German jurist and SS-Obergruppenfuhrer
Karl Rudolf Werner Best
(10 July 1903 ? 23 June 1989) was a German
jurist
, police chief, SS-
Obergruppenfuhrer
,
Nazi Party
leader, and theoretician from
Darmstadt
. He was the first chief of Department 1 of the
Gestapo
, Nazi Germany's secret police, and initiated a registry of all Jews in Germany. As a deputy of SS-
Obergruppenfuhrer
Reinhard Heydrich
, he organized the
World War II
SS-
Einsatzgruppen
, paramilitary
death squads
that carried out mass-murder in
Nazi-occupied territories
.
Best served in the German military occupation administration of
France
(1940?1942), and then became the civilian administrator of occupied
Denmark
(1942?1945). Convicted of war crimes in Denmark, he was released from prison in 1951. Following his release, Best campaigned for an amnesty for Nazi war criminals and against the abolition of the statute of limitations. He escaped further prosecution in West Germany in 1972 due to ill health and died in 1989, aged 85.
Early life
[
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]
Werner Best was born on 10 July 1903 in
Darmstadt
,
Hesse
, but his parents moved to
Dortmund
when he was nine before settling in
Mainz
, where he completed his education. His father was a postmaster who was killed in France at the outset of
World War I
. In his younger years, Best founded the German National Youth League and joined the
National People's Party
of Mainz.
Between 1921 and 1925, he studied law at
Frankfurt
,
Freiburg
,
Giessen
, and the
University of Heidelberg
, where in 1927, he obtained his doctorate.
Owing to his political resistance activities against the
French occupation of the Ruhr
, Best was arrested and briefly imprisoned.
In 1930, he joined the
Nazi Party
(NSDAP) and by 1931?before the Nazis assumed power?he was already a member of the
SS
.
[a]
Sometime in 1931, he was forced out of judicial service in the German federal state of Hesse following the discovery of the Boxheim Documents,
[b]
which were blueprints for a Nazi
putsch
he had written.
The Nazi state and World War II
[
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]
As a trained lawyer,
Heydrich
and
Himmler
counted on Best throughout the 1930s for his skills in conceptualizing and justifying Nazi law, which helped provide the SS-police apparatus with its nearly unrestricted power over German society.
Best became a member of the
Academy for German Law
and the chairman of its Committee on Police Law.
Dedicated to the national-racial cause of the Nazis and typifying the ideal administrator for its terror apparatus,
Historian Frank Trentmann wrote that "Best personified the technocratic Nazi, cold and functional".
Best quickly rose to the rank of SS-
Brigadefuhrer
and became chief of Department 1 of the
Gestapo
, which was in charge of organization, administration, and legal affairs.
He was a deputy to
Reinhard Heydrich
. Both men saw the Gestapo as actually working on "behalf of the German people" through both "ethnic and political purification".
By 1934,
Ernst Rohm
's increasing political influence over the powerful Nazi paramilitary organisation, the
Sturmabteilung
(SA), was seen as a threat by Hitler, who ordered its elimination as an independent political force. On 30 June 1934, the SS and Gestapo implemented Hitler's plan and carried out mass arrests that continued for two days.
While Heydrich coordinated the operation from Berlin, Best was sent to Munich to "oversee a wave of arrests" in the southern part of Germany. The purge became known as the
Night of the Long Knives
. Up to 200 people, including Rohm, were killed in the action.
Even though Canadian historian
Robert Gellately
wrote that most Gestapo men were not Nazis, at the same time, they were not opposed to the Nazi regime and willingly served in whatever task they were called upon to perform.
Over time, membership in the Gestapo included ideological indoctrination, particularly once Best assumed a leading role for training in April 1936. Employing biological metaphors, Best emphasized a doctrine that encouraged members of the Gestapo to view themselves as 'doctors' to the national body in the struggle against "pathogens" and "diseases"; among the implied sicknesses were "communists, Freemasons, and the churches?and above and behind all these stood the Jews."
