Wilhelm Koppe
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Wilhelm Koppe (June 15, 1896 – July 2, 1975) was a German Nazi commander (Höhere SS und Polizei Führer, HSSP, SS-Obergruppenführer) who was reponsible for numerous atrocities against Poles and Jews in Reichsgau Wartheland, General Government, during the German occupation of Poland during World War II.
Born in Hildesheim, he fought in the First World War. During the interwar period, he pursued a career in trade and wholesale. He joined the Nazi Party in 1930, the Sturmabteilung (SA) in 1931, and the Schutzstaffel (SS) in 1932. Prior to World War II, he was a regional SS and SD commander in Münster, Free City of Danzig, Dresden and Leipzig. The German invasion of Poland took place in September 1939, and in October he became the Höhere SS und Polizei Führer in Reichsgau Wartheland.
He cooperated with Arthur Greiser, and in November 1939 he declared that he would make Poznań (Posen) 'free from Jews' (judenrein), after which he ordered numerous executions and deportations of Poles and Polish Jews. On 30 January 1942 he was promoted to SS-Obergruppenführer, and in October 1943 he replaced Friedrich Wilhelm Krüger as Höhere SS und Polizei Führer in General Government with headquarters in Kraków. He also held the position of state secretary on the issues of security in the General Government (Staatssekretär für das Sicherheitswesen), and was involved in the operations of Chelmno extermination camp and Warsaw concentration camp as well as operations against the Polish resistance. He organized the execution of more than 30,000 Polish patients suffering from tuberculosis, and ordered that all male relatives of identified resistance fighters should be executed, and the rest of their family sent to concentration camps.
The Polish Secret State ordered his death, but an assassination attempt in July 1944 in Kraków failed.
With the Eastern Front approaching Poland, Koppe ordered all prisoners to be executed rather than freed by the Soviets.
In 1945 Koppe went underground and assumed an alias (Lohmann, his wife's surname) and became a director of a chocolate factory in Bonn, Germany.[1] In 1960 he was arrested but released on bail on 19 April 1962. His trial opened in 1964 in Bonn. He was accused of being accessory to the mass murder of 145.000 people. The trial was adjourned due to Koppe's ill health and in 1966 the Bonn court decided not to prosecute and Koppe was released for medical reasons.[2][3] The German government refused a Polish request for extradition. Koppe died in 1975 in Bonn.
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[edit] References
- Szymon Datner, Wilhelm Koppe - nieukarany zbrodniarz hitlerowski. Warszawa-Poznań, 1963
- Stanisław Kania, Zbrodnie hitlerowskie w Polsce. Główna Komisja Badania Zbrodni Hitlerowskich w Polsce, Warszawa, 1983
- Czesław Madajczyk, Polityka III Rzeszy w okupowanej Polsce. Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Warszawa, 1970
