Hilmar Wäckerle
Hilmar Wäckerle (24 November 1899 – 2 July 1941) was a commander in the Waffen-SS of Nazi Germany during World War II. He was the first commandant of Dachau concentration camp.
War service
The son of a Munich notary public, Wäckerle was sent to the Bavarian Army officer school at the age of 14 in order to pursue his chosen career.[1] Having completed his three years as a cadet he was assigned to the Bavarian Infantry Battalion in August 1917 and by the following year was a Sergeant on the Western Front.[2] Seriously wounded in September 1918 he was not able to return to the front before the armistice and as such his chance to matriculate and become an officer was lost.[2]
Political involvement
Unable to continue in the army, Wäckerle enrolled in the
Dachau
In 1933 Wäckerle was picked by his old ally Himmler to be commandant of the newly established
Waffen-SS
Wäckerle was an early member of the units that became the Waffen-SS and finally came to be an officer with this group, serving in the Netherlands. He led his SS-battalion during the breakthrough of the Dutch Grebbe-line and was wounded in the process. He also served in the Soviet Union.[6] His service was spent with the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking.[10] He had reached the rank of Standartenführer by the time he was killed in action near Lviv in 1941.[6]
Following Wäckerle's death, his widow Elfriede moved in with another man, instead of mourning her dead husband. Outraged by this break from protocol, Himmler had the man sent to a concentration camp.[11]
References
- ^ Tom Segev, Soldiers of Evil, Berkley Books, 1991, p. 64
- ^ a b c Segev, Soldiers of Evil, p. 65
- ^ Segev, Soldiers of Evil, p. 66
- ^ a b Segev, Soldiers of Evil, p. 67
- ^ Segev, Soldiers of Evil, pp. 67-68
- ^ a b c Segev, Soldiers of Evil, p. 68
- ^ Harold Marcuse, Legacies of Dachau: The Uses and Abuses of a Concentration Camp, 1933-2001, Cambridge University Press, 2001, p. 22
- ^ Charles W. Sydnor, Soldiers of Destruction: The SS Death's Head Division, 1933-1945, Princeton University Press, 1990, p. 9
- ^ Segev, Soldiers of Evil, p. 115
- ^ Terry Goldsworthy, Valhalla's Warriors: A History of the Waffen-SS on the Eastern Front 1941-1945, Dog Ear Publishing, 2010, p. 130
- ^ Segev, Soldiers of Evil, pp. 80-81