1.
Gottlob Berger
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Serving in the German Army during World War I, he was wounded four times and awarded the Iron Cross First Class. Immediately after the war, he was a leader of the Einwohnerwehr militia in his native North Württemberg and he joined the Nazi Party in 1922, but lost interest in right-wing politics during the 1920s, training and working as a physical education teacher. In the late 1920s, he rejoined the Nazi Party and became a member of the paramilitary Sturmabteilung in 1931 and he clashed with other leaders of the SA, and joined the Allgemeine-SS in 1936. Initially responsible for education in an SS region, he was soon transferred to the staff of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler as head of the sports office. In 1938, he was appointed as head of the office of the SS Main Office. He consistently advocated greater ideological training for the Waffen-SS, but did not view SS ideology as a replacement for religion. He also sponsored and protected his friend Oskar Dirlewanger, whom he placed in command of a unit of convicted criminals, Berger undertook several other roles in the latter stages of the war, while continuing as chief of the SS-HA. He had a key role in the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories from mid-1942, allowing the SS to direct much of the economic activity in the east. In this role he proposed a plan to kidnap and enslave 50,000 Eastern European children between the ages of 10 and 14, under the codename Heuaktion, a plan that was carried out. In response to the Slovak National Uprising in August 1944, Berger was appointed as Military Commander in Slovakia, the following month he was appointed as one of the two chiefs of staff of the Volkssturm militia, and as chief of the prisoner of war camps. In the final months of the war he commanded German forces in the Bavarian Alps and he surrendered to U. S. troops near Berchtesgaden, and was promptly arrested. He was tried and convicted in the Ministries Trial of the U. S. Nuremberg Military Tribunals for war crimes and his sentence was soon reduced to 10 years, and he was released after serving six and a half years. After release he advocated for the rehabilitation of the Waffen-SS and worked in several manufacturing businesses and he died in his hometown in 1975. Described as blustery, cynical, and one of Himmlers most competent and trusted war-time lieutenants, Berger was also an ardent anti-Semite, due to his organisational and recruiting skills, Berger was kept as the chief of the SS-HA throughout the war. Berger was born on 16 July 1896 at Gerstetten in the Kingdom of Württemberg, the son of saw-mill owners Johannes and Christine and he attended Volksschule and Realschule and then teacher training in Nürtingen. He volunteered for service at the beginning of World War I. Wounded four times, he was awarded the Iron Cross First Class, during the war, all three of his brothers died, two killed in action and the other executed as a spy in the United States. Bergers combative temperament and very conservative politics fitted him for a role with the North Württemberg Einwohnerwehr militia in 1918–19
2.
SS Main Office
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The SS Main Office was the central command office of the Schutzstaffel in Nazi Germany until 1940. The office traces its origins to 1931 when the SS created the SS-Amt to serve as an SS Headquarters staff overseeing the units of the Allgemeine SS. In 1933, after the NSDAP came to power, the SS-Amt was renamed the SS-Oberführerbereichen and this agency then became the SS-HA on January 30,1935. The organization oversaw the Allgemeine-SS, concentration camps, the SS-Verfügungstruppe, during the late 1930s, the power of the SS-HA continued to grow becoming the largest and most powerful office of the SS, managing nearly all aspects of the paramilitary organization. This included the SS officer schools, physical training, communication, SS garrisons, logistics, shortly after the outbreak of World War II in Europe, the SS-Verfügungstruppe expanded rapidly becoming the Waffen-SS in 1940. By this time, the office of the SS-Hauptamt could no longer administer the entire SS organization, as a result, the SS-HA was downsized losing much of its pre-war power to the SS Führungshauptamt and the main offices of the Allgemeine-SS, such as the Reich Main Security Office. In 1940 the SS-Hauptamt remained responsible for SS administrative matters such as allocation, supplies, personnel transfers. Gottlob Berger, the chief of the SS Main Office, was tried in 1949. He was sentenced to 25 years imprisonment for crimes against humanity but was released in 1951, the files of the SS-Hauptamt can today be found with National Archives and Records Administration at College Park, Maryland. The original documentation is kept in Germany, under the authority of the Bundesarchiv in Berlin, Allgemeine-SS, The Commands, Units and Leaders of the General SS
3.
Uniforms and insignia of the Sturmabteilung
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The uniforms and insignia of the Sturmabteilung were Nazi party paramilitary ranks and uniforms used by SA stormtroopers from 1921 until the fall of Nazi Germany in 1945. The titles and phrases used by the SA were the basis for paramilitary titles used by several other Nazi paramilitary groups, early SS ranks were identical to the SA, since the SS was originally considered a sub-organization of the Sturmabteilung. The brown shirted stormtroopers of the Sturmabteilung gradually come into being within the Nazi Party beginning in 1920, by this time, Adolf Hitler had assumed the title of Führer of the Nazi Party, replacing Anton Drexler who had been known as the more democratically elected Party Chairman. The most common of these were World War I uniforms with full medals, also common were uniforms of the Freikorps as well as uniforms of veteran groups such as the Stahlhelm. Nazi Party members would also mix components from all three types of uniforms with little to no standardization except a swastika armband worn on the left arm. It was at point that the very first SA titles came into being. At the start of the existence, the SA had four primary titles, Oberster SA-Führer SA-Oberführer SA-Führer SA-Mann In 1923. The group was refounded two years later in 1925, from 1923 to 1925, the SA did not officially exist since Adolf Hitler had been imprisoned for his actions in the Munich Putsch and the Nazi Party banned in Germany. Underground cells of SA men did continue to meet in secret, in 1925, the SA was re-founded as part of the new Nazi Party which Hitler had put together following his release from prison. The reborn SA then received its first formal uniform regulations and also using the first recognizable system of rank insignia. Along with a brown uniform, SA members would wear swastika armbands with a kepi cap. Originally, the SA used its pre-1923 rank titles, but this changed in 1926 when local SA units began to be grouped into larger regiment sized formations known as Standarten, each SA regiment was commanded by a senior SA officer called a Standartenführer. At the same time, to differentiate from the SA rank and file, under this system, a Standartenführer wore one oak leaf, an Oberführer two, and the Supreme SA Commander wore three. The lower ranks of SA-Führer and SA-Mann still wore no insignia, in 1928, an expansion of SA enlisted ranks was required in response to the growing rank and file membership of the SA troopers. These new titles and ranks were denoted by a system which consisted of silver pips pinned to a wearers collar. The pip system was adopted from the Stahlhelm veterans group which was connected to the SA both in dual membership and ideological design. A further change in 1928 was the creation of the rank of Gruppenführer and this unit insignia patch was worn by those holding the rank of Sturmbannführer and below, the higher officer ranks wore oak leaf insignia on both collars. Röhms appointment was as the result of Adolf Hitler personally assuming command of the SA as the Oberster SA-Führer
4.
Schutzstaffel
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The Schutzstaffel was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers Party in Nazi Germany. It began with a guard unit known as the Saal-Schutz made up of NSDAP volunteers to provide security for party meetings in Munich. In 1925, Heinrich Himmler joined the unit, which had by then been reformed, under his direction, it grew from a small paramilitary formation to one of the most powerful organizations in Nazi Germany. From 1929 until the collapse in 1945, the SS was the foremost agency of security, surveillance. The two main constituent groups were the Allgemeine SS and Waffen-SS, the Allgemeine SS was responsible for enforcing the racial policy of Nazi Germany and general policing, whereas the Waffen-SS consisted of combat units of troops within Nazi Germanys military. A third component of the SS, the SS-Totenkopfverbände, ran the concentration camps, additional subdivisions of the SS included the Gestapo and the Sicherheitsdienst organizations. The SS was the organization most responsible for the killing of an estimated 5.5 to 6 million Jews. Members of all of its branches committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during World War II, the SS was also involved in commercial enterprises and exploited concentration camp inmates as slave labor. After Nazi Germanys defeat, the SS and the NSDAP were judged by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg to be criminal organizations, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the highest-ranking surviving SS officer at the time, was found guilty of crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg trials and hanged in 1946. By 1923, the Nazi Party led by Adolf Hitler had created a volunteer guard unit known as the Saal-Schutz to provide security at their meetings in Munich. The same year, Hitler ordered the formation of a bodyguard unit dedicated to his personal service. He wished it to be separate from the mass of the party, including the paramilitary Sturmabteilung. The new formation was designated the Stabswache, originally the unit was composed of eight men, commanded by Julius Schreck and Joseph Berchtold, and was modeled after the Erhardt Naval Brigade, a Freikorps of the time. The unit was renamed Stoßtrupp in May 1923, the Stoßtrupp was abolished after the failed 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, an attempt by the NSDAP to seize power in Munich. In 1925, Hitler ordered Schreck to organize a new bodyguard unit and it was tasked with providing personal protection for Hitler at NSDAP functions and events. That same year, the Schutzkommando was expanded to an organization and renamed successively the Sturmstaffel. Officially, the SS marked its foundation on 9 November 1925, the new SS was to provide protection for NSDAP leaders throughout Germany. Hitlers personal SS protection unit was enlarged to include combat units
5.
Uniforms and insignia of the Schutzstaffel
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Unit, role or rank badges or other insignia are carried on it instead of being stitched into the actual clothing. The term is originally French, deriving from bras meaning arm, brassards worn by military police and Red Cross personnel fall under this category. Brassard is also used to refer to pieces of armour worn to cover the entire arm, the Illustrated Encyclopedia of Military Insignia of the 20th Century. New Jersey, Chartwell Books Inc. p.69
6.
Heinrich Himmler
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Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the Schutzstaffel, and a leading member of the Nazi Party of Nazi Germany. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler briefly appointed him a commander and later Commander of the Replacement Army. Himmler was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany, as a member of a reserve battalion during World War I, Himmler did not see active service. He studied agronomy in college, and joined the Nazi Party in 1923, in 1929, he was appointed Reichsführer-SS by Hitler. Over the next 16 years, he developed the SS from a mere 290-man battalion into a paramilitary group. He was known to have good skills and for selecting highly competent subordinates. From 1943 onwards, he was both Chief of German Police and Minister of the Interior, overseeing all internal and external police and security forces, on Hitlers behalf, Himmler formed the Einsatzgruppen and built extermination camps. Most of them were Polish and Soviet citizens, realising that the war was lost, he attempted to open peace talks with the western Allies without Hitlers knowledge shortly before the war ended. Hearing of this, Hitler dismissed him all his posts in April 1945. Himmler attempted to go into hiding, but was detained and then arrested by British forces once his identity became known, while in British custody, he committed suicide on 23 May 1945. Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was born in Munich on 7 October 1900 into a conservative middle-class Roman Catholic family and his father was Gebhard Himmler, a teacher, and his mother was Anna Maria Himmler, a devout Roman Catholic. Heinrich had two brothers, Gebhard Ludwig and Ernst Hermann, Himmlers first name, Heinrich, was that of his godfather, Prince Heinrich of Bavaria, a member of the royal family of Bavaria, who had been tutored by Gebhard Himmler. He attended a school in Landshut, where his father was deputy principal. While he did well in his schoolwork, he struggled in athletics and he had poor health, suffering from lifelong stomach complaints and other ailments. In his youth he trained daily with weights and exercised to become stronger, other boys at the school later remembered him as studious and awkward in social situations. Himmlers diary, which he kept intermittently from the age of ten, shows that he took a keen interest in current events, dueling, in 1915, he began training with the Landshut Cadet Corps. His father used his connections with the family to get Himmler accepted as an officer candidate. His brother, Gebhard, served on the front and saw combat, receiving the Iron Cross
7.
