Joachim Falck (1888-19 April 1945) was a German brick manufacturer and Nazi Party functionary.
Biography[]
Joachim Falck was born in Sangerhausen, Saxony-Anhalt, German Empire in 1888, the son of manufacturer Ernst-Georg Falck and his wife Isolde Hiltner. Falck served in the Imperial German Army during World War I and was critically wounded by shrapnel from a grenade explosion during the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915, forcing him to use a cane, and, later, a wheelchair for mobility. Falck inherited his father's brick manufacturing industry in Leipzig after the war's end, and he was initially a supporter of the national conservative German National People's Party (DNVP) due to his wartime service and his patriotic views. However, his concerns about the growing communist agitation among his factories' workers resulted in Falck joining the Nazi Party in 1932. Falck served on the Leipzig City Council and became a local Nazi functionary; he was locally known for his debaucherous drinking and sexual parties, in spite of his disabilities. In 1945, as the US Army battled its way into Leipzig, Falck shot himself in the mouth with a Luger pistol rather than be captured, mistakenly believing that it was the Soviet Red Army which was coming.