Walter Buch was a German jurist and SS official during the Nazi era. He was Martin Bormann's father-in-law. After the end of the Second World War in Europe, Buch was classified as a major regime functionary or "Hauptschuldiger" in the denazification proceedings in 1949. On 12 November of that year, he committed suicide.
Early life and career
Born in Bruchsal, the son of a Senate President at the Baden High Court, Buch became a soldier in the First World War as a career officer. In 1918, he was released from the army as a major and then busied himself in the Baden Veterans' League. From 1919 to 1922 he was a member of the German National People's Party. By 1922, he had become a member of the Nazi Party and in August 1923 he was leader of the SA in Franconia. In mid 1923, after Hermann Ehrhardt on the one side and Ernst Röhm and Adolf Hitler on the other had fallen out with each other, the Stoßtrupp-Hitler was formed out of eight SA members for Hitler's protection. The Stoßtrupp was run by two former members of the Stabswache who had also once belonged to the Brigade Ehrhardt. Julius Schreck founded the unit and the SS forerunner organization never numbered more than 20 members which included Buch. He thus found himself tied into the later SS and over time became an Honorary Leader of the SS with the rank of Obergruppenführer. After the Beer Hall Putsch failed on 9 November 1923, many SA leaders fled the country. Buch came back to Munich as early as 13 November, sent by Hermann Göring – who had fled to Innsbruck – to ensure that the shaken Party troops' cohesion would not weaken. He also built up ties with the now outlawed SA groups, which could now only operate under cover. Buch maintained regular contact between Hitler, who was sitting in prison in Landsberg am Lech, and the illegal Party leadership in Austria. In the time that followed, when the NSDAP was banned, Göring's earlier fears began to come true as the party broke up. After Hitler's release from Landsberg, the Party was reestablished on 20 February 1925. In May 1928 Buch was elected as one of 12 Nazi Party members of the Reichstag and served until 1945. In the time that followed, until the Nazis seized power in 1933, Buch continually strengthened his status. On 2 June 1933, he was appointed by Hitler as a Reichsleiter, the second highest political rank in the Nazi Party.
Chief Justice of the Party Supreme Court
The Inquiry and Mediation Board, whose chairman Buch became on 27 November 1927, was established. The USCHLA's headquarters were at the Braunes Haus in Munich. Buch did not confine himself merely to rulings in internal Party disputes, but also had Party members monitored or put under pressure if they strayed from the Party line. The Board could render judgments freely within the country and without, against which there was no appeal, except to Hitler. On 2 September 1929, NSDAP member and later Hitler's powerful private secretary, Martin Bormann married Walter Buch's daughter Gerda. Buch and Hitler were witnesses. In 1934, he described the importance of Party tribunals thus:
The Party tribunals always have themselves to consider as the iron fasteners that hold together the proud building of the Nazi Party, which political leaders and SA leaders have built up. Saving it from cracks and shocks is the Party tribunals' grandest task. The Party magistrates are bound only to their National Socialist conscience, and are no political leader's subordinates, and they are subject only to the Führer.
Buch acted quite like this. At the Röhm Putsch in 1934, he traveled at Hitler's behest to Bad Wiessee and was present at Ernst Röhm's arrest. By way of thanks for having given Röhm's murder the outward appearance of legality, Buch was made the supreme Party magistrate and an SS-Gruppenführer on 9 November 1934. In 1936 it was claimed in an anonymous letter that Buch's wife was half-Jewish. In the course of a Gestapo investigation, it came to light that the letter had been written by Wilhelm Kube, whom Buch had investigated owing to concerns over his private life and his leadership style in the Gau of Kurmark. Buch saw to it that Kube was removed from all his posts. Only on Hitler's orders was Kube allowed to remain a Gauleiter, albeit without his own Gau. Buch was also responsible for the "legalization" of Party members' excesses during the so-called Kristallnacht. He declared after his investigation that the "small Party comrades" who were responsible for more than a hundred Jews' deaths had only been following orders. However, he found no need to question those who had given these orders, such was his deep-seated Anti-Semitism, and he publicly brought the law for Jews into question. In his opinion, Jews were literally "not humans".
Imprisonment and suicide
After the end of the Second WorldWar in Europe, Buch was seized and sentenced to five years in a labour camp. In July 1949, in the course of another wave of denazification, he was classified as a major regime functionary or "Hauptschuldiger". A few weeks after his release from prison, on 12 November 1949, he ended his own life by slitting his wrists and throwing himself into the Ammersee.
