Nazi Germany SS commander, war criminal
Erich Ehrlinger
|
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Erich Ehrlinger (sometime before 1945)
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Born
| (
1910-10-14
)
October 14, 1910
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Died
| July 31, 2004
(2004-07-31)
(aged 93)
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Other names
| Erich Froscher
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Motive
| Nazism
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Conviction(s)
| Crimes against humanity in
Lithuania
,
Latvia
,
Estonia
,
Belarus
, and
Russia
.
|
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Criminal penalty
| Twelve years imprisonment, later partially remitted
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|
Erich Ehrlinger
(14 October 1910 ? 31 July 2004) was a member of the Nazi Party (number: 541,195) and
SS
(number: 107,493). As commander of Special Detachment (
Sonderkommando
, also known as
Einsatzkommando
or EK) 1b, he was responsible for mass murder in the
Baltic states
and
Belarus
.
He was also the commander of the
Security Police
(SiPo) and the
Security Service
(SD) for central
Russia
as well as a department chief in the
Reich Security Main Office
(
Reichssicherheitshauptamt
or RSHA). He eventually rose to the rank of SS-
Oberfuhrer
.
Youth and education
[
edit
]
Ehrlinger was the son of the mayor of Giengen an der Brenz, a small town in southwestern Germany, in what is now the state of
Baden-Wurttemberg
. In 1928 he completed high school (
Abitur
) in
Heidenheim
, then studied law in
Tubingen
,
Kiel
,
Berlin
. There in 1931 he joined the
SA
and continued at Tubingen. The nationalist and
xenophobic
atmosphere at the
University of Tubingen
(already by 1931 there were no longer any Jewish professors there) fit in well with his later legal career in the SD, the RSHA, and the
Einsatzgruppen
.
Ehrlinger was not only active at the university. According to his SA certificate of good conduct, "Ehrlinger was one of the few Tubingen-connected students, who even before the seizure of power put himself regularly where he was needed with the propaganda or other service."
Nazi career
[
edit
]
After he completed an SA leadership training course in 1934, Ehrlinger gave up his legal career and became a full-time SA functionary. He was the leader of an SA sport school at
Rieneck Castle
and then a "Training Chief" ("Chef AW" for
SA-Ausbildungswesen
). In May 1935, Ehrlinger was accepted into the SD. By September 1935, he had been assigned to the main office of the Berlin SD. Ehrlinger was with the SD in 1938 during the Nazi takeover in
Austria
and in April 1939 in
Prague
.
Crimes during World War II
[
edit
]
Ehrlinger was with the headquarters staff of
Einsatzgruppe IV
during the
German invasion of Poland
in September 1939. In August 1940 he went to
Norway
for the buildup of the
Waffen-SS
forces there under his later chief,
Franz Walter Stahlecker
. In April 1941, he took over leadership of Special Commando (
Sonderkommando
) 1b, which was part of
Einsatzgruppe A
, of which Stahlecker was overall commander.
After the beginning of the
German invasion of the Soviet Union
, on 22 June 1941, Ehrlinger's unit, 70 to 80 men strong, followed behind
Army Group North
in the Baltic states and the area south of
Leningrad
. Ehrlinger led the mass murder of Jews behind the front, in particular in the ghettos of
Kovno
,
Dunaburg
and
Rositten
.
For example, on 16 July 1941, the SD entered
Dunaburg
. Ehrlinger reported that "[a]s of now the EK 1b has killed 1,150 Jews in Dunaburg."
[1]
Ehrlinger himself oversaw these shootings, euphemistically called "actions", as a "hardened SS perpetrator who stood at the shoot pit and led the killers in the shooting."
[2]
In December 1941, after the completion of the work of
Einsatzkommando 1b
, Ehrlinger was promoted to commandant of the Security Police and SD (
Kommandeur der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD
or KdS) for central Russia and Belarus, where under his orders many executions were carried out.
In September 1943 Ehrlinger was promoted to SS-
Standartenfuhrer
(colonel) and went to
Minsk
where he succeeded
Curt von Gottberg
as
SS and Police Leader
for
Generalbezirk Weißruthenien
. He became the liaison man of SD chief
Ernst Kaltenbrunner
to the commanding generals of the security troops of
Army Group Center
, as well as taking over the offices of
Einsatzgruppe B
chief and Commander of the Security Police and the SD (
Befehlshaber der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD
or BdS) for central Russia and Belarus. There he was involved with the murder of the remaining Jews of Minsk.
In 1944, Ehrlinger returned to Berlin. On 1 April 1944, he became chief of Department I (Personnel) in the
Reich Security Main Office
(
Reichssicherheitshauptamt
or RSHA), replacing
Bruno Streckenbach
. In November 1944 Ehrlinger also became a special delegate from Ernst Kaltenbrunner to SS chief
Heinrich Himmler
.
Post-war
[
edit
]
At the end of the war, Ehrlinger disguised himself as a Wehrmacht NCO and gave himself up to the British forces under a false name. After a few weeks as a POW, Ehrlinger was released and made his way to the
Schleswig-Holstein
area. He made contact with his family, but did not provide his whereabouts. In 1947, his wife discovered him under an assumed identity living with another woman with whom he was about to have a baby. They reached an agreement that Ehrlinger would continue to support the family, which he did until 1952. By then Ehrlinger was using his real identity and making a comfortable living. Ehrlinger decided to reduce the alimony payments, making his wife concerned that he was about to emigrate and prompting her to denounce him to the police. Thus alerted, the authorities still took 6 years to arrest him.
Ehrlinger was finally arrested in December 1958. Ehrlinger was convicted in a 1961 trial in connection with 1,045 cases of murder and was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment.
[4]
The case was appealed and eventually returned to the public prosecutor's office. His sentence was officially remitted in 1969, four years after he was released from prison.
[
citation needed
]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Memorandum (
Ereignismeldung
) UdSSR Nr. 24, as excerpted and reprinted in Ezergailis, Andrew,
The Holocaust in Latvia
, pp. 272?273.
- ^
(in German)
Wildt, Michael,
Erich Ehrlinger - Ein Vertreter ?kampfender Verwaltung“
- ^
Bryant (2014), p. 28
Sources
[
edit
]
- Bryant, Michael.
Eyewitness to Genocide: The Operation Reinhard Death Camp Trials, 1955-1966
, Univ. of Tennessee Press, 2014
- Ezergails, Andrew,
The Holocaust in Latvia 1941-1944: The Missing Center
,
ISBN
9984-9054-3-8
- Ingrao, Christian (2013).
Believe and Destroy: Intellectuals in the SS War Machine
. Malden, MA: Polity.
ISBN
978-0-7456-6026-4
.
- (in German)
Stadlbauer, Peter,
Eichmanns Chef: Erich Ehrlinger. Exzellente SS-Karriere und unterbliebene strafrechtliche Suhne.
Eine Fallstudie, unveroffentl. Magisterarbeit, Wien 2005
- (in German)
Wildt, Michael,
Generation der Unbedingten ? Das Fuhrungskorps des Reichssicherheitshauptamtes.
Hamburger Edition, Hamburg 2003,
ISBN
3-930908-75-1
- (in German)
Wildt, Michael,
Erich Ehrlinger - Ein Vertreter ?kampfender Verwaltung“.
In: Klaus-Michael Mallmann, Gerhard Paul:
Karrieren der Gewalt. Nationalsozialistische Taterbiographien.
Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2004,
ISBN
3-534-16654-X
.
External links
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