Gustav Adolf Scheel

As NSDStB College Group Leader (Hochschulgruppenführer), he led the Nazi student rallies against the mathematics professor and pacifist Emil Julius Gumbel (1891–1966) which led to the removal of Gumbel's teaching entitlement in 1932.

Gustav Adolf Scheel (22 November 1907 – 25 March 1979) was a German physician and Nazi Party official.

He served as a "multifunctionary" in Nazi Germany, including posts as the Reich Student Leader leading both the National Socialist German Students' League and the German Student Union, as an SS member and Sicherheitsdienst employee, as a Higher SS and Police Leader, as well as Gauleiter and Reichsstatthalter in Reichsgau Salzburg.

Beginning in the summer semester of 1928, he studied law, political economy and theology at Heidelberg University to become a minister like his father.

Scheel intensified his activities in right-wing student circles and in the winter semester of 1928-29 became a member of the Verein Deutscher Studenten (VDSt), an umbrella organization of German Studentenverbindung fraternities.

In 1928 he also joined the Heidelberg German Student Union (Deutschen Studentenschaft, DStA).

In 1930 he joined the National Socialist German Students' League (NSDStB), on 1 October 1930 the Sturmabteilung (SA) and on 1 December 1930 the Nazi Party (NSDAP).

He moved for a short time to Tübingen University to begin studies in medicine.

He continued his studies again in Heidelberg, where he quickly rose to become one of the main propagandists of the Nazis at the college.

In October 1931 he was named to the board of directors and in December 1931 he became its chairman.

In 1933, Scheel became chairman of the Heidelberg General Students' Committee (AStA) and fought vehemently for the exclusion of students of Jewish lineage from the benefits of social institutions at the university.

During this time, he also became Hanns-Martin Schleyer's mentor, getting him to join the NSDAP and the SS. Furthermore, Scheel exerted influence over the university's appointments and personnel policy in his capacity as student body leader and member of the vice chancellor's leadership staff.

On 10 May 1933, Scheel was one of the main speakers at the Heidelberg book burning.

On 30 July 1934 Scheel was accepted into the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the Nazi Party security service by its head, Reinhard Heydrich.

He left the SA and joined the Schutzstaffel (SS) on 15 September 1934 and became a full time SD employee in the SD Main Office.

He rose swiftly in this secret Nazi intelligence service.

Between September 1934 and August 1935 he headed the SD training school in Berlin.

In April 1934, he passed his State medical examination and received his doctorate in medicine on 31 May 1935.

In November 1935, on his 28th birthday, Scheel was named as an honorary Senator of Heidelberg University.

Between August 1935 and September 1939 he was Leader of the SD Oberabschnitt (Upper District) Southwest, headquartered in Stuttgart.

As a former student official, he brought along with him to the SD a great many young Nazi academics who went on to become mass murderers.

Among them were Walter Stahlecker, Martin Sandberger,, , Erich Ehrlinger, and Eugen Steimle, all of whom went into various divisions of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA) to become leaders of murder squads of the various Einsatzgruppen.

On 6 November 1936, he acceded to the newly created post of Reichsstudentenführer (Reich Student Leader) a position he would retain until the fall of the Nazi regime.

As such, he headed both the NSDStB and the DstA.

With this came the rank of Amtsleiter in the Party Reichsleitung (National Leadership).

Scheel would advance to Hauptamstleiter in April 1937 and Hauptdienstleiter in April 1940.

In April 1938, Scheel became an active Senator of Heidelberg University, and he was also elected to the Reichstag from electoral constituency 20, Köln-Aachen, retaining this seat until May 1945.

In May 1938, he became leader of the National Socialist Alumni Association and also served as editor of its official organ, Der Altherrenbund. That same month he was made Chairman of the Reichsstudentenwerk (Reich Student Union).

Promoted to SS-Oberführer, Scheel on 25 April 1938 became Inspector for the Sicherheitspolizei (Security Police, SiPo) and Sicherheitsdienst (Security Service, SD) in Wehrkreis (Military District) V (Baden and Württemberg), based in Stuttgart.

He then transferred to become Leader of SD Oberabschnitt South in Munich from 18 June 1939.

On 6 December 1939, he became the Inspector for SiPo and SD in Wehrkreis VII (Munich) and XIII (Nuremberg) encompassing all of Bavaria.

He was also an Einsatzgruppe commander in occupied Alsace and he organized the October 1940 deportation of Karlsruhe's Jews to extermination camps.

Born as a Protestant pastor's son in Rosenberg, North Baden, Scheel attended classical gymnasium schools in Freiburg, Tauberbischofsheim and Mannheim.

While still a schoolboy, he became involved in nationalist circles of the German Youth Movement and Nazi groups.

In November 1940, he was named an honorary Senator of Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg.

Scheel, in the spring of 1940 performed military service as a medical officer with the rank of Unterarzt, serving with the Luftwaffe in the battle of France.

In 1943, he declared in his capacity as Reich Student Leader that the members of the White Rose (Weiße Rose) resistance group should be "executed not as students," but rather as "antisocial former Wehrmacht members."

Scheel's point of view was that these "criminals" should not be allowed to stain the student body's image.

From this time also came Scheel's declaration: "German student, it is not necessary for you to live, but, to be sure, to fulfill your duty to your people."

In 1943, Scheel became President of the German Academic Exchange Service and in June 1944, he succeeded Walter Schultze as leader of the National Socialist German Lecturers League.