Konstantin Hierl (24 February 1875 – 23 September 1955) was Director of the Reich Labor Service of Nazi Germany from 26 June 1935 to May 1945.
Biography[]
Konstantin Hierl was born in Parsberg, Bavaria, German Empire on 24 February 1875, and he joined the Bavarian army in 1893, becoming a lieutenant in 1895. He served in the Imperial German Army during World War I as a general staff officer, and he rose to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel after fighting on the Western Front with a corps of Bavarian reservists. During the November Revolution, he became the head of a Freikorps unit, and he joined the Nazi Party in 1929. In 1930, he was elected to the Reichstag parliament, and he became involved with Nazi Party-affiliated labor movements. He served as a Reichskommissar under Wilhelm Frick in the Ministry of the Interior, and he became the head of the Reich Labor Service in 1934, building the model village of Hierlshagen (now Ostaszow, Poland). In 1943, during World War II, he was appointed Minister without Portfolio. After the war, he was sentenced to five years in a labor camp for the RAD's wartime activities, and he was released early, dying in Heidelberg in 1955 at the age of 80.