Bruno Sattler

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SS-Stubaf Bruno Sattler (right)

Bruno Sattler (born April 17, 1898 in Schmargendorf ; † October 15, 1972 in Leipzig ) was SS-Sturmbannführer and criminal director in the National Socialist German Reich .

Origin and studies

Bruno Sattler was born in Schmargendorf near Berlin. He took part in the First World War as a schoolboy and passed his Abitur in 1919 . He then began to study economics and botany . 1920 joined the Sattler Freikorps " Brigade Ehrhardt " at and participated in the putsch Kapp part. His father died in 1922, and the family fortune dissolved very quickly. It is not known when he dropped out of his studies and started working at Wertheim . He worked as a seller of watches and silver goods in the Berlin department store Wertheim and was thus able to support his mother financially.

At the Gestapo

In 1928, Sattler joined the Berlin criminal police and trained as a detective inspector . In 1931 he became a member of the NSDAP with membership number 637,954. When the Secret State Police (Gestapo) was founded in 1933, he moved from the criminal police to the office of the Gestapo and in the same year was appointed head of the department for monitoring social democracy and the social democratic unions . According to the Gestapo's business distribution plan of January 22, 1934, he was in charge of Department III B 2 " SPD , SAP , Reichsbanner , trade unions , special orders". During this phase, Sattler led several informants , including the later SPD member of the Bundestag Herbert Kriedemann , who was led under the code name "S 9". Kriedemann denied this activity after the end of the war, but it can now be considered secure.

He was responsible or himself a perpetrator for the murder of the four communists John Schehr , Eugen Schönhaar , Erich Steinfurth and Rudolf Schwarz , who were shot on the night of February 1 to 2, 1934 on the Schäferberg in Berlin .

In the Reich Security Main Office

With the establishment of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), he became head of Section IV A 2 ( anti-sabotage , anti-sabotage, political-police defense officer, political counterfeiting). In the summer of 1939 he went to Potsdam with Reinhold Heller ; As head of Dept. IV. In 1940, Sattler took part for a short time in securing the files of the Second International in Brussels . He left Brussels with Helmut Bone and went to Paris with him until August 1941.

With the Einsatzgruppen of the Security Police and the SD

Like other RSHA members, Sattler, according to the slogan of the head of the RSHA Reinhard Heydrich of the “fighting administration” , was assigned to the task forces of the security police and the SD in the USSR . From September 1941 to January 1942 he was employed as an orderly officer in the special command (advance command Moscow) of Einsatzgruppe B. After the VKM was dissolved, the remaining force became the SK 7c.

Gestapo chief in Belgrade

Promoted to SS-Sturmbannführer and criminal director at the beginning of 1942 , Sattler was appointed head of Division IV (Gestapo) of the commander of the Security Police and SD Serbia , SS-Oberführer Emanuel Schäfer , in Belgrade . Sattler held this post until October 1944. The Greifswald Regional Court in the former GDR stated the following about his work as Gestapo chief in Belgrade in its judgment of July 3, 1952:

“At the beginning of February 1942 the defendant was commissioned by the RSHA with the management of Division IV (Gestapo) in Serbia , which is based in Belgrade. About two months earlier he had been promoted to criminal director on the basis of the services he had acquired through his terrorist measures in the sense of Hitler's tyranny and held the rank of SS-Sturmbannführer. After arriving in Belgrade, he contacted Dr. Schäfer - the chief of the security police and the security service in Serbia - and took over the already existing Department IV there, which had the same tasks in Serbia as in all other countries occupied by the fascists. The tasks of the Gestapo in the countries occupied by Germany included a. also the fight against communism and the resistance movements.

In Serbia, the accused reported about 30 employees, made up of members of the Gestapo, the criminal police and the secret field police . For the duration of their membership in Department IV, the members of the Criminal Police and the Secret Field Police were regarded as equivalent Gestapo officers. A ethnic German interpreter was always available to every member of Department IV . As the head of this department, the defendant in Serbia was subordinate to the commissariats 'resistance movement' 'communists', 'Belarusians' and 'Jews'.

When the defendant took over this activity, the criminal activities of the Gestapo began in Yugoslavia, which was occupied by the fascist aggressors . As in the other countries attacked by the fascists, the population of Yugoslavia was ruthlessly persecuted by the Gestapo and subjected to mass extermination. Through the use of confidants, whom the accused had recruited from among the local population, he received specific information about the structure and organization as well as the work of the resistance groups. Through the organized wiretapping of the 12 broadcasting stations in Serbia and the breakdown of the radio reports, the accused further came into possession of important reports and documents, which then led to violent measures against the resistance groups.

The fight against the resistance movements was mainly directed against the staffs and officers. The agent and espionage network established by the accused enabled the Gestapo to raise various staffs and arrest the relatives. Even if the management of this arrest was mainly in the hands of SS-Hauptsturmbannführer Brandt, the defendant had also carried out the arrest of two staffs of the resistance group in Belgrade directly. Under his direction and responsibility, hundreds of upright fighters for the freedom and independence of their homeland were hounded and persecuted by the Gestapo, deprived of their freedom, murdered or subjected to other reprisals while carrying out the tasks assigned to the 'Resistance Movement' commissariat under his control. The number of resistance fighters arrested was around 3,000. They were released immediately if it was proven that they had no connection with the resistance group. The others remained in custody for the time being and were later either taken to Germany to work or shot as hostages.