Stormtrooper
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Stormtroopers were specialist soldiers of the German Army in World War I. In the last years of the war, Stoßtruppen were trained to fight with infiltration tactics, men trained in these methods were known in Germany as Sturmmann, formed into companies of Sturmtruppen. The infiltration tactics of the stormtroopers are still in use today, other armies have also used the term assault troops, shock troops or fireteams for specialist soldiers who perform the infiltration tasks of stormtroopers. Ever since introduction of breech-loading infantry rifles there had been a growing realization that the days of close order infantry assault were coming to an end. g. Open order tactics reliant more on achieving fire superiority and moving when enemy fire was ineffective than positioning oneself for the bayonet charge. This process either failed, or at most gained only a distance, while incurring enormous casualties. The first experimental Pioneer assault unit of the German army formed in the spring of 1915, founded by Major Calsow, the methods which Rohr developed form the basis of all modern small-unit infantry tactics. Infiltration tactics in the Allied armies were first formally proposed by French Army captain André Laffargue, in 1915 Laffargue published a pamphlet, The attack in trench warfare, based upon his experiences in combat that same year. He advocated that the first wave of an attack identify hard-to-defeat defenses but not attack them, the French published his pamphlet for information, but did not implement it. The distinction between the German and French tactics was that Laffargue recommended using waves of infantry to attack despite the high casualities that would ensue, soldiers were trained to consider fire as a means to facilitate movement in progress. Movement would be a call for fire, N. R. McMahon advocated using combined arms in the attack, particularly light machine guns using a decentralised fire control and tactical command system. These methods, suggested in 1909, bore a resemblance to the Stoßtrupptaktik used by the Germans six years later. In February 1917, the British Army issued Manual SS143 on the subject, using them throughout 1917, the British perfected all-arms battle. The British made the platoon the basic unit rather than the company as in 1916. The platoon was made up of four sections, Lewis Gun, rifle grenade, grenade, the new organisation allowed the platoon to make best use of the trench-fighting equipment that had arrived in adequate quantities since the beginning of the battle of the Somme. The concept of Stormtroopers first appeared in March 1915, when the Ministry of War directed the Eighth Army to form Sturmabteilung Calsow, SA Calsow consisted of a headquarters, two pioneer companies and a 37mm gun battery. The unit was to use shields and body armor as protection in attacks. However, SA Calsow was never employed in its intended role, instead it was sent into the line in France as emergency reinforcements during heavy Allied attacks
8.
Viktor Lutze
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Viktor Lutze was the commander of the Sturmabteilung succeeding Ernst Röhm as Stabschef. He died from injuries received in a car accident, Lutze was given an elaborate state funeral in Berlin on 7 May 1943. Lutze was born in Bevergern, Westphalia, in 1890 and he later joined the German Army in 1912, and obtained officer rank. He served with the 55th Infantry Regiment and he fought in the 369th Infantry Regiment and 15th Reserve Infantry Regiment during the First World War. Thereafter, Lutze became a merchant and joined the police force, Lutze joined the National Socialist German Workers Party in 1922, and the SA in 1923. He became an associate of Franz Pfeffer von Salomon, the first leader of the SA, together, they determined the structure of the organisation. He also worked with Albert Leo Schlageter in the resistance/sabotage of the Belgian and he became the deputy Gauleiter for the Ruhr in 1926. His organization of the Ruhr for the SA became a model for other regions, in 1930, he was elected to the Reichstag as a representative for Hannover-Braunschweig. In October 1931, he organized a joint rally in Braunschweig of SA. This was before Hitler came to power as Chancellor of Germany in January 1933. Over 100,000 men attended the rally hosted by SA-Gruppe Nord under the leadership of Lutze, at the rally, the SA assured Hitler of their loyalty and Hitler in turn increased the size of the SA with the creation of 24 new Standarten. Hitler never forgot this show of loyalty by Lutze, a badge was made to commemorate the event. Lutze rose through the ranks and by 1933 was a SA-Obergruppenführer, in March 1933, he was appointed police president of Hanover and later its provincial governor and state counselor. Lutzes participation in the Night of the Long Knives in 1934 was very important, meanwhile, Göring, Himmler, Heydrich and Lutze drew up lists of those who should be liquidated, starting with seven top SA officials and including many more. The names of victims are known, however, estimates place the total number killed at up to 200 persons. After the purge Lutze succeeded Röhm as Stabschef SA, but after the Night of the Long Knives, Lutzes major tasks included overseeing a large reduction in the SA, a task welcomed by the SS and by the regular armed forces. On 30 June 1934 Hitler issued a twelve-point directive to Lutze to clean up, at the Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg in September 1934, William L. Shirer observed Hitler speaking to the SA for the first time since the purge. Shirer also noted Lutze speaking there, Shirer described Lutze as possessing a shrill unpleasant voice, and thought the SA boys received him coolly
9.
Edmund Heines
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Edmund Heines was a Nazi Party leader and Ernst Röhms deputy in the Sturmabteilung or SA. Heines served in World War I as a Kriegsfreiwilliger and was discharged in 1918 as a lieutenant, from 1919 to December,1922, he served as leader of a unit in Freikorps Roßbach and later as Gruppenführer of the Munich Ortsgruppe. In December,1922, he transferred to the Nazi Party, in 1929, he was convicted of the murder of communist Conrad Pietrzuch, who had been beaten to death by an SA gang led by Heines. The trial had to be reopened due to a technical error and that same year, he was appointed to temporarily serve as the head of a Nazi district in the Upper Palatinate region. In 1930, Heines became a member of the Reichstag for the district of Liegnitz, from 1931 to 1934, he served as an SA leader in Silesia while simultaneously working as Ernst Röhms deputy. In 1933, Heines was on the Prussian privy council, according to Kempka, Heines refused to cooperate and get dressed. When the SS detectives reported this to Hitler, he went to Heiness room, after five minutes had passed by, Heines still had not complied with the order. As a result, Hitler became so furious that he ordered some SS men to take Heines, Heines, Röhm, and many other SA leaders were executed shortly after their arrest. Hitler identified Heines as one of the members of a small group of elements which were held together through a like disposition in his Reichstag speech of 13 July 1934. Heiness younger brother, Oskar was also an SA officer, on the morning of 1 July 1934, he heard a radio report concerning the execution of his brother. Soon after, SA-Obersturmbannführer Oskar Heines, along with SA-Obersturmbannführer Werner Engels and they were immediately placed under arrest by SS men. From there, they were driven that night to an area near Deutsch-Lissa. At dawn on 2 July 1934, the two were shot on orders of SS-Obergruppenführer Udo von Woyrsch, miller, Michael D. and Schulz, Andreas. Gauleiter, The Regional Leaders of the Nazi Party and Their Deputies, 1925-1945 -Volume 1, R. James Bender Publishing
10.
Sturmabteilung
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The Sturmabteilung, literally Storm Detachment, functioned as the original paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party. It played a significant role in Adolf Hitlers rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s, the SA have been known in contemporary times as Brownshirts from the color of their uniform shirts, similar to Benito Mussolinis blackshirts. The SA developed pseudo-military titles for its members, the SA ranks were adopted by several other Nazi Party groups, chief amongst them the Schutzstaffel, which originated as a branch of the SA before being separated. The SA became disempowered after Adolf Hitler ordered the purge of 1934. This event became known as the Night of the Long Knives, the SA was effectively superseded by the SS, although it was not formally dissolved until after the Third Reichs final capitulation to the Allied powers in 1945. The term Sturmabteilung predates the founding of the Nazi Party in 1919, originally it was applied to the specialized assault troops of Imperial Germany in World War I who used Hutier infiltration tactics. Instead of large mass assaults, the Sturmabteilung were organised into small squads of a few soldiers each, on 2 October 1916, Generalquartiermeister Erich Ludendorff ordered all German armies in the west to form a battalion of stormtroops. They were first used during the 8th Armys siege of Riga, wider use followed on the Western Front in the Spring Offensive in March 1918, where Allied lines were successfully pushed back tens of kilometers. The DAP was formed in Munich in January 1919 and Adolf Hitler joined it in September of that year. His talents for speaking, publicity and propaganda were quickly recognized, and by early 1920 he had gained authority in the party, the precursor to the SA had acted informally and on an ad hoc basis for some time before this. Some 70 people attended, and a second meeting was advertised for 13 November in the Eberlbrau beer hall. Some 130 people attended, there were hecklers, but Hitlers military friends promptly ejected them by force, the next year, on 24 February, he announced the partys Twenty-Five Point program at a mass meeting of some 2000 people at the Hofbräuhaus. Protesters tried to shout Hitler down, but his former companions, armed with rubber truncheons. The basis for the SA had been formed, a permanent group of party members who would serve as the ruffian Saalschutzabteilung for the DAP gathered around Emil Maurice after the February 1920 incident at the Hofbräuhaus. There was little organization or structure to this group, the group was also called the Ordnertruppen around this time. More than a later, on 3 August 1921, Hitler redefined the group as the Gymnastic and Sports Division of the party. It was by now recognized as an appropriate, even necessary. By September 1921 the name Sturmabteilung was being used informally for the group, Hitler was the official head of the Nazi Party by this time
11.
Stabschef
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Stabschef was an office and paramilitary rank in the Sturmabteilung, the paramilitary stormtroopers associated with the Nazi movement. The rank is equivalent to the rank of Generaloberst in the German Army, the position of SA-Stabschef, not yet a rank, was established in 1929 to assist the Oberste SA-Führer with the administration of the fast-growing organization. The actual SA rank of Stabschef was created by Röhm for himself in 1933 after Hitler became Chancellor, although Hitler became the supreme commander of the stormtroopers in 1930, the day-to-day running of the organization was left to the Chief of Staff. Further, the men who held the rank of Stabschef after 1930 were the leaders of the SA. The rank of Stabschef was held by three different people between 1931 and 1945 and was, in case of succession, inherited due to the death of a predecessor. Photographic evidence shows Ernst Röhm wearing such an insignia in his days as the SA Chief of Staff. After 1933, the insignia for Stabschef consisted of a crossed lances pattern, after 1934, the insignia was changed to a wreathed tri-foil oak leaf pattern similar to the SS rank insignia of Reichsführer-SS. With the fall of Nazi Germany, the Sturmabteilung ceased to exist and with it the Stabschef
12.