Heydrich thought along similar lines and advocated both defensive and offensive measures on the part of the Gestapo, so as to prevent any subversion or destruction of the Nazi body.
On 27 September 1939, the SD and SiPo (made up of the Gestapo and the
Kripo
) were folded into the new
Reich Security Main Office
(
Reichssicherheitshauptamt
; RSHA), which was placed under Heydrich's control.
Best was made head of Amt I (Department I) of the RSHA: Administration and Legal. That department dealt with the legal and personnel issues/matters of the SS and security police.
Heydrich and
Heinrich Himmler
relied on Best to develop and legally justify the activities against enemies of the state, especially those aimed at Jews. In 1939 Best became one of the directors of Heydrich's foundation, the
Stiftung Nordhav
, and was placed in command of choosing leaders for the
Einsatzgruppen
task forces and their subgroups (the
Einsatzkommandos
)
from among educated people with military experience; many of them former members of the
Freikorps
.
Werner Best lost a power struggle within the RSHA, and had to leave Berlin in 1940.
With the military grade of War Administration Chief (
Kriegsverwaltungschef
), Best was appointed chief of the Section "Administration" (
Abteilung Verwaltung
) of the Administration Staff (
Verwaltungsstab
, Dr Schmid) under then (
Militarbefehlshaber in Frankreich
or MBF) "Military Commander in France", General
Otto von Stulpnagel
in
occupied France
.
Best held this position until 1942.
[c]
In his efforts as the RSHA emissary in France, Best's unit drew up radical plans for a total reorganization of Western Europe based on racial principles; he sought to unite
Netherlands
,
Flanders
and French territory north of the river
Loire
into the Reich, turn
Wallonia
and
Brittany
into German protectorates, merge
Northern Ireland
with the
Irish Free State
, create a decentralized British federation and break
Spain
into independent entities of
Galicia
,
Basque Country
and
Catalonia
.
After the November 1942
Telegram Crisis
, Best was appointed the
Third Reich
's Plenipotentiary (
Reichsbevollmachtigter
) in
occupied Denmark
, which gave him supervisory control of civilian affairs there.
Meanwhile, King
Christian X
, unlike most heads of state under
Nazi German occupation
, remained in power, along with the Danish Parliament, cabinet (a coalition of national unity) and courts. When the Nazis attempted to deport Denmark's Jews, the cabinet and Christian X objected.
[d]
Best kept his position in Denmark until the end of the war in May 1945,
even after the German military commander,
Hermann von Hanneken
?who had been encouraged by Hitler to rule Denmark with an iron hand?had assumed direct control over its administration on 29 August 1943.
Administration by the Permanent Secretaries
[
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]
In compliance with the Danish cabinet's decision on 9 April 1940 to accept cooperation with German authorities, the Danish police did cooperate with German occupation forces.
This arrangement remained in effect even after the Danish government resigned on 29 August 1943. On 12 May 1944, Best demanded that the Danish police should assume responsibility for protection of 57 enterprises the Germans deemed at risk of sabotage by the
Danish resistance movement
, which was growing in strength. Should the Danish civil administration not do so, total Danish police strength would be reduced to 3,000 men. Nils Svenningsen, who functioned as
de facto
head of the Danish civil administration in the absence of a Danish government, was inclined to accept this demand, but the organizations of the Danish police opposed it.
Following rejection of the German request, a state of emergency was declared in Denmark on 29 August 1943. Then on 19 September 1944, the German army began arresting members of the Danish police forces; 1,984 policemen out of 10,000 were
arrested and deported
to German concentration and prisoner-of-war camps, most of them to
Buchenwald
.
To avoid deportation of Danes to German concentration camps, the permanent secretary of the ministry of foreign affairs, Nils Svenningsen, in January 1944 proposed establishment of an internment camp within Denmark. Best accepted this proposal, but on condition that the camp be built close to the German border.
