Hans-Adolf Prützmann

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Hans-Adolf Prützmann
Higher SS and Police Leader, "Baltic States and Northern Russia"; "Southern Russia"
Supreme SS and Police Leader, "Ukraine"
Battles/warsWorld War II
AwardsGerman Cross in Gold
Iron Cross, 1st and 2nd class
War Merit Cross, 1st and 2nd class with Swords

Hans-Adolf Prützmann (31 August 1901 – 16 May 1945) was among the highest-ranking

Second World War
, he committed suicide.

Early life

Prützmann was born in the

Upper Silesian uprisings in the summer of 1921. Afterwards, he studied agriculture at the University of Göttingen from 1921 to 1923 and then worked for seven years as an agricultural official in the Prussian provinces of Pomerania, Brandenburg, and East Prussia.[1]

Peacetime SS career

Prützmann joined the Nazi Party on 1 August 1929 (membership number 142,290) and was a holder of the Golden Party Badge. He entered the SA shortly afterward, but he left the SA and transferred to the SS in Bochum on 12 August 1930 (SS number 3,002).[2]

By August 1931 he was promoted to SS-Standartenführer and became the first commander (führer) of the 19th SS-Standarte "Westfalen-Nord," based in Gelsenkirchen. At this point in time, Prützmann's career began a steep rise. In April 1932, he was elected to the Landtag of Prussia.[3] In July of that year he was elected to the Reichstag from electoral constituency 17, Westphalia-North. He would continue to serve in the Reichstag until the end of the Nazi regime, and he would successively represent East Prussia, Württemberg and Hamburg, as his SS postings changed.[4]

In September 1932, Prützmann transferred from Westphalia to take command of the 18th SS-Standarte "Ostpreussen", based in Königsberg (now Kaliningrad). This was followed by a stint as commander of SS-Abschnitt (District) X based in Stuttgart from July to November 1933. He was promoted to SS-Brigadeführer in November 1933, and appointed the first commander of the newly-formed SS-Oberabschnitt (Main District) "Südwest," also based in Stuttgart. In February 1934, he was promoted to the rank of SS-Gruppenführer.[5]

From 1 March 1937 through 30 April 1941, Prützmann led SS-Oberabschnitt "Nordwest" (renamed "Nordsee" 20 April 1940) whose headquarters were in

Higher SS and Police Leader) "Nordwest" was created on 28 June 1938 (renamed "Nordsee" 20 April 1940), Prutzmann became the first holder of this position. As HSSPF, he reported directly to Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. From Hamburg, Prützmann was transferred on 30 April 1941 to become the HSSPF "Nordost" and commander of the Oberabschnitt "Nordost," in Königsberg.[6]

World War II

By April 1941, Prützmann had been appointed

Kiev. At that time he was promoted to SS-Obergruppenführer and General of Police.[7]

In early 1942, Prützmann was put in charge of securing

prisoners of war and Jewish concentration camp inmates. Thousands perished from the harsh conditions and from liquidation of the labor camps when the project was completed.[8]

In August 1942, Himmler made Prützmann responsible for all anti-partisan activities in Ukraine. During the first half of 1943, Prützmann conducted numerous anti-partisan operations, each one resulting in the deaths or capture of many thousands.[9]

The next major advancement in Prützmann's career came on 29 October 1943 when he was named to the new post of Höchster SS- und Polizeiführer (HöSSPF), (Supreme SS and Police Leader) "Ukraine," one of only two officers to attain this designation, the other being SS-Obergruppenführer Karl Wolff in Italy. In this post, Prützmann oversaw his own HSSPF "Rußland-Süd" as well as HSSPF "Schwarzes Meer" (Black Sea). His vast jurisdiction encompassed some sixteen subordinate SS- und Polizeiführer (SSPF) commands, and controlled the largest contingent of Order Police battalions and Schutzmannschaft (Auxiliary Police) battalions in any of the occupied territories.[10]

Role in the Holocaust in the Baltics

The Riga Ghetto in 1942. Prützmann was responsible for setting up this ghetto. Most of its inhabitants were killed in the Rumbula massacre.[11]

From June to November 1941, Prützmann held the post of HSSPF in the Baltic States under Hinrich Lohse, who was in charge of the Reichskommissariat Ostland. The killing of Jews and other persons began almost immediately, and at first they were primarily conducted by a specialized mobile killing group (Einsatzgruppe A). In late July 1941, Einsatzgruppe A moved out of the Baltics as it followed the German Army Group North further east into the Soviet Union, and primary responsibility for organizing the murder of Jews then moved to the Riga office of the SD. As HSSPF, Prützmann was in charge of the SD, and the person responsible for locally implementing the Final Solution.[12]