Adolf Hitler
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Adolf Hitler was a German politician who was the leader of the Nazi Party, Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and Führer of Nazi Germany from 1934 to 1945. As dictator of the German Reich, he initiated World War II in Europe with the invasion of Poland in September 1939 and was central to the Holocaust, Hitler was born in Austria, then part of Austria-Hungary, and raised near Linz. He moved to Germany in 1913 and was decorated during his service in the German Army in World War I and he joined the German Workers Party, the precursor of the NSDAP, in 1919 and became leader of the NSDAP in 1921. In 1923 he attempted a coup in Munich to seize power, the failed coup resulted in Hitlers imprisonment, during which he dictated the first volume of his autobiography and political manifesto Mein Kampf. Hitler frequently denounced international capitalism and communism as being part of a Jewish conspiracy, by 1933, the Nazi Party was the largest elected party in the German Reichstag, which led to Hitlers appointment as Chancellor on 30 January 1933. Hitler aimed to eliminate Jews from Germany and establish a New Order to counter what he saw as the injustice of the post-World War I international order dominated by Britain, Hitler sought Lebensraum for the German people in Eastern Europe. His aggressive foreign policy is considered to be the cause of the outbreak of World War II in Europe. He directed large-scale rearmament and on 1 September 1939 invaded Poland, resulting in British, in June 1941, Hitler ordered an invasion of the Soviet Union. By the end of 1941 German forces and the European Axis powers occupied most of Europe, failure to defeat the Soviets and the entry of the United States into the war forced Germany onto the defensive and it suffered a series of escalating defeats. In the final days of the war, during the Battle of Berlin in 1945, Hitler married his long-time lover, on 30 April 1945, less than two days later, the two killed themselves to avoid capture by the Red Army, and their corpses were burned. Hitler and the Nazi regime were also responsible for the killing of an estimated 19.3 million civilians, in addition,29 million soldiers and civilians died as a result of military action in the European Theatre of World War II. The number of civilians killed during the Second World War was unprecedented in warfare, Hitlers father Alois Hitler Sr. was the illegitimate child of Maria Anna Schicklgruber. The baptismal register did not show the name of his father, in 1842, Johann Georg Hiedler married Aloiss mother Maria Anna. Alois was brought up in the family of Hiedlers brother, Johann Nepomuk Hiedler, in 1876, Alois was legitimated and the baptismal register changed by a priest to register Johann Georg Hiedler as Aloiss father. Alois then assumed the surname Hitler, also spelled Hiedler, Hüttler, the Hitler surname is probably based on one who lives in a hut. Nazi official Hans Frank suggested that Aloiss mother had been employed as a housekeeper by a Jewish family in Graz, and that the familys 19-year-old son Leopold Frankenberger had fathered Alois. No Frankenberger was registered in Graz during that period, and no record has been produced of Leopold Frankenbergers existence, Adolf Hitler was born on 20 April 1889 in Braunau am Inn, a town in Austria-Hungary, close to the border with the German Empire. He was one of six born to Alois Hitler and Klara Pölzl
13.
Franz Xaver Schwarz
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Franz Xaver Schwarz was a German politician who served as Reichsschatzmeister of the Nazi Party during most of the Partys existence. Schwarz was born in Günzburg, the seventh of eight born to a master baker. He was educated to a school level at the Günzburger vocational training school. Schwarz married Berta Breher on 26 August 1899, from 1900 to 1924, except for the war years of 1914 to 1918, he worked as a administrative official in the city government of Munich. During World War I, Schwarz served as a lieutenant in the German Army. Due to gastric troubles which afflicted him for his entire life, Schwarz joined the Nazi Party in 1922. Schwarz participated in the failed Beer Hall Putsch of November 1923, with the re-establishment of the Nazi Party in Germany on 27 February 1925, Schwarz became party member number six. He left his job as an accountant at the Munich City Hall to become the treasurer of the Nazi Party on 21 March 1925. He rebuilt the financial and administrative functions of the party and it was Schwarz who raised the money for the publication of Hitlers book, Mein Kampf. In April–May 1930 Schwarz negotiated the purchase of the party headquarters, from 16 September 1931 forward, Schwarz had control of all financial matters of the Nazi Party. He was elected to the Reichstag in 1933, representing the Franconia electoral district and he was also named a Reichsleiter, which was the second highest political rank of the Nazi Party. Hitler attended Schwarzs 60th birthday celebration on 27 November 1935, Hitlers will, dated 2 May 1938 included the provision that it be opened in Schwarzs presence. Besides the party treasury, Schwarz was responsible for the assignment of NSDAP unique membership numbers. When members died or stopped paying dues, the old numbers were not freed up for new members, if old members picked up their dues later a new party number would be assigned. Ten million membership numbers had been assigned by 1945, with about 2.4 million active members, Schwarzs able administration of party funds ensured a cash balance of one billion Reichmarks by the end of the war. Schwarz was regarded as an administrator who generally kept out of party politics. For instance he is mentioned twice in Joseph Goebbelss diaries. The first time, Goebbels wrote dismissingly of him, but by November 1944, in June 1933, Schwarz joined the SS, and his SS number was 38,500
14.
Kurt Daluege
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Kurt Daluege was the chief of the national uniformed Ordnungspolizei of Nazi Germany. Following Reinhard Heydrichs assassination in 1942, he served as Deputy Protector for the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, Daluege directed the German measures of retribution for the assassination, including the Lidice massacre. After the end of World War II, he was extradited to Czechoslovakia, Daluege, son of a Prussian state official, was born in the small Upper Silesian town of Kreuzburg on 15 September 1897. He entered the Prussian Army in 1916 and served with the 7th Guards Infantry Regiment and he served on the Eastern Front. In October 1917, attended officer training in Doberitz, during his service on the Western Front, he was severely wounded in the head and shoulder. He was hospitalised and declared 25% disabled, Daluege was awarded the Iron Cross, second class and the Wound Badge in Black. After World War I, Daluege became leader of Selbstschutz Oberschlesien - Upper Silesian Self Defense — an Upper Silesian veterans organization engaged in combat with the Poles in that region. In 1921, he became active in the Freikorps Rossbach while studying engineering at the Technical University in Berlin. Two years later he joined the Nazi Party and was assigned Party number 31,981, from 1924, he helped to organize the Berlin Frontbann, largely a front organization for the Nazi Sturmabteilung, since it and the Nazi Party were banned in Prussia at the time. In 1926 he joined the SA directly, eventually becoming the leader of Berlins SA and Goebbels deputy Gauleiter, or Party leader, throughout the period 1926—1929, Daluege led the Berlin-Brandenburg division of the SA. In July 1930, in accordance with Hitlers wishes, Daluege resigned from the SA and joined the SS with the rank of SS-Oberführer and his main responsibility was to spy on the SA and political opponents of the Nazi Party. Berlin SS headquarters was placed at the corner of Lützowstrasse and Potsdamerstrasse. In August 1930, when Berlin SA leader Walter Stennes had his men attack the Berlin Party headquarters, it was Dalueges SS men who defended it and put the attack down. Sometime afterwards in an letter to Daluege, Adolf Hitler proclaimed SS Mann, deine Ehre heißt Treue. At the same time, Hermann Göring moved Daluege to the Prussian Interior Ministry, thus neutralising the SA and shifting the balance of power within the party to the SS. Evidence of Dalueges ruthlessness goes beyond his intrigue against his former SA comrades and are discernible in his remarks concerning anyone he considered a threat to society. He once argued that, the consciously asocial enemies of the people must be eliminated by state intervention if it hopes to prevent the outbreak of moral degeneration. By November 1934, Dalueges authority over the police was extended beyond Prussia to encompass all of Germany
15.
Berlin
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Berlin is the capital and the largest city of Germany as well as one of its constituent 16 states. With a population of approximately 3.5 million, Berlin is the second most populous city proper, due to its location in the European Plain, Berlin is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. Around one-third of the area is composed of forests, parks, gardens, rivers. Berlin in the 1920s was the third largest municipality in the world, following German reunification in 1990, Berlin once again became the capital of all-Germany. Berlin is a city of culture, politics, media. Its economy is based on high-tech firms and the sector, encompassing a diverse range of creative industries, research facilities, media corporations. Berlin serves as a hub for air and rail traffic and has a highly complex public transportation network. The metropolis is a popular tourist destination, significant industries also include IT, pharmaceuticals, biomedical engineering, clean tech, biotechnology, construction and electronics. Modern Berlin is home to world renowned universities, orchestras, museums and its urban setting has made it a sought-after location for international film productions. The city is known for its festivals, diverse architecture, nightlife, contemporary arts. Since 2000 Berlin has seen the emergence of a cosmopolitan entrepreneurial scene, the name Berlin has its roots in the language of West Slavic inhabitants of the area of todays Berlin, and may be related to the Old Polabian stem berl-/birl-. All German place names ending on -ow, -itz and -in, since the Ber- at the beginning sounds like the German word Bär, a bear appears in the coat of arms of the city. It is therefore a canting arm, the first written records of towns in the area of present-day Berlin date from the late 12th century. Spandau is first mentioned in 1197 and Köpenick in 1209, although these areas did not join Berlin until 1920, the central part of Berlin can be traced back to two towns. Cölln on the Fischerinsel is first mentioned in a 1237 document,1237 is considered the founding date of the city. The two towns over time formed close economic and social ties, and profited from the right on the two important trade routes Via Imperii and from Bruges to Novgorod. In 1307, they formed an alliance with a common external policy, in 1415 Frederick I became the elector of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, which he ruled until 1440. In 1443 Frederick II Irontooth started the construction of a new palace in the twin city Berlin-Cölln
16.
Bavaria
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Bavaria is a free state and one of 16 federal states of Germany. Located in the German southeast with an area of 70,548 square kilometres and its territory comprises roughly a fifth of the total land area of Germany, and, with 12.9 million inhabitants, it is Germanys second most populous state. Munich, Bavarias capital and largest city, is the third largest city in Germany, the Duchy of Bavaria dates back to the year 555. In the 17th century CE, the Duke of Bavaria became a Prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire, the Kingdom of Bavaria existed from 1806 to 1918, when Bavaria became a republic. In 1946, the Free State of Bavaria re-organised itself on democratic lines after the Second World War, Bavaria has a unique culture, largely because of the states Catholic majority and conservative traditions. Bavarians have traditionally been proud of their culture, which includes such as Oktoberfest. The state also has the second largest economy among the German states by GDP figures, modern Bavaria also includes parts of the historical regions of Franconia, Upper Palatinate and Swabia. The Bavarians emerged in a north of the Alps, previously inhabited by Celts. The Bavarians spoke Old High German but, unlike other Germanic groups, rather, they seem to have coalesced out of other groups left behind by Roman withdrawal late in the 5th century. These peoples may have included the Celtic Boii, some remaining Romans, Marcomanni, Allemanni, Quadi, Thuringians, Goths, Scirians, Rugians, the name Bavarian means Men of Baia which may indicate Bohemia, the homeland of the Celtic Boii and later of the Marcomanni. They first appear in written sources circa 520, a 17th century Jewish chronicler David Solomon Ganz, citing Cyriacus Spangenberg, claimed that the diocese was named after an ancient Bohemian king, Boiia, in the 14th century BCE. From about 554 to 788, the house of Agilolfing ruled the Duchy of Bavaria and their daughter, Theodelinde, became Queen of the Lombards in northern Italy and Garibald was forced to flee to her when he fell out with his Frankish overlords. Garibalds successor, Tassilo I, tried unsuccessfully to hold the frontier against the expansion of Slavs. Tassilos son Garibald II seems to have achieved a balance of power between 610 and 616, after Garibald II little is known of the Bavarians until Duke Theodo I, whose reign may have begun as early as 680. From 696 onwards he invited churchmen from the west to organize churches and his son, Theudebert, led a decisive Bavarian campaign to intervene in a succession dispute in the Lombard Kingdom in 714, and married his sister Guntrud to the Lombard King Liutprand. At Theodos death the duchy was divided among his sons, at Hugberts death the duchy passed to a distant relative named Odilo, from neighbouring Alemannia. He was defeated near Augsburg in 743 but continued to rule until his death in 748, saint Boniface completed the peoples conversion to Christianity in the early 8th century. Bavaria was in ways affected by the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century
17.