Frøslev Prison Camp
was opened in August 1944.
Best also possibly sabotaged the rounding up of the Jewish population in Denmark in order to avoid agitating the general Danish population. In the
Rescue of the Danish Jews
, the primary escape route was to cross
Øresund
to Sweden by boat. At the most critical time, all German patrol boats of the area were ordered into harbor for three weeks for new paint jobs.
Best may have tipped off his Jewish tailor about this development?but Danish authorities credit Best's right-hand man,
Georg Duckwitz
?which contributed to the escape of a number of Jews.
During his trial before Danish courts, Best insisted that the Jews were able to escape because he provided the dates to Duckwitz.
In deliberations on 3 May 1945 about preparation for the impending German defeat, Best fought to avoid implementation of a
scorched earth
policy in Denmark.
Postwar
[
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]
After the war, Best testified as a witness at the
Nuremberg Trial of the Major War Criminals
, during which he attempted to present the Gestapo as a harmless state organization that was subordinated to state leaders and was nearly undifferentiated from Germany's criminal police.
Historian Frank McDonough characterized Best's testimony as a "revisionist interpretation of the Gestapo".
For instance, Best claimed that the Gestapo primarily instituted investigations in response to reports from the general public and that only serious cases of treason warranted "enhanced interrogations" under strict guidelines, during which no confessions were ever extorted from the accused.
In 1948, Best was sentenced to death by a Danish court, but his sentence was reduced to 12 years on appeal. Best was released in 1951 as part of a Danish amnesty program for Nazi war criminals.
Returning to Germany, he was employed by the law firm of
Ernst Achenbach
in
Essen
, advocating for an amnesty for German war criminals and other former Nazis.
He also maintained contacts with members of the so-called
Naumann Circle
, such as
Werner Naumann
,
Hans Fritzsche
and
Franz Six
. In 1952, he co-authored with them a strong nationalist program intended to be used in their attempt to infiltrate the
Free Democratic Party
. It advocated a commitment to a unified German Reich by refusing to renounce the right of
expelled Germans
to return to their home territories, and also expressed opposition to punishments imposed on former German soldiers by the Allies.
In 1958 Best was fined 70,000 marks by a Berlin court for his actions as an SS officer during the war. In March 1969, Best was held in detention and in February 1972 he was charged again, when further war crimes allegations arose, but he was released in August 1972 on grounds that he was medically unfit to stand trial.
After that, Best was part of a network that helped former Nazis and spent his time "campaigning for a general amnesty", and against the abolition of the statute of limitations for Nazi crimes.
He died in
Mulheim
,
North Rhine-Westphalia
, on 23 June 1989.
See also
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]
Notes
[
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]
- ^
Best's NSDAP Party member number was 341,338 and his SS membership number, 23,377.
- ^
These documents contained contingency
SA
plans for a violent takeover?which included food rationing, the abolition of money, compulsory labour for all, and the death penalty for disobedience by the Nazis?in the event of a Communist uprising in Hesse. Once discovered, Hitler distanced himself from the affair. The ordeal elicited a ban on political uniforms by then Chancellor of the Weimar Republic,
Heinrich Bruning
, who then convinced
Hindenburg
to ban the SA altogether.
- ^
This function was less important than the one Best had had in the RSHA. The Military Command in France had two Staffs: Administration and Command (
Kommandostab
); the Administration Staff had four Sections: "Central"; "Administration"; "Economy"; "War Economy". Ref.:
La France pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Atlas historique
, Editions Fayard (2010).
- ^
About 7,200 Jews and 700 of their non-Jewish relatives were safely transported to Sweden thanks to the efforts of Denmark's leadership.
References
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Citations
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Bibliography
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- Biondi, Robert, ed. (2000) [1942].
SS Officers List: (as of 30 January 1942): SS-Standartenfuhrer to SS-Oberstgruppenfuhrer: Assignments and Decorations of the Senior SS Officer Corps
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