Helmuth Brückner was born on 7 May 1896 in Peilau. He attended Volkschule in Peilau, Höhere Knabenschule in Langenbielau, and Kgl. Realgymnasium in Reichenbach. He then studied at Friederich-Wilhelm-Universität in Breslau. In 1914, Brückner volunteered for the Army and was posted with the Feld-Artillerie-Regiment 88 where he won the Iron Cross 2nd and 1st Class as Leutnant der Reserve and Abteilung-Adjutant. On 25 March 1918 he was seriously wounded while in France. In 1921 he was Ib–Gruppe Nord with the Deutschen Selbstschutz in Oberschlesien. He participated in the failed “Beer Hall Putsch” on 9 November 1923, was briefly detained, tried and released on probation. In 1924, Brückner joined the National Socialist Freedom Movement and became editor of Schlesien Volksstimme. He also became Stadtverordneter in Breslau, a position he held until 1926. Brückner organized the NSDAP in Silesia; on 15 March 1925 he officially joined the refounded NSDAP and was appointed Gauleiter for Gau Silesia. It was at this time he also founded the publishing house NS-Schlesien which published the “Schlesischen Beobachters”. In September 1930 he was elected a member of the Reichstag for Breslau, and on 24 April 1932 he became a member of the Landtag of Prussia. On 17 August 1932 Brückner was named Landesinspekteur Ost der NSDAP charged with oversight of three eastern Gaue. After Gregor Strasser's fall in December 1932, this position was abolished. On 12 March 1933 Brückner became Provinzial-Landtagsabgeordneter, Kreistagsabgeordneter and Stadtverordneter. On 25 March 1933 he was named to the Prussian State Council and became the acting Oberpräsident of the Prussian Province of Lower Silesia. On 29 May he was similarly named acting Oberpräsident of the Prussian Province of Upper Silesia. He thus united under his control the highest party and governmental offices in the two provinces. On 7 October 1933 he was promoted to Gruppenführer in the Sturmabteilung. He was accused of homosexual activity under Paragraph 175, but he argued that he was bisexual, and that his mutual masturbation with another officer was a normal activity, and was not immediately convicted. However, he was dismissed as Gauleiter on 4 December 1934, removed from his government posts on 12 December and on 25 December he was expelled from the NSDAP in connection with the "Röhm Putsch". From 1938, Brückner was working as an industrial worker in the Heinkel works in Rostock. He was politically rehabilitated. Arrested by the Soviets in July 1945, he was confined in a prison camp in Thuringia until 1949, then moved to the USSR where he was also in various internment camps. There is some uncertainty surrounding his date of death, as official sources give the year of his death as both 1951 and 1954, and appear to hide the specific date and place.