Fritz Weitzel
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Fritz Weitzel was a German SS Obergruppenführer. He became a member of Nazi Party in 1925 and of SS in 1926, in 1930 he was promoted to leader of SS in Rheinland and Ruhr. He became Polizeipräsident in Düsseldorf in 1933, and Höherer SS- und Polizeiführer West in 1938, during 1939 Weitzel wrote the book Celebrations of the SS Family which described the holidays to be celebrated along with how married SS men and their families should celebrate them. This book written by Weitzel described how the Julleuchter should be used, following the German invasion of Norway on 9 April 1940, Weitzel was brought to Norway on 21 April to become Höherer SS- und Polizeiführer in the countrys capital, Oslo. He would not last in position for long, however. He is buried in the cemetery at Düsseldorf
18.
Rudolf Hess
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Rudolf Walter Richard Hess, was a prominent politician in Nazi Germany. Appointed Deputy Führer to Adolf Hitler in 1933, he served in this position until 1941 and he was taken prisoner and eventually was convicted of crimes against peace, serving a life sentence, until his death by suicide. Hess enlisted in the 7th Bavarian Field Artillery Regiment as an infantryman at the outbreak of World War I and he was wounded several times over the course of the war, and won the Iron Cross, 2nd class, in 1915. Shortly before the war ended, Hess enrolled to train as an aviator and he left the armed forces in December 1918 with the rank of Leutnant der Reserve. Hess joined the NSDAP on 1 July 1920, and was at Hitlers side on 8 November 1923 for the Beer Hall Putsch, a failed Nazi attempt to seize control of the government of Bavaria. Whilst serving time in jail for this coup, Hess helped Hitler write his book, Mein Kampf. After the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, Hess was appointed Deputy Führer of the NSDAP and he was the third most powerful man in Germany, behind only Hitler and Hermann Göring. Hess continued to be interested in aviation, learning to fly the advanced aircraft that were coming into development at the start of World War II. On 10 May 1941 he undertook a flight to Scotland, where he hoped to arrange peace talks with the Duke of Hamilton. During much of the trial, he claimed to be suffering from amnesia, Hess was convicted of crimes against peace and conspiracy with other German leaders to commit crimes and was transferred to Spandau Prison in 1947, where he served a life sentence. Repeated attempts by members and prominent politicians to win him early release were blocked by the Soviet Union. Still in custody in Spandau, he died by suicide in 1987 at the age of 93, after his death the prison was demolished to prevent it from becoming a neo-Nazi shrine. Hess, the oldest of three children, was born on 26 April 1894 in Alexandria, Egypt, into the ethnic German family of Fritz Hess, a merchant from Bavaria. His brother, Alfred, was born in 1897 and his sister, the family lived in a villa on the Egyptian coast near Alexandria, and visited Germany often from 1900, staying at their summer home in Reicholdsgrün in the Fichtel Mountains. Hess attended a German language Protestant school in Alexandria from 1900 to 1908, after a year there, Hess took an apprenticeship at a trading company in Hamburg. Within weeks of the outbreak of World War I, Hess enlisted in the 7th Bavarian Field Artillery Regiment and his initial posting was against the British on the Somme, he was present at the First Battle of Ypres. On 9 November 1914 Hess transferred to the 1st Infantry Regiment and he was awarded the Iron Cross, second class, and promoted to Gefreiter in April 1915. After additional training at the Munster Training Area, he was promoted to Vizefeldwebel, returning to the front lines in November, he fought in Artois, participating in the battle for the town of Neuville-Saint-Vaast
19.
Night of the Long Knives
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Leading members of the left-wing Strasserist faction of the Nazi Party, along with its figurehead, Gregor Strasser, were also killed, as were establishment conservatives and anti-Nazis. The murders of Brownshirt leaders were intended to improve the image of the Hitler government with a German public that was increasingly critical of thuggish Brownshirt tactics. Additionally, Hitler was uncomfortable with Röhms outspoken support for a revolution to redistribute wealth. Finally, Hitler used the purge to attack or eliminate critics of his new regime, especially loyal to Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen. At least 85 people died during the purge, although the death toll may have been in the hundreds. Most of the killings were carried out by the Schutzstaffel and the Gestapo, the purge strengthened and consolidated the support of the Reichswehr for Hitler. The Night of the Long Knives was a point for the German government. It established Hitler as the supreme justiciar of the German people, before its execution, its planners sometimes referred to it as Hummingbird, the codeword used to send the execution squads into action on the day of the purge. The codename for the operation appears to have been chosen arbitrarily, the phrase Night of the Long Knives in the German language predates the massacre and refers generally to acts of vengeance. Germans still use the term Röhm-Putsch to describe the murders, the given to it by the Nazi regime. German authors often use quotation marks or write about the sogenannter Röhm-Putsch for emphasis, President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Hitler Chancellor on January 30,1933. Hitler did not exercise power, however, despite his swift consolidation of political authority. As chancellor, Hitler did not command the army, which remained under the leadership of Hindenburg. To a lesser extent, the Sturmabteilung, a Nazi paramilitary organisation, the SA evolved out of the remnants of the Freikorps movement of the post-World War I years. A very large number of the Freikorps believed that the November Revolution had betrayed them when Germany was alleged to be on the verge of victory in 1918. Hence, the Freikorps were in opposition to the new Weimar Republic, which was born as a result of the November Revolution, captain Ernst Röhm of the Reichswehr served as the liaison with the Bavarian Freikorps. Röhm was given the nickname The Machine Gun King of Bavaria in the early 1920s, Röhm left the Reichswehr in 1923 and later became commander of the SA. Also known as the brownshirts or stormtroopers, the SA became notorious for their battles with the Communists
20.
Sepp Dietrich
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Josef Sepp Dietrich was an Oberst-Gruppenführer in the Waffen-SS, the armed paramilitary branch of the Schutzstaffel, who commanded units up to army level during World War II. He later commanded 6th Panzer Army during the Battle of the Bulge, after the war he was imprisoned by the United States for war crimes and later by West Germany for his involvement in the 1934 purge. Sepp Dietrich was born on 28 May 1892 in Hawangen, near Memmingen in the Kingdom of Bavaria, in 1911 he joined the Bavarian Army with the 4. In the First World War he served with the Bavarian Field artillery, He was promoted to Gefreiter in 1917, in 1918 he was promoted to Unteroffizier. Last Bavarian army record lists Dietrich as recipient of Iron Cross 1st class, after the Great War Dietrich worked at several jobs, including policeman and customs officer. He joined the Nazi Party in 1928, got a job at Eher Verlag, the NSDAP publisher and his NSDAP number was 89,015 and his SS number was 1,117. Dietrich had been introduced to Nazism by Christian Weber, who was his employer at the Tankstelle-Blau-Bock filling station in Munich and he accompanied Hitler on his tours around Germany. Later Hitler arranged other jobs, including various SS posts, on 5 January 1930 Dietrich was elected to the Reichstag as a delegate for Lower Bavaria. By 1931 he had become SS-Gruppenführer, when the Nazi Party seized power in 1933, he rose swiftly through the hierarchy. He became the commander of Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler and member of the Prussian state council, as one of Hitlers intimates, Dietrich was often able to disregard his SS superior, Heinrich Himmler, at one time even banning Himmler from the Leibstandarte barracks. The LSSAH eventually grew into a division of the Waffen-SS. Although the unit was nominally under Himmler, Dietrich was the real commander, in the summer of 1934 Dietrich played a key role in the Night of the Long Knives. Hitler, along with Dietrich and a unit from the Leibstandarte, later at around 17,00 hours, Dietrich received orders from Hitler for the Leibstandarte to form an execution squad and go to Stadelheim prison where certain SA leaders were being held. There in the courtyard, the Leibstandarte firing squad shot five SA generals. Additional alleged traitors were shot in Berlin by a unit of the Leibstandarte after Hitler told him to six men. Shortly thereafter, Dietrich was promoted to SS-Obergruppenführer, Dietrichs role later earned him a 19-month sentence from a postwar court. After World War II began, Dietrich led the Leibstandarte during the German advance into Poland, after the Dutch surrender, the Leibstandarte moved south to France on 24 May 1940. They took up a position 15 miles southwest of Dunkirk along the line of the Aa Canal and that night the OKW ordered the advance to halt, with the British Expeditionary Force trapped
21.
Paul Hausser
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Hausser served as an officer in the Prussian Army during World War I and attained the rank of general in the inter-war Reichsheer. After retirement, he joined the SS of Nazi Germany and was instrumental in forming the Waffen-SS, during World War II, he rose to the level of army group commander. He led Waffen-SS troops in the Third Battle of Kharkov, the Battle of Kursk and it campaigned for the restoration of legal and economic rights of the Waffen-SS employing a multi-prong propaganda campaign to achieve its aims. Under Haussers leadership, HIAG reshaped the image of the Waffen-SS as a so-called pan-European force that fought honorably and had no part in war crimes or Nazi atrocities and these ideas have since been discredited by historians. Hausser was born on 7 October 1880 in Brandenburg an der Havel into a Prussian military family, in 1899, he graduated from a cadet academy and was commissioned as a lieutenant in the 155th Infantry Regiment. Hausser graduated from the Prussian Military Academy in Berlin in 1911, Hausser married Elisabeth Gerard in 1912, the couple had one daughter who was born in December 1913. During World War I he served in the German General Staff and in roles on the Eastern Front. He was promoted to major in 1918 and was retained in the postwar Reichswehr, Hausser joined the right-wing World War I veterans organization Stahlhelm, becoming the head of its Brandenburg-Berlin chapter in 1933. Soon after, the Stahlhelm was incorporated into the Sturmabteilung, and, with the SAs demise, in November 1934 Hausser was transferred to the SS-Verfügungstruppe and assigned to the SS officer training school. He became the Inspector of the SS-VT in 1936, in this role, Hausser was in charge of the troops military and ideological training, but did not have command authority. The decision on deployment of the troops remained in Himmlers hands and this aligned with Hitlers intentions to maintain these troops exclusively at his disposal, neither of the army, nor of the police, according to Hitlers order of 17 August 1938. Hausser served during the 1939 invasion of Poland as an observer with the mixed Wehrmacht/SS Panzer Division Kempf, in October 1939 the SS-VT was formed as a motorized infantry division known as the SS-Verfügungs-Division with Hausser in command. He led the division, later renamed 2nd SS Division Das Reich, through the French campaign of 1940 and in the early stages of Operation Barbarossa. For his service in the Soviet Union, Hausser was awarded the Knights Cross of the Iron Cross in 1941, after recovering, he commanded the newly formed SS-Panzer Corps and against Hitlers explicit orders withdrew his troops from Kharkov to avoid encirclement. He led the 1st, 2nd and 3rd SS divisions during the Battle of Kursk, after Kursk, his Corps was reformed and sent to Italy, then to France where he commanded them in the early stages of the Normandy Campaign. After the death of Friedrich Dollmann, commander of the Seventh Army, during the Falaise encirclement in 1944, Hausser was seriously wounded. Hausser was promoted to SS-Oberst-Gruppenführer in August 1944 and subsequently commanded Army Group Oberrhein, on the day he was relieved, Joseph Goebbels wrote, He has definitely not stood the test. He ended the war on Generalfeldmarschall Albert Kesselrings staff, at the Nuremberg Trials he claimed that the Waffen-SS only had a military role and denied that it was involved in war crimes and atrocities
22.
