Carl Albrecht Oberg was a German SS functionary during the Nazi era. He served as Senior SS and Police Leader (HSSPF) in occupied France, from May 1942 to November 1944, during the Second World War, Oberg came to be known as the Butcher of Paris. From May 1942, under orders from Reinhard Heydrich, Oberg ordered the execution of hundreds of hostages and the roundup and deportation of over 40,000 Jews from France to extermination camps, most infamously during the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup with the assistance of the Vichy French police.
Carl Oberg under arrest in June 1945
Oberg (centre) with French Prime Minister Pierre Laval and SS-Sturmbannführer Herbert Hagen, German Police Headquarters in Paris, 1 May 1943
The Vel' d'Hiv' Roundup was a mass arrest of Jewish families by French police and gendarmes at the behest of the German authorities, that took place in Paris on 16–17 July 1942. The roundup was one of several aimed at eradicating the Jewish population in France, both in the occupied zone and in the free zone that took place in 1942, as part of Opération Vent printanier. Planned by René Bousquet, Louis Darquier de Pellepoix, Theodor Dannecker and Helmut Knochen; It was the largest French deportation of Jews during the Holocaust.
Two Jewish women in occupied Paris wearing the yellow Star of David badge in June 1942, a few weeks before the mass arrest
23 January 1943: German-Vichy French meeting in Marseille. SS-Sturmbannführer Bernhard Griese [fr], Antoine Lemoine [fr] (regional préfet for Marseille), Rolf Mühler [de], (Commander of Marseille's Sicherheitspolizei), -laughing- René Bousquet (General Secretary of the French National Police created in 1941) creator of the GMRs, -behind- Louis Darquier de Pellepoix (Commissioner for Jewish Affairs).
A French gendarme guarding Jews held at the Drancy internment camp
Commemorative plaque to the 8,160 victims held in the Vel' d'Hiv after the 16–17 July 1942 roundup of Jews in Paris. Inaugurated on 20 July 2008, the plaque is facing the Bir-Hakeim metro station on the Boulevard de Grenelle [fr] in the (15th arrondissement of Paris), a few meters from the site of the former Vel d'Hiv