hitler. From approximately late 1941, Schwägermann served as the adjutant for Reich Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels. He reached the rank of SS-Hauptsturmführer (captain). Schwägermann survived World War II and was held in American captivity from 25 June 1945 until 24 April 1947.

Life up to 1945 Born in Uelzen, Schwägermann attended secondary school and later joined the 1st SS Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler on 8 April 1937. He was sent to the SS-Junkerschule Bad Tölz for officers' training from October 1938 until September 1939. In late 1939 he served briefly with the Schutzpolizei in the Berlin-Mitte district. He later served with the 4th SS Polizei Division in France and Russia, and lost an eye to a Russian rifle-butt on the Eastern front.

Breakout In one of Hitler's last orders, he had given permission for the Berlin forces to attempt a breakout of the Soviet encirclement after his death. General Helmuth Weidling, commander of the Berlin Defence Area, and SS-Brigadeführer Wilhelm Mohnke, the (Kommandant) Battle Commander for the centre government district, devised a plan to escape out from Berlin to the Allies on the western side of the Elbe or to the German Army to the North. Mohnke split up the Reich Chancellery and Führerbunker soldiers and personnel into ten main groups. Schwägermann was in one of the breakout groups of 1 May. The group, including Werner Naumann, Hans Baur, Georg Betz, Alfred Rach, and Ludwig Stumpfegger, walked underground along the U-Bahn. They were joined by Artur Axmann before surfacing at Stadtmitte station, and later by Martin Bormann. At Lehrter Bahnhof they split up, Schwägermann, Naumann, and Rach heading west along Invalidenstraße towards Moabit. They hid in industrial wasteground for several days before escaping Berlin and reaching the American Zone to the west.

After the war Schwägermann reunited with his wife in Munich and lived incognito until 25 June 1945, when the couple were reported to the Counterintelligence Corps and taken into U.S. custody. Schwägermann remained a prisoner of war in various camps until 24 April 1947. In 1951 he was among the ex-comrades under Werner Naumann who formed the Naumann Circle and infiltrated the Lower Saxony branch of the Free Democratic Party (FDP) and got elected to its Landtag. He commented publicly in June 1954 on The Last Days of Hitler by Hugh Trevor-Roper, among whose sources was the transcript of Schwägermann's 1945–46 debriefing by the US military, but who did not himself speak to Schwägermann. In the 1950s Schwägermann founded an import–export company named Labora in Munich with Hartmann Lauterbacher's brother Hans. In 1960 the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND) requested the US Central Intelligence Agency's file on Schwägermann. Labora was later sold as a front company to the BND.