Udo von Woyrsch
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Udo von Woyrsch was a high-ranking SS official in Nazi Germany who was responsible for mass murder during The Holocaust. From early 1914 to 9 February 1919 Udo von Woyrsch served with the Germany Army as an Oberleutnant in the Great War, from 10 February 1919 to 23 August 1920 he was associated with an organization called the Grenzschutz. He was awarded a variety of medals during the war, including the Iron Cross, according to Richard Grunberger, Woyrsch had been involved in the Freikorps during the 1920s. Early on Woyrsch joined the NSDAP and the SS, Himmler charged him with organising the SS in the Nazi Gau Silesia, as such von Woyrsch became the first commander of the SS-Oberabschnitt Südost. In 1933 von Woyrsch was elected to the Reichstag and he was the SS and Police Leader in Elbe, and in 1934 Von Woyrsch participated in the Night of the Long Knives, ordering the execution of his SS rival Emil Sembach. On 30 June 1934 he took command in Silesia, and on the orders of Göring arrested a number of SA leaders, disarmed all SA headquarters guards, Von Woyrschs men murdered some of the SA officers as a result of an on-going private feud. Udo von Woyrsch had a friendship with Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich. On 1 January 1935 he was promoted to SS Obergruppenführer, in September 1939 Woyrsch commanded the Einsatzgruppe specifically charged with, and adept at, terrorizing and murdering the Jewish population of Poland. Woyrsch was responsible for some of the deadliest Jewish massacres in Poland in 1939, where in East Upper Silesia he led the group that murdered 500 Jews in Kattowitz, Będzin, and Sosnowiec. The brutality of this Einsatzgruppe in Kattowitz was such that some Wehrmacht officers interceded with the Gestapo to have it withdrawn, however many junior military commanders actively supported Woyrschs campaign. Between 20 April 1940 and February 1944 Woyrsch was the Higher SS and Police Leader in military district IV, Woyrsch was removed from office in 1944 for incompetence. According to Richard Grunberger Woyrsch was part of Himmlers entourage trailing about northern Germany in 1945, Woyrsch was interned by the British from 1945 to 1948. In 1948, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison for his role in the Night of the Long Knives in 1934, however, he was released in 1952. He was tried again in 1957 and was sentenced to 10 years in prison, Himmlers Vertreter im Reich und in den besetzten Gebieten. Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf,1986, ISBN 3-7700-0710-7 Browning, Christopher, the Origins of the Final Solution - The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939 - March 1942. University of Nebraska Press,2004, ISBN 0-8032-1327-1 Klee, Ernst, fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 Richard Grunberger, Hitlers SS, ISBN 978-0-440-03653-1 Christopher Ailsby, SS, Role of Infamy, ISBN 978-0-7603-0409-9
23.
Josias, Hereditary Prince of Waldeck and Pyrmont
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Josias, Hereditary Prince of Waldeck and Pyrmont was the heir apparent to the throne of the Principality of Waldeck and Pyrmont and a general in the SS. From 1946 until his death, he was the head of the Princely House of Waldeck and he was born in Arolsen at the ruling familys castle, the eldest son and heir of Prince Friedrich of Waldeck and Pyrmont and his consort Princess Bathildis of Schaumburg-Lippe. He was the nephew of William II, King of Württemberg and he was also a cousin of Wilhelmina, Queen of the Netherlands, and Charles Edward, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. He enlisted in the German Army as a cadet and fought in the First World War, at the end of the war, his family lost their Principality as Waldeck and Pyrmont became a Free State in the new Weimar Republic. After the war, Waldeck-Pyrmont studied agriculture, on 1 November 1929, he joined Adolf Hitlers Nazi Party, becoming a member of the SS on 2 March 1930. He was immediately appointed adjutant to Sepp Dietrich, before becoming Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmlers Adjutant, Waldeck-Pyrmont was elected as the Reichstag member for Düsseldorf-West in 1933 and was promoted to the rank of SS Lieutenant General. He was promoted again in 1939, to the Higher SS, in this position he had supervisory authority over Buchenwald concentration camp. Buchenwald had first caught the attention of Waldeck in 1941 when glancing over the death list, he came across the name of Dr. Walter Krämer. He recognized it because Dr. Krämer had successfully treated him in the past, Waldeck-Pyrmont also received reports that a certain prisoner had been shot while attempting to escape. By that time, Koch had been transferred to the Majdanek concentration camp in Poland, Waldeck-Pyrmont ordered a full scale investigation of the camp by Dr. Georg Konrad Morgen, an SS officer who was a judge in a German court. Throughout the investigation, more of Kochs orders to kill prisoners at the camp were revealed, a charge of incitement to murder was lodged against Koch by Waldeck-Pyrmont and Dr. Morgen, to which later was added a charge of embezzlement. Other camp officials were charged, including Ilse Koch. The trial resulted in a sentence for the Commandant, who was executed by firing squad on 5 April 1945. Morgen was convinced that Ilse Koch was guilty of sadistic crimes, Adolf Hitler appointed Waldeck-Pyrmont a member of the Ordnungspolizei in April 1941 and, a year later, he was appointed High Commissioner of Police in German-occupied France. One of his first acts in his new role was ordering French hostages to be placed on German troop trains and he was made a General in the Waffen-SS in July 1944. Waldeck-Pyrmont was arrested on 13 April 1945, and sentenced to imprisonment by an American court at Dachau during the Buchenwald Trial on 14 August 1947. The second charge was that he had ordered the execution of the Camp Commandant of Buchenwald, SS-Standartenführer Karl Otto Koch, most of the imprisonment sentences were also commuted, including Waldeck-Pyrmonts. Waldeck-Pyrmont was taken to Landsberg am Lech, where he served three years of his sentence before being released in December 1950 for health reasons
24.
Max Amann
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Note a different Max Amann was a German water polo player at the same time. Max Amann was a German Nazi official with the rank of SS-Obergruppenführer, politician. Amann was born in Munich on 24 November 1891, during the First World War he was Adolf Hitlers superior. He served as Feldwebel in the Royal Bavarian 16th Infantry Regiment and he is credited as being one of very few actual friends of Hitler. He joined the NSDAP in October 1921, as the Partys business manager, after 1922, he also led the Nazis publishing house, Eher Verlag, which, among other things, published the SS magazine Das Schwarze Korps. In 1924 he was elected as a NSDAP candidate to the Munich city council, soon after the creation of the Nazi state, Amann was named president of the Reich Media Chamber and Reich Press Leader. In this role, he established National Socialist control over the industry, in his official role as president of the Media Chamber, he had the power to seize any paper that ran counter to the governments wishes. Then, as head of the Eher Verlag, he bought them for mere pfennigs on the many cases. Combined with the proceeds from Mein Kampf, this eventually made Amann the largest newspaper publisher in Germany and one of the largest in the world. He made a fortune from Nazism, his income jumped from 108,000 RM IN1934 to 3.8 million RM in 1942, however, as a party official, Amann lacked talent, being a poor speaker and debater. In addition, his handwriting was illegible, thus his Chief of Staff and deputy, Rolf Rienhardt, poor handwriting can be attributed in part to the loss of his left arm in an accident with a firearm while hunting with Franz Ritter von Epp on 4 September 1931. Arrested by Allied troops after the war, Amann was deemed a Hauptschuldiger, stripped of his property, pension rights and practically all of his fortune, he died in poverty on 30 March 1957, in Munich. Baur, Wilhelm, Rienhardt, Rolf, Weiss, Wilhelm, Max Amann - Ein Leben für Führer und Volk 1891-1941, Betriebsgemeinschaft Deutscher Verlag, Berlin,1941 Hale, Oron. J, The Captive Press in the Third Reich, Princeton,1964 Wistrich, Robert Whos Who in Nazi Germany, Bonanza Books,1982 Works by or about Max Amann at Internet Archive Max Amann, Nazi Germany
25.
Karl von Eberstein
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Friedrich Karl Freiherr von Eberstein was a member of the German nobility, early member of the Nazi Party, the SA, and the SS. Further, he rose to become a Reichstag delegate, an HSSPF and SS-Oberabschnitt Führer, Eberstein was born on 14 January 1894 in Halle on the Saale, of the Dillenburger branch of the von Eberstein family. His father was an army major, Karl was at cadet schools until 1912. Early on in World War I, Karl served in the German Army with Field Artillery Regiment 17 in August 1914 and he was also a balloon observer, and later a battery commander in Artillery Regiment 16. He was awarded the Iron Cross Second Class and the Iron Cross First Class, after World War I, Eberstein fought as a member of the Freikorps in Middle Germany and/or Upper Silesia, and also with the Halle Protection Police. After that, he went into banking, Eberstein joined the Nazi Party in 1922, but quit after the Beer Hall Putsch in November 1923. He then re-joined the Party in 1925 with number,15067 and he was an early member of the SS and on the staff of Heinrich Himmler. According to Jonathan Petropolous, Eberstein was part of Himmlers strategy to attract members of the nobility, Eberstein obtained the officer rank SS-Sturmführer on 1 April 1929. He also joined the SA in July 1930 but left it later, Eberstein played a part in the first meeting of two of the major leaders of both the SS and later the Holocaust, Reinhard Heydrich and Heinrich Himmler. Eberstein and Heydrichs families were both from Halle on the Saale and he was also a friend of Lina Heydrich, Reinhard Heydrichs wife. Acting on the advice of Karl von Eberstein, Himmler agreed to interview Heydrich, when Himmler cancelled Heydrichs interview in Munich due to alleged illness, Lina ignored the message, and sent Heydrich on a Munich bound train. Karl met Heydrich at the station and drove him to meet Himmler, Himmler received Heydrich and hired him as the chief of the new SS Ic Service or Intelligence Service, which would later become known as the Sicherheitsdienst. Eberstein was the president of Munich during Kristallnacht. On 10 November 1938, at 1,20 a. m, Heydrich sent out a telegram to various police organizations giving orders for police behavior during the riots. At 2,10 Eberstein sent a telegram to the State Police HQ of Augsburg, Nürnberg, Würzburg, weinstraße, the Regierungspräsident, and the Gauleiter, with the subject line Anti-Jewish Measures. The Ordnungspolizei or Orpo would. do nothing to hinder the demonstrations, the SS troops could help, but the state police was supposed to maintain control. It went on to state that between 20 and 30,000 Jews would be arrested in Germany and it concluded. Every effort will be made to arrest immediately as many Jews as the jails will hold, primarily healthy male and well-to-do adults of not too advanced age. David Irving contends that Eberstein was a witness to Hitlers anger on that night, and this claim was refuted at the Irving v. Lipstadt trial, when Irving sued Lipstadt for calling him a Holocaust denier
26.
