1901-1945? Head of Amt IV in the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA) from 1939, and one of the most influential officials of the SS involved directly in the extermination of European Jewry. Served in the air force during World War I where he won the Iron Cross, 1st Class, on the Russian front. After the war he served in the Bavarian political police where he developed expertise in surveillance of communists and other potentially subversive groups, including the NSDAP. Brought to Berlin by Reinhard Heydrich, he was initially in charge of the Secret Political Police, Dept II, with responsibilities for surveillance and control of communists, Marxists, oppositional groups, Austrian affairs, and the concentration camps. He was, according to Padfield, "an archetypal middle-rank official: of limited imagination, non-political, non-ideological, his only fanaticism lay in an inner drive to perfection in his profession and his duty to the state-which in his mind were one. That the state happened to be Hitler's Third Reich was a matter of circumstance". (pp. 144-45). This is borne out by the viewpoint expressed by Bavarian Gau_headquarters that he would have served any master with the same degree of dedication and enthusiasm so long as his career aspirations could be advanced. (Hohne, pp.162-63) He rose rapidly. In 1939 he assumed control of Amt IV, the Gestapo. He moved in rank from SS Colonel in 1937 to SS Lieutenant-General and Police Chief in November 1941. His enthusiasm for carrying out a task thoroughly was reflected in his commitment to the solution of the Jewish problem. As Wistrich notes, he was more directly involved in their extermination programme than either Himmler or Heydrich: "He signed the circulating order requiring the immediate delivery to Auschwitz by 31 January 1943 of 45,000 Jews for extermination and countless other documents of the same tenor, which reveal his zeal in carrying out orders. In the summer of 1943 he was sent to Rome to pressurize the Italians, who were proving singularly inefficient and unenthusiastic in arresting Jews. ...In his hands, mass murder became an automatic administrative procedure."(p. 174) He was also directly involved in the notorious roundup and execution of British and Dominion air force officers who had escaped from Stalag Luft III, fifty of whom were executed on capture. His last known whereabouts was the Fuhrer bunker, on 17 May 1945. Like many others who escaped judicial accountability, he was rumored to have been seen in various countries subsequently.
Sources: R Wistrich/Who’s Who in Nazi Germany; H Hohne/The Order of the Death’s Head; MM Boatner III/The Biographical Dictionary of World War II; P Padfield/Himmler: Reichsfuhrer SS.
World History