After the departure of Einsatzgruppe A, a dispute arose among the Nazi rulers about their so-called "Jewish problem." One group, consisting mainly of civilian Nazi Party administrators headed by Lohse, and backed by

ghettos, confiscate all their property and work them as slave laborers in support of Germany's war effort. Reichsführer-SS Himmler, the overall head of the SS and SD, and Prützmann's direct superior, wanted the Jews exterminated as quickly as possible. Up until November, 1941, the Lohse/Rosenberg faction had prevailed. Although about 30,000 of Latvia's approximately 70,000 Jews and 80,000 of Lithuania's 210,000 had been killed by then, Himmler was unhappy with the pace.[13] He replaced Prützmann in mid-November 1941 with Friedrich Jeckeln, who in Ukraine had developed his own "Jeckeln system" of killing 10,000 or more people in a single day. Prützmann was assigned to Ukraine in Jeckeln's place.[12] By the time Jeckeln took over as HSSPF, massive numbers of Jews had already been killed under Prützmann's administration, including those in the early Liepāja massacres. Also, Prützmann was responsible for rounding up additional masses of Jews and confining them together into ghettos, which allowed them to be more readily killed later by Jeckeln and others.[12]

Role in the Holocaust in Ukraine

When Prützmann arrived in Ukraine in November 1941,

Volodymyr-Volynskyi
on 1–3 September an estimated 13,500 were shot.

SS-Obergruppenführer Hans-Adolf Prützmann (right) meets with Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, during Himmler's visit to Ukraine, September 1942.

Ongoing executions continued to take place throughout the remainder of the Nazi occupation under Prützmann's administration. Though most mass killings were committed by the Einsatzgruppen, as HSSPF, Prützmann commanded the SS, SD, Order Police and Auxiliary Police battalions that also took part in the suppression, persecution and murder of Jews and other Ukrainians, as the following illustrates:

Throughout 1942, Prützmann was heavily implicated in the actions against the Jews and the partisans of the Ukraine ... and Prützmann showed himself to be a willing participant by his ruthless methods ... On 27 October 1942, Himmler directed Prützmann to clear the ghetto at Pinsk, with the intention of making the Ukraine Judenfrei, and by 26 December 1942, Prützmann was able to report to Himmler that 363,211 Jews had been liquidated.[9]

Last assignments, capture and suicide

In January 1944, Prützmann was placed in command of his own

OKW (Armed Forces High Command) and, on 1 July 1944, he was made a General of the Waffen-SS.[15]

One of his last major assignments came in September 1944 when Prützmann was appointed by Himmler as Generalinspekteur für Spezialabwehr (Inspector General for Special Defense) and assigned the task of setting up Operation

commandos.[17][18]

On 21 November 1944, Prützmann was named the General

British 2nd Army on 15 May 1945. The next day, while being transported to the interrogation center in Diest, he committed suicide by swallowing a cyanide capsule he had hidden in a cigarette lighter. Some sources incorrectly give 21 May as his date of death, but 16 May is documented by the contemporaneous diary entry of British Major Norman Whittaker who was present at Lüneburg.[19]

Awards and decorations

In fiction

In the 1972 Frederick Forsyth novel The Odessa File the head of ODESSA is given as SS General Richard Glücks who is determined to destroy the State of Israel nearly two decades after the end of World War II, while the head of ODESSA in Germany is a former SS Officer called the "Werwolf" who is implied to be Prützmann. (If the real Glücks had still been alive he would have been 74 years old and Prützmann would have been 62 in 1963).

See also

  • Holocaust in Estonia
  • Holocaust in Latvia
  • Holocaust in Lithuania
  • Holocaust in Ukraine

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Hans-Adolf Prützmann.
  1. ^ Williams 2017, p. 357.
  2. ^ Schiffer 2000, p. 8.
  3. ^ Yerger 1997, pp. 27, 179.
  4. ^ Hans-Adolf Prützmann in the Reichstag Members Database
  5. ^ Yerger 1997, pp. 27, 110, 133, 178.
  6. ^ Yerger 1997, pp. 27, 32, 94, 96.
  7. ^ Yerger 1997, pp. 27, 44.
  8. ISBN 9780807876916
    .
  9. ^ a b Williams 2017, p. 359.
  10. ^ Yerger 1997, pp. 25, 44.
  11. ^ United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. "Holocaust Encyclopedia – Riga". Retrieved 27 October 2017.
  12. ^
    ISBN 9984-9054-3-8
  13. ISBN 978-0-415-15232-7
    .
  14. ISBN 978-0-8419-0832-1
    .
  15. ^ Yerger 1997, pp. 25–27.
  16. ISBN 978-0-8020-0862-6
    .
  17. ^ Klemperer, Victor 077348681X; Roderick H. Watt (1997). An Annotated Edition of Victor Klemperer's LTI, Notizbuch eines Philologen. E. Mellen Press. p. 305.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  18. ^ Reitlinger, SS - Alibi of a Nation, pp. 148n and 445.
  19. ^ Williams 2017, pp. 359–361.
  20. ^ a b c d Williamson 1994, p. 278.

Sources

External links
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