Artur Nebe
Artur Nebe (1894-1945) was a professional German police officer before the rise of Adolf Hitler, initially a Nazi supporter, but, by 1938, joined anti-Nazi conspiracies. Simultaneously, he headed the KRIPO criminal police when it went into the RSHA, and eventually commanded Einsatzgruppe B when it performed field killings in 1941-1942. He was reported, however, to have falsified field reports to reduce the number of killings.[1]
KRIPO
He had hesitated to follow the KRIPO into the SS RSHA, but was persuaded by Hans-Bernd Gisevius to stay and document the crimes of the SS.
He and Dr. Carl Sack (Judge Advocate-General of the German Army)joined, in 1938, to block the plot to discredit the Chief of the Army, General Werner von Fritsch. General Hans Oster recruited him for a planned September 1938 coup, for which he provided logistics and intelligence.
Einsatzgruppe
He commanded Einsatzgruppe B, which was attached to Army Group Centre, under the command of Field Marshal Fedor von Bock, from June to November 1941. It began operations in Warsaw, and moved across Byelorussia toward Smolensk and Minsk, massacring Jews in Grodno, Minsk, Brest-Litovsk, Slonim, Gomel, and Mogilev, among other places. [2]
After the Einsatzgruppe assignment, he returned to the KRIPO.
In late 1942, he secretly informed the resistance of details of the [Final Solution]].
After Erich von Bach-Zelewski had witnessed an execution with Himmler, he said tohim
Look at the eyes of the men in this Kommando, how deeply shaken they are! These men are finished [fertig] for the rest of their lives. What kind of followers are training here? Either neurotics or savages![3]
[4]
Also in 1942, recognizing the psychological strain of shooting on the killing squads, he co-developed the gas vans
Endgame
When the 20th of July assassination attempt on Hitler took place, he was with Berlin Garrison commander Paul von Hasse, planning to assist the Army when the coup command was given. It was never sent. He was denounced and went into hiding.
Eventually, he was caught in February 1945, sentenced, and hanged on 2 March 1945.
References
- ↑ Artur Nebe, Jewish Virtual Library
- ↑ Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing squads), U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
- ↑ Raul Hilberg, Destruction of the European Jews, Quadrangle, 1967, p. 646, quoted in Lifton, p. 159
- ↑ Robert Jay Lifton (1986), The Nazi Doctors: medical killing and the psychology of genocide, Basic Books,pp. 159-160}}