Detlef Okrent

The German field hockey team won the silver medal at the 1936 Berlin Olympics after losing 8-1 to India in the final. Rostocker HTC defender Detlef Okrent played in the 6-0 win over Denmark n the group stage.

Okrent finished his legal exams in 1939 and started working as a lawyer. The same year he entered the Waffen-SS, and served in subordinated services directly as SS officer at the main office SS court in Munich, where he was assigned to former director of the German Gymnastics Federation, and close confidant of Heinrich Himmler, SS-group leader and lieutenant general of the Waffen SS, Franz Breithaupt (1880-1945). His war services included activng as a military and SS judge, assigned directly to SS-group leader and lieutenant general of the Waffen SS, Heinz Lammerding (1905-1971).

One of his tasks during World War II was to investigate the massacres of Oradour and Tulle in the Normandy, and produce a report with a view to initiating legal proceedings against the man responsible, SS Battalion commander Adolf Diekmann. In his report Okrent did not demand any punishment for Diekmann, and stopped any criminal proceedings. It is reported, that Okrent was present at the hangings of civil persons in Tulle. After the war he was detained at Civil Internment Camp No. 6 Neuengamme near Hamburg from 1945-48 which was exclusively for members of the SS and Nazi officials. In 1963 he was interviewed by British authorities concerning the massacres in the so-called Dortmund Hearings. He was never charged over an accusation made against him personally.

After the war Okrent moved to Flensburg and resumed his hockey career. With Flensburger HC he lost in the final of the German Championship against Klipper Hamburg losing by a goal to nil. He then moved to Cologne, where he became a field hockey and tennis coach, and secretary of Marienburger SC. In 1954, due to job reasons, he moved to Leverkusen. He still regularly kept in contact with organizations of former SS colleagues. In 2015 French film director Michaël Prazan produced a documentary film Eine Blutspur durch Frankreich (A Blood Trail through France) about the use of the SS division “Das Reich”.