Philipp Bouhler
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Philipp Bouhler was a senior Nazi Party official who was both a Reichsleiter and Chief of the Chancellery of the Führer of the NSDAP. Bouhler was captured and arrested on 10 May 1945 by American troops and he committed suicide on 19 May 1945 while in the U. S. internment camp at Zell am See in Austria. Bouhler was born in Munich, to a colonel. He took part in the First World War and was badly wounded, from 1919 to 1920, he studied philosophy for four semesters and in 1921 became a contributor in the publishing house that put out the newspaper Völkischer Beobachter. He joined the Nazi Party in July 1922 with membership number 12, by autumn 1922 he had become deputy manager of the NSDAP. After the failed Beerhall Putsch in Munich and the subsequent refounding of the party in 1925, after the seizure of power in 1933, he became a Reich Leader and Member of the Reichstag for Westphalia. He joined the SS in the rank of Gruppenführer on 20 April 1933 with membership number,54,932, on 30 January 1936, Bouhler was promoted to the rank of Obergruppenführer. He held that position until 23 April 1945, in this job, for instance, secret decrees might be prepared, or internal business managed, before being brought before Adolf Hitler. Bouhlers office was responsible for all correspondences for Hitler which included private and his personal adjutant was SS-Sturmbannführer Karl Freiherr Michel von Tüßling. By 1944, much of the functions of the Kanzlei des Führers were absorbed by the Party Chancellery under Martin Bormann, Bouhler was responsible for the killing of disabled German citizens. By order of Hitler, Bouhler with Karl Brandt developed the Nazis early euthanasia program, Aktion T4 in which mentally ill, the actual implementation was supervised by Bouhler. Various methods of killing were tried out, the first killing facility was Schloss Hartheim in Upper Austria. The knowledge gained from the program was later applied to the industrialized annihilation of other groups of people. In 1941 Bouhler and Heinrich Himmler initiated Aktion 14f13, Bouhler instructed the head of the Hauptamt II of Hitlers Chancellery, the Oberdienstleiter Viktor Brack to implement this order. Brack was already in charge of the various front operations of T4, the scheme operated under the Concentration Camps Inspector and the Reichsführer-SS under the name Sonderbehandlung 14f13. Sonderbehandlung was the term for execution or killing. In 1942, Bouhler published the book Napoleon – Kometenbahn eines Genies and he had also published a National Socialist publication Kampf um Deutschland in 1938. Bouhler and his wife, Helene, were arrested by American troops at Schloss Fischhorn in Bruck near Zell-am-See on 10 May 1945 and his wife Helene jumped from a window at Schloss Fischhorn
27.
Friedrich Jeckeln
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Friedrich Jeckeln was a high-ranking official in the SS of Nazi Germany who served as an SS and Police Leader in the occupied Soviet Union during World War II. After the end of World War II, Jeckeln was convicted for his crimes by a Soviet military tribunal in Riga, Latvia, Jeckeln served in World War I as an officer. After being discharged following Germanys defeat, Jeckeln worked as an engineer before joining the Nazi Party on 1 October 1929, in January 1931, Jeckeln was accepted into the SS. By the end of 1931 he was placed in charge of a regiment, in 1932, Jeckeln was elected as a member of the Reichstag. In January 1933, when the Nazi Party came to power in Germany. In 1936, Jeckeln was appointed SS and Police Leader of Western Germany, Jeckeln was known to be ruthless and brutal. Political opponents, especially members of the KPD, SPD and the unions, were pursued relentlessly until their death, together with party member Friedrich Alpers, Jeckeln was primarily responsible for the Rieseberg murders in the summer of 1933. From 1941 to 1945 he also served as the commander of SS-Oberabschnitt Ostland which was a paper command of the Allgemeine-SS. After the Second World War began, Jeckeln was called up to duty in the Waffen-SS. As was the practice in the SS, Jeckeln took a lower rank from his Allgemeine-SS position, in 1941, however, his front line service was terminated and he was transferred by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler to serve as Higher SS and Police Leader of Eastern Russia. In this role Jeckeln assumed direction and control of all SS-Einsatzgruppen mass killings, Jeckeln developed his own methods to kill large numbers of people, which became known as the Jeckeln System. Jeckeln had staff which specialised in each part of the process. As applied in the Rumbula massacre on 30 November and 8 December 1941, Jeckelns system worked as follows, the people to be murdered were organised into columns of 500 to 1,000 people and driven to the killing grounds about 10 kilometres to the south. The Order Police led the columns to the killing grounds, three pits had already been dug where the killing would be done simultaneously. The victims were stripped of their clothing and valuables, the victims were run through a double cordon of guards on the way to the killing pits. The killers forced the victims to lie face down on the floor, or more often. Each person was shot once in the back of the head with a Russian submachine gun. The shooters either walked among the dead in the trench, killing them from a range of two metres, or stood at the lip of the excavation and shot the victims below them
28.
SS and police leader
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The title of SS and police leader was used to designate a senior Nazi official who commanded large units of the SS, Gestapo and the German uniformed police, prior to and during World War II. They were to act as the highest liaison under Himmler and unifier for command of the SS, inside the Reich the man named as HSSPF was usually also SS-Oberabschnitt Führer for that region. In the occupied territories, there was no Oberabschnitt, so the HSSPF existed on their own, however, they had something the Reich HSSPFs did not - several SS- und Polizeiführer reporting to them. There were two Höchster SS- und Polizeiführer posts and these were Italien and Ukraine, both of which had various HSSPF and SSPF reporting to them. The SS and police leaders directly commanded a staff with representatives from almost every branch of the SS. This typically included the Ordnungspolizei, Gestapo, Totenkopfverbände, SD, most of these SS and Police Leaders normally held the rank of SS-Gruppenführer or above and answered directly to Himmler in all matters pertaining to the SS within their area of responsibility. Their role was to be part of the SS control mechanism within the state policing the German population and overseeing the activities of the SS men within each respective district. The grand dream of Heinrich Himmler was to evolve the SS and police leader into an SS ruler of the Lebensraum which the SS would rule, in 1944 and 1945, many HSSPF were promoted to generals rank in the Waffen-SS by Himmler. This was apparently an attempt to provide protection under the Hague Convention rules of warfare. The SS and Police Leaders served as commanding SS generals for any Einsatzgruppen operating in their areas, a large number of the SS and police leaders who had been involved with such crimes committed suicide before capture. They had direct command over Orpo police battalions and SD regiments that were assigned to guard the ghettos, note – Men were often transferred and promoted as the war went on. The HSSPF areas themselves might change, be absorbed, cease to exist and this list is by no means exhaustive. Allgemeine-SS, The Commands, Units and Leaders of the General SS, the Order of the Deaths Head, The Story of Hitler’s SS
29.
Eastern Front (World War II)
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The battles on the Eastern Front constituted the largest military confrontation in history. They were characterized by unprecedented ferocity, wholesale destruction, mass deportations, and immense loss of life due to combat, starvation, exposure, disease, and massacres. The Eastern Front, as the site of nearly all extermination camps, death marches, ghettos, of the estimated 70 million deaths attributed to World War II, over 30 million, many of them civilian, occurred on the Eastern Front. The Eastern Front was decisive in determining the outcome of the European portion of World War II and it resulted in the destruction of the Third Reich, the partition of Germany for nearly half a century and the rise of the Soviet Union as a military and industrial superpower. The two principal belligerent powers were Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, along with their respective allies. Though never engaged in action in the Eastern Front, the United Kingdom. The joint German–Finnish operations across the northernmost Finnish–Soviet border and in the Murmansk region are considered part of the Eastern Front, in addition, the Soviet–Finnish Continuation War may also be considered the northern flank of the Eastern Front. Despite their ideological antipathy, both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union shared a dislike for the outcome of World War I. The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact signed in August 1939 was an agreement between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. It contained a secret protocol aiming to return Central Europe to the pre–World War I status quo by dividing it between Germany and the Soviet Union, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania would return to Soviet control, while Poland and Romania would be divided. I need the Ukraine so that they cant starve us out, the two powers invaded and partitioned Poland in 1939. The annexations were never recognized by most Western states, the annexed Romanian territory was divided between the Ukrainian and Moldavian Soviet republics. Adolf Hitler had argued in his autobiography Mein Kampf for the necessity of Lebensraum, acquiring new territory for Germans in Eastern Europe, Wehrmacht officers told their troops to target people who were described as Jewish Bolshevik subhumans, the Mongol hordes, the Asiatic flood and the red beast. The vast majority of German soldiers viewed the war in Nazi terms, Hitler referred to the war in unique terms, calling it a war of annihilation which was both an ideological and racial war. In addition, the Nazis also sought to wipe out the large Jewish population of Central, after Germanys initial success at the Battle of Kiev in 1941, Hitler saw the Soviet Union as militarily weak and ripe for immediate conquest. On 3 October 1941, he announced, We have only to kick in the door, thus, Germany expected another short Blitzkrieg and made no serious preparations for prolonged warfare. Throughout the 1930s the Soviet Union underwent massive industrialization and economic growth under the leadership of Joseph Stalin, Stalins central tenet, Socialism in one country, manifested itself as a series of nationwide centralized Five-Year Plans from 1929 onwards. It served as a testing ground for both the Wehrmacht and the Red Army to experiment with equipment and tactics that they would later employ on a wider scale in the Second World War
30.
