Carl Oberg

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Carl Albrecht Oberg
War crimes
French Military
Crimes against humanity
Criminal penaltyBritish Military
Death; commuted to life imprisonment
French Military
Death; commuted to life imprisonment; further commuted to 20 years imprisonment with hard labour
SS service
Nickname(s)The Butcher of Paris
Allegiance Nazi Germany
Service/branch Schutzstaffel
Years of service1933–1945
RankSS-Obergruppenführer
Commands held

Carl Albrecht Oberg (27 January 1897 – 3 June 1965) was a German

Second World War, Oberg came to be known as the Butcher of Paris. From May 1942, under orders from Reinhard Heydrich, Oberg ordered the execution of hundreds of hostages and the roundup and deportation of over 40,000 Jews from France to extermination camps, most infamously during the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup
with the assistance of the Vichy French police.

Arrested by American military police in

hard labour. Oberg was eventually released on 28 November 1962 and pardoned by President Charles de Gaulle. He died in West Germany
on 3 June 1965.

Early life

Carl Albrecht Oberg was born in Hamburg on 27 January 1897, the son of a physician and professor of medicine. In August 1914, he enlisted in the army and was assigned to the artillery, serving as battery officer. In November 1915, he was commissioned as a Leutnant fighting on the Western Front and was awarded the Iron Cross in both classes. He worked in manufacturing as a branch manager after the war until he was laid off in 1930.[1]

Nazi career

Oberg (centre) with French Prime Minister Pierre Laval and SS-Sturmbannführer Herbert Hagen, German Police Headquarters in Paris, 1 May 1943

He joined the

SS and Police Leader – SSPF), "Radom" from August 1941 to May 1942. Oberg was promoted to SS-Brigadeführer on 20 April 1942.[1]

From 5 May 1942 to 28 November 1944,

Jewish badge decree for identification,[1] supported the roundup of 13,152 Jews in the Paris Vélodrome d'Hiver (Vel' d'Hiv Roundup), and ordered mass execution of hostages in retribution for acts of the French resistance.[3] By that time he had been condemned as the "Butcher of Paris".[4] On Heydrich's orders, Oberg deported over 40,000 Jews from the country with the assistance of the Vichy France police force headed by René Bousquet.[5][6][7]

On 18 January 1943, Himmler demanded a cleansing of

Marseilles with 100,000 arrests and explosive demolition of the city's crime district. Working with the French police, Oberg supervised a lesser response of 6,000 arrests, 20,000 people displaced, and partial destruction of the harbour area.[8] In 1944, Oberg blocked an attempt to establish an Einsatzkommando of the Waffen-SS in France.[9] On 10 March 1945, he became a General der Waffen-SS.[2]

Post-war trial, sentence, and reprieve

Oberg was captured in June 1945 in the mountains near

Kitzbuhel by the U.S. military. He had been disguised as a private in the Austrian Army. He was sentenced to death by a British court before receiving another death sentence from the French in October 1954. On 10 April 1958, the sentence was commuted to life by French President Vincent Auriol, his successor René Coty then reduced it further to 20 years hard labor in 1959.[10] On 20 November 1962, Oberg was finally pardoned by President Charles de Gaulle and set free on 28 November 1962.[1][a]
Oberg then was repatriated to Flensburg, in the north of the German state of Schleswig-Holstein, at the time, according to Die Zeit, a stronghold of former Nazis and SS cadres.[12]

Notes

  1. Pierre Mendes France the pardon of Oberg (and Helmut Knochen) was a demand of German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer.[11]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Yerger 1997, p. 103.
  2. ^ a b Yerger 1997, p. 51.
  3. ^ Longerich 2012, p. 631.
  4. ^ Mitchell 2013.
  5. ^ Fox 1996.
  6. ^ Yerger 1997, pp. 51, 103.
  7. ^ Marrus & Paxton 1995.
  8. ^ Longerich (2012), p. 651.
  9. ^ Longerich 2012, pp. 650–3.
  10. ^ Time 5 May 1958.
  11. ^ L'Obs 2015.
  12. ^ Zeit Online.

Sources

External links


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