Ernst-Heinrich Schmauser
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Ernst-Heinrich Schmauser was a commander in the SS of Nazi Germany who was the Higher SS and Police Leader in Breslau during World War II. Later in the war, he was responsible for the liquidation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, Schmauser was also a member of the German Reichstag representing the NSDAP. Schmauser was born the son of a businessman and he attended elementary school and junior high school in Hof an der Saale, then the secondary school in Bayreuth. After graduation, he pursued a military career, First, he spent a year with the 11th Bavarian Infantry Regiment von der Tann in Regensburg. He then joined the 9th Royal Saxon Army, 133rd Infantry Regiment in Zwickau, after training at the Military Academy in Hanover, Schmauser served in the First World War as a company commander. He fought in the Western Theater with the 133rd and 183rd Infantry Regiments and he was wounded three times in battle and decorated on multiple occasions, receiving the Iron Cross Class, the Silver Wound Badge, and the Knights Cross of the Order of Albert with Swords. On 9 November 1915, he received the Knights Cross of the Military-St, following Schmauser’s demobilization from the Kaiser’s Army in 1919, he was promoted to captain and given permission to continue wearing the uniform of the 133rd Infantry Regiment. From 1919 to 1933, Schmauser worked in banking as a cashier in Zwickau and it was a temporary career path which he considered beneath his social standing. He married in 1921, and had two children by his wife, as early as 1924 Schmauser belonged to the right-wing conservative voting alliance known as the Völkisch-Social Block and was head of the Sturmabteilung in Zwickau. He was sporadically active on the scene as were many other former military officers in the wake of the collapsing Weimar economy. In early March 1930, Schmauser joined the NSDAP and on 14 October 1930 he was awarded the rank of SS-Sturmbannführer, from mid-December 1930, he led the 7th SS-Brigade in Saxony and from August,1932, he headed SS Section XVI. In the Reichstag elections of July 1932, Schmauser was the candidate for the 20th District representing the Nazi Party in the Reichstag, in the Reichstag elections of November 1932, Schmauser lost his mandate. A year later, in November 1933, Schmauser returned as a member of the Nazi Party, throughout his service in the Nazi Reichstag, he represented the 24th District of Upper Bavaria-Swabia, and then he served for the 26th District of Franken. In late July 1933, Schmauser, on request of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, on 1 April 1936, he was appointed SS Upper Main section leader, headquartered in Nuremberg. During the Night of the Long Knives, in which SA leader Ernst Röhm was killed, earnest work garnered more attention for Schmauser, and on 10 April 1937 he was promoted to SS-Gruppenführer. During the Second World War, Schmauser was promoted again to SS-Obergruppenführer and Higher SS and he was later named leader of the SS-Oberabschnitts South East. He remained a faithful Nazi and a consummate technocrat, when the first gas chamber was tested at Auschwitz in the summer of 1942, Schmauser was present, as were Gauleiter Fritz Bracht of Upper Silesia and Reichsführer-SS Himmler. Himmler appointed Schmauser General of the Waffen-SS on 1 July 1944, early in the summer of 1944, the SS began transferring the 130,000 prisoners at Auschwitz-Birkenau to other camps since the Red Army was moving rapidly East
31.
World War II
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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
32.
Wolf-Heinrich Graf von Helldorff
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From 1938, he became associated with the anti-Nazi resistance, and was executed in 1944 for his role in the 20th July plot to overthrow Hitlers regime. Helldorff was born in Merseburg, a noble son, Helldorff served as a lieutenant from 1915 in the First World War. He was a member of the Prussian Parliament from 1924 to 1928 and he was also friends with the stage magician and psychic, Erik Jan Hanussen, who constantly lent him money for his debts. The count was always in debt, and his life was a wreck. He was separated from his wife and was on bad terms with his mother after welching on his promise to pay her rent, sometimes he was behind in his own rent. On one occasion he forgot to pay for a new Mercedes, and he was always late paying his personal tailor and the trainer he hired for his racehorse. There were other debts as well, all from a gambling habit Helldorff couldnt shake, luckily, he could always count on a handout from Hanussen. All he had to do was sign an IOU, which Hanussen would add to his pile of chits he kept safe in his apartment. He became a member of the National Socialist Freedom Party in 1924, the NSFP was reabsorbed into the NSDAP in 1926 after the latter was made legal again, and by 1931 Helldorff had joined the SA, functioning as an SA leader in Berlin. The scope of his work got bigger in 1933 when he was given responsibility for the SSs Berlin-Brandenburg leadership. At the same time, he was elected to the Reichstag. In March of the year, he was named Police President of Potsdam, and from July 1935, he took on the same function in Berlin. Helldorff, a gambler, was notorious for arresting wealthy Jews, seizing their passports and then extorting huge bribes from them to secure their release. He was closely allied with Dr. Joseph Goebbels, Gauleiter of Berlin and Minister for Propaganda, as chief of the Berlin Police, Helldorff played an instrumental role in the harassment and plundering of Berlins Jewish population in the early and mid-1930s. Joseph Goebbels mentioned in his diary on 2 July 1938, that. Helldorff wants to construct a Jewish ghetto in Berlin, the rich Jews will be required to fund its construction. Helldorff was the brains behind the arson and looting of Berlins synagogues. This is especially the case in Hans Gisevius book To the Bitter End, in which Helldorff plays an important role in Gisevius circle of conspirators, on 20 July 1944, he was in communication with the coup détat plotters. His planned role in the plot was to keep his police from interfering with the military takeover, the fact that Helldorff sided with the anti-Hitler movement in their attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler earned him a place in history as a German resistance fighter against the Nazi régime
33.
Werner Lorenz
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Werner Lorenz was SS head of the Hauptamt Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle an organization charged with settling ethnic Germans in the German Reich from other parts of Europe. He was born Grünhof near Stolp, Pomerania and his father was a forest warden. In 1909 Lorenz went to Military school and he served in World War I first as a cavalry officer then as a pilot in the Luftstreitkräfte. After the war he worked as a guard and as farmer. He later acquired land and industrial property in Danzig, through his daughter Rosemarie, Lorenz would become Axel Springers father-in-law. In 1929 Lorenz joined the Nazi Party and the SS in 1931, two years later he had an active political role as a member of the Landtag in the Free State of Prussia, a member of the Reichstag and worked at the Hamburg State Council. In November 1933 Lorenz was promoted to SS-Gruppenführer and lead the SS Upper Division North from 1934 until 1937. However, when the Second World War began VOMI took charge of the resettlement of ethnic Germans on captured territory, some accounts consider him the least radical of the higher SS leadership. VOMI, which was an office of the Nazi Party, would take control of a district once the native populations had been driven from their homes, ethnic German settlers were then given the land to work under the direction of VOMI officials. In respect to his work, Lorenz was plenipotentiary for foreign relations for Adolf Hitlers deputy. In June 1941 VOMI was absorbed into the office of the Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Nationhood run by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, as RKFDV chief, Himmler authorized the SS-Einsatzgruppen and other SS police units to round up and kill Jews, Slavs and Roma. Lorenz remained in charge of Volksdeutsch settlements in these ethnically cleansed areas and he also was responsible for VOMI officials who handled the personal property seized from Jews killed during Operation Reinhard in the General Government during 1942-1943. In late 1942 Lorenz was seriously injured in a accident in Bosnia while overseeing the VOMI evacuation of ethnic Germans from the region. He was promoted to SS-Obergruppenführer in 1943, at the end of World War II, Lorenz was captured and held in an internment camp in England. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison at the RuSHA Trial at Nuremberg on 10 March 1948, later, his sentence was reduced to 15 years in 1951. Lorenz was released early in 1955, Lorenz died in Hamburg in 1974. RKFDV, German Resettlement and Population Policy, 1939-1945, A History of the Reich Commission for the Strengthening of Germandom, the Danube Swabians, German Populations in Hungary, Rumania and Yugoslavia and Hitlers Impact on their Patterns. The Nazi Resettlement Bureaucracy and the Baltic states of Estonia and Latvia, the House Built on Sand, The Conflicts of German Policy in Russia, 1939-1945
34.
Joachim von Ribbentrop
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Ulrich Friedrich Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop, more commonly known as Joachim von Ribbentrop, was Foreign Minister of Nazi Germany from 1938 until 1945. Ribbentrop first came to Adolf Hitlers notice as a businessman with more knowledge of the outside world than most senior Nazis. He offered his house for the meetings in January 1933 that resulted in Hitlers appointment as Chancellor of Germany. He became a confidant of Adolf Hitler, to the disgust of some party members. He was nevertheless appointed Ambassador to the Court of St James in 1936, before World War II, he played a key role in brokering the Pact of Steel and the Nazi–Soviet non-aggression pact, known as the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. Arrested in June 1945, Ribbentrop was tried at the Nuremberg trials and convicted for his role in starting World War II, on 16 October 1946, he became the first of those sentenced to death by hanging. Joachim von Ribbentrop was born in Wesel, Rhenish Prussia, to Richard Ulrich Friedrich Joachim Ribbentrop, a army officer. From 1904 to 1908, Ribbentrop took French courses at Lycée Fabert in Metz, a former teacher later recalled Ribbentrop was the most stupid in his class, full of vanity and very pushy. His father was cashiered from the German Imperial Army in 1908 - after repeatedly disparaging Kaiser Wilhelm II for his alleged homosexuality -, following the stay in Arosa, Ribbentrop was sent to Britain for a year to improve his knowledge of the English language. Fluent in both French and English, young Ribbentrop lived at times in Grenoble, France, and London. He worked for the Molsons Bank on Stanley Street in Montreal and he was also employed by the National Transcontinental Railway, which constructed a line from Moncton to Winnipeg. He worked as a journalist in New York City and Boston and he returned to Canada and set up a small business in Ottawa importing German wine and champagne. In 1914, he competed for Ottawas famous Minto ice-skating team, when the First World War began later in 1914, Ribbentrop left Canada, which was at war with Germany as part of the British Empire, and moved to the neutral United States. He sailed from Hoboken, New Jersey, on 15 August 1914 on the Holland-America ship The Potsdam, upon his return to Germany, he enlisted in the 12th Hussar Regiment. Ribbentrop served first on the Eastern Front, but was transferred to the Western Front and he earned a commission and was awarded the Iron Cross. In 1918, 1st Lieutenant Ribbentrop was stationed in Istanbul as a staff officer, during his time in Turkey, he became friends with another staff officer named Franz von Papen. In 1919, Ribbentrop met Anna Elisabeth Henkell, the daughter of a wealthy Wiesbaden wine-producer and they married on 5 July 1920, and Ribbentrop travelled throughout Europe as a wine salesman. He and Annelies had five children together, in 1925 his aunt, Gertrud von Ribbentrop, adopted him, which allowed him to add the nobiliary particle von to his name
35.
Martin Bormann
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Martin Bormann was a prominent official in Nazi Germany as head of the Nazi Party Chancellery. He gained immense power within the Third Reich by using his position as Adolf Hitlers private secretary to control the flow of information, Bormann joined a paramilitary Freikorps organisation in 1922 while working as manager of a large estate. He served nearly a year in prison as an accomplice to his friend Rudolf Höss in the murder of Walther Kadow, Bormann joined the Nazi Party in 1927 and the Schutzstaffel in 1937. He initially worked in the partys insurance service, and transferred in July 1933 to the office of Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess, Bormann used his position to create an extensive bureaucracy and involve himself as much as possible in the decision making. He gained acceptance into Hitlers inner circle, and accompanied him everywhere, providing briefings and he began acting as Hitlers personal secretary in 1935, a post to which he was officially appointed in 1943. After Hess solo flight to Britain on 10 May 1941 to seek negotiations with the British government, Bormann assumed Hess former duties. He had final approval over civil service appointments, reviewed and approved legislation, Bormann was one of the leading proponents of the ongoing persecution of the Christian churches and favoured harsh treatment of Jews and Slavs in the areas conquered by Germany during World War II. Bormann returned with Hitler to the Führerbunker in Berlin on 16 January 1945 as the Red Army approached the city, after Hitler committed suicide, Bormann and others attempted to flee Berlin on 2 May to avoid capture by the Soviets. Bormann probably committed suicide on a bridge near Lehrter station, the body was buried nearby on 8 May 1945, but was not found and confirmed as genuine until 1972. Bormann was tried in absentia by the International Military Tribunal in the Nuremberg trials of 1945 and 1946 and he was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity and sentenced to death by hanging. Born in Wegeleben in the Kingdom of Prussia in the German Empire, Bormann was the son of Theodor Bormann, a post office employee and he had two half-siblings from his fathers earlier marriage to Louise Grobler, who died in 1898. Antonie Bormann gave birth to three sons, one of whom died in infancy, Martin and Albert survived to adulthood. Theodor died when Bormann was three, and his mother soon remarried, Bormanns studies at an agricultural trade high school were interrupted when he joined the 55th Field Artillery Regiment as a gunner in June 1918, in the last days of World War I. He never saw action, but served garrison duty until February 1919, after working a short time in a cattle feed mill, Bormann became estate manager of a large farm in Mecklenburg. Shortly after starting work at the estate, Bormann joined an antisemitic landowners association, while hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic meant that money was worthless, foodstuffs stored on farms and estates became ever more valuable. Many estates, including Bormanns, had Freikorps units stationed on site to guard the crops from pillaging, Bormann joined the Freikorps organisation headed by Gerhard Roßbach in 1922, acting as section leader and treasurer. On 17 March 1924 Bormann was sentenced to a year in Elisabethstrasse Prison as an accomplice to his friend Rudolf Höss in the murder of Walther Kadow, schlageter was arrested and was executed on 23 May 1923. On the night of 31 May, Höss, Bormann and several others took Kadow into an out of town
36.
Hans Lammers
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Hans Heinrich Lammers was a German jurist and prominent Nazi politician. From 1933 until 1945 he served as head of the Reich Chancellery under Adolf Hitler, during the 1948–1949 Wilhelmstrasse Trial, Lammers was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity and sentenced to 20 years imprisonment. During World War I, as a volunteer and officer of the German Army, he received the Iron Cross, First, at the recommendation of Reich Minister Wilhelm Frick, he became the centre of communications and chief legal adviser for all government departments. From 1937, he was a member of Hitlers cabinet as a Reich Minister without portfolio, in this position he was able to review all pertinent documents regarding national security and domestic policy even before they were forwarded to Hitler in person. Historian Martin Kitchen explains that due to the centralization of power accorded to the Reich Chancellory and therefore to its head, from the vantage point of most government officers, Lammers seemed to speak on behalf of Hitler, the ultimate authority within the Reich. Sometime in 1940, Lammers was also promoted to honorary SS General, from January 1943, Lammers served as President of the cabinet when Hitler was absent from their meetings. Along with Martin Bormann, he increasingly controlled access to Hitler, by early 1943, the war produced a labour crisis for the regime. Hitler agreed to the creation of a committee with representatives of the State, the army. The committee members were Lammers, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, chief of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, and Bormann, Hitler seemed to be in agreement with this proposal since none of them posed a threat to his leadership nor would they disagree with him. The committee was intended to propose measures regardless of the wishes of various ministries. The committee, soon known as the Dreierausschuß, met eleven times between January and August 1943, however, they ran up against resistance from Hitlers cabinet ministers, who headed deeply entrenched spheres of influence and were excluded from the committee. Seeing it as a threat to their power, Joseph Goebbels, Albert Speer, Hermann Göring, the result was that nothing changed, and the Committee of Three declined into irrelevance. Over time Lammers lost power and influence because of the increasing irrelevancy of his due to the war. In April 1945, Lammers was arrested by SS troops during the days of the Third Reich. On 23 April, as the Soviets tightened the encirclement of Berlin, Göring consulted Karl Koller, all agreed that Göring was not only Hitlers designated successor, but was to act as his deputy if Hitler ever became incapacitated. Göring concluded that, by remaining in Berlin to face certain death, acting on the matter, Göring sent a telegram from Berchtesgaden, Bavaria, arguing that since Hitler was cut off in Berlin, he, Göring, should assume leadership of Germany. Göring set a limit of 22,00 that night. The telegram was intercepted by Bormann, who convinced Hitler that Göring was a traitor, Hitler responded angrily, ordering SS troops to arrest Göring
37.
Otto Dietrich
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Jacob Otto Dietrich was an SS-Obergruppenführer, the Press Chief of Nazi Germany, and a confidant of Adolf Hitler. Otto Dietrich was born in August 1897, in Essen, after his military service as a soldier during World War I, he was awarded the Iron Cross. After this he studied at the universities of Munich, Frankfurt am Main and Freiburg, Dietrich worked for newspapers in Essen and Munich. In 1929 he became a member of the Nazi Party and advanced quickly, on 1 August 1931 he was appointed Press Chief of the NSDAP, and the following year joined the SS. By 1941 he had risen to the rank of SS-Obergruppenführer and his job as Press Chief overlapped with Joseph Goebbelss Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, and thus many anecdotes exist of their feuds. They were infamous for their disagreements, and both often felt obliged to repair the mistakes of the other, Dietrich retained the confidence of the Führer throughout the regime until Hitler fired him after an argument towards the end of World War II. However, in the secrecy mandated by war, Dietrich, who was not in Hitlers inner circle, at the age of 55 Dietrich died in November 1952 in Düsseldorf. In captivity in Landsberg Prison, Dietrich wrote The Hitler I Knew, memoirs of the Third Reichs Press Chief, a book sharply critical of Hitler personally and strongly denouncing the crimes committed in the name of Nazism. The first part of the book contains assessments by Dietrich about his character, his reflections on Hitler as a politician and as a soldier, the second part describes Dietrichs first-hand oberservations of Hitlers daily activities before and during the war. Memoirs of the Third Reichs Press Chief
38.
Reinhard Heydrich
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Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich was a high-ranking German Nazi official during World War II, and a main architect of the Holocaust. He was an SS-Obergruppenführer und General der Polizei as well as chief of the Reich Main Security Office and he was also Stellvertretender Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia, in what is now the Czech Republic. Many historians regard him as the darkest figure within the Nazi elite and he was the founding head of the Sicherheitsdienst, an intelligence organisation charged with seeking out and neutralising resistance to the Nazi Party via arrests, deportations, and murders. He helped organise Kristallnacht, a series of co-ordinated attacks against Jews throughout Nazi Germany, the attacks, carried out by SA stormtroopers and civilians, presaged the Holocaust. Upon his arrival in Prague, Heydrich sought to eliminate opposition to the Nazi occupation by suppressing Czech culture and he died from his injuries a week later. Nazi intelligence falsely linked the assassins to the villages of Lidice, both villages were razed, all men and boys over the age of 16 were shot, and all but a handful of its women and children were deported and killed in Nazi concentration camps. Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich was born in 1904 in Halle an der Saale to composer and opera singer Richard Bruno Heydrich and his wife and his father was Protestant and his mother was Roman Catholic. His two forenames were patriotic musical tributes, Reinhard referred to the hero from his fathers opera Amen. Heydrichs third name, Eugen, was his maternal grandfathers forename. Heydrichs family held social standing and substantial financial means, Music was a part of Heydrichs everyday life, his father founded the Halle Conservatory of Music, Theatre and Teaching and his mother taught piano there. Heydrich developed a passion for the violin and carried that interest into adulthood and his father was a German nationalist who instilled patriotic ideas in his three children, but was not affiliated with any political party until after World War I. As a youth, he engaged his younger brother, Heinz and he excelled in his schoolwork—especially in science—at the Reformgymnasium. A talented athlete, he became a swimmer and fencer. He was shy, insecure, and was bullied for his high-pitched voice. The latter claim earned him the nickname Moses Handel, in 1918, World War I ended with Germanys defeat. In late February 1919, civil unrest—including strikes and clashes between communist and anti-communist groups—took place in Heydrichs home town of Halle, under Defense Minister Gustav Noskes directives, a right-wing paramilitary unit was formed and ordered to recapture Halle. Heydrich, then 15 years old, joined Maerckers Volunteer Rifles, when the skirmishes ended, Heydrich was part of the force assigned to protect private property. Little is known about his role, but the left a strong impression
39.
Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski
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Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski was a high-ranking SS commander of Nazi Germany. It mostly involved the civilian population, in 1944 he led the brutal suppression of the Warsaw Uprising. Despite his responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity, Bach-Zelewski did not stand trial in Nuremberg. He was later convicted for politically motivated murders after the war, Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski was born as Erich Julius Eberhard von Zelewski on 1 March 1899 to Kashubian parents, Otto Jan Józefat von Zelewski and Elżbieta Ewelina Szymańska. He legally added von dem Bach to the name late in 1933. In November 1941, he removed Zelewski part of his surname because of its Polish-sounding origin, apparently, Bach-Zelewski manipulated his genealogy numerous times in his career, to impress his superiors. Despite his aristocratic genealogy, he grew up in poverty, in November 1914, he volunteered for the Prussian Army and served throughout World War I. He was awarded the Iron Cross, after the war, Zelewski remained in the Reichswehr and fought against the Polish Silesian Uprisings. In 1924 he resigned his commission and returned to his farm in Düringshof. Zelewski enrolled with the guards the same year. On 23 October 1925 he legally changed his surname to von dem Bach-Zelewski, in 1930 he left the Grenzschutz, joined the Nazi Party, and became a member of the SS in 1931, achieving the rank of SS-Brigadeführer in late 1933. During this period he reportedly quarreled with his officer, Anton von Hohberg und Buchwald. A source of embarrassment for him was the fact that all three of his sisters had married Jewish men. After the war he claimed under interrogation that this had ruined his reputation in the army, a Nazi Party member of the Reichstag from 1932–44, Bach-Zelewski participated in the Night of the Long Knives in 1934, using the opportunity to have his rival Buchwald murdered. From 1934 on he served as leader of SS main districts, initially in East Prussia, in 1937 he was named Senior SS and Police Leader in Silesia, and also served as Commander of SS main district South East. In November 1939 SS chief Heinrich Himmler offered Bach-Zelewski the post of Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germandom in Silesia and his duties included mass resettlement and the confiscation of Polish private property. By August 1940 some 18, 000–20,000 Poles from Żywiec County were forced to leave their homes in what known as the Action Saybusch. Bach-Zelewski provided the impetus for the building of Auschwitz concentration camp at the former Austrian artillery barracks in the Zasole suburb of Oświęcim due to overcrowding of prisons