The fate of these people was in the hands of the accused. He was entitled and empowered to make the binding decision on his own responsibility and responsibility to either release the victim from custody or to take him to forced labor . If the accused did not consider release from custody appropriate or even a removal for forced labor insufficient, he added to the file a proposal signed by him to put the victim on the hostage list, i.e. H. to be shot hostage. The final resolution in these cases rests with Dr. Shepherd as the chief of the security police and the SD of Serbia. However, his decision was always the result of the proposal made by the defendant. The accused's proposals for the shooting of hostages were, he admitted, not complied with in only two cases. In all other cases his proposal was followed. In total, the defendant claims to have made proposals for the shooting of 200 to 220 hostages, and around 3,000 Serbs were deported to Germany for forced labor.

The hostage quota set by the Wehrmacht commander in 1942 was 100 Serbs. H. that for every German soldier shot by the resistance movement, 100 hostages had to be shot. This quota was later reduced from 100 to 20. The victims were transported by truck, placed in groups of ten on the firing range, and then shot and buried. The shootings were initially carried out by the guard company, which was made up of ethnic Germans and the Dr. Shepherd was under. After the guard company could no longer carry out the shootings due to too many failures (the number of cases that members of this company fell over because they could no longer see the flow of blood), these were carried out by the commissariat chief Brandt, who was subordinate to the defendant, and his deputy Everding who had volunteered to do this. The accused himself does not claim to have personally participated in any shooting. While the defendant was working, 100 people were shot three times and 20 people around ten times. These were generally men between the ages of 20 and 50.

The Commissariat 'Communists', which was subordinate to the department of the accused, was responsible for researching and combating the communist movement in Serbia. For the most part, the commissariat processed public reports about alleged communists or communist activities. A large number of those questioned were released. Those convicted of communist activity were sent to Germany to work.

When the accused arrived in Belgrade, there was a camp there that contained around 8,000 Jews and later a total of around 4,000 Serbs . The guarding of the camp was the responsibility of the guard company, which was directly assigned to Dr. Shepherd was under. Although the accused was in charge of the 'Jews' commissariat, he claims that he was in no way responsible for this camp, which was in place on his arrival, with the exception of conducting interrogations.

The Jews had already been brought in following an appeal by the Serbian police chief. In spring 1942, at the instigation of Dr. Schäfer escorted about 60 women and children from these Jews in two transports in one carriage to Saloniki . In order to arrange for the transport of all Jews to Salonika, Dr. Schäfer submitted a corresponding proposal in writing to the Reich Security Main Office. Since there was no answer to this, Dr. Schäfer for general reporting to Berlin to negotiate personally about the transfer of the Jews from Belgrade. However, he received no binding commitment in Berlin. On his return he shared u. a. also informed the defendant that he had been promised a written notification.

In the second half of 1942, on the occasion of an early consultation by Dr. Schäfer learned that Berlin had sent a telex notification that a gas truck would be sent. A short time later, the announced gas truck arrived with two companions who had been assigned the relevant instructions by the Reich Security Main Office. Support for these people was provided by Dr. According to the defendant, Schäfer is allegedly prohibited. The gas truck was a sealed truck into which the exhaust gases from the engine were directed. The car held about 25 to 30 people. However, the accused does not claim to have been present when the 8,000 Jews were exterminated. But he knew that the camp inmates would be invited into the car at a certain time and come to the Belgrade garrison firing range. The defendant also knew that the gases fed into the car caused the death of the inmates on the way from the camp to the firing range. In six months, all 8,000 Jews were killed in this way.

The Serbs housed in this camp were brought in from Croatia by the Wehrmacht because they were allegedly partisans . They were handed over to the Serbian refugee agency and from there distributed to Serbian villages and released.

In the spring of 1944 the defendant had the task of assigning transports to around 50 Jews who were subsequently taken over by the Serbs and which were supposedly to be sent to Vienna for work .

In 1942 several labor transports put together by the commissariats subordinate to the defendant went to Auschwitz . These transports of around 500 men to Auschwitz were put together by the defendant on the instructions of the RSHA in Berlin. These were members of the resistance movement, whose posting to work was decided by the defendant. These people were admitted to the Auschwitz concentration camp; The defendant does not want to know how many of them remained in the concentration camp. The last transport of this type left Belgrade around the middle of 1944. "

In the period from December 18, 1944 to May 9, 1945, Sattler worked for the “Special Staff for the Hungarian Return Operation” in Vienna.

After the end of the war

After the war, Sattler fled to Germany via Linz, where he went into hiding and returned to Berlin in 1947 under a false name. On August 11, 1947, he was abducted from West Berlin by Department K 5, later the Ministry of State Security , with the participation of Erich Mielke , and imprisoned in various prisons of the NKVD in Berlin and Moscow. He disappeared from the sight of all his relatives and was pronounced dead in 1949.

With the judgment of July 3, 1952, the Greifswald Regional Court sentenced Sattler to life imprisonment in a secret trial for his Gestapo activities . It was only a year later that his wife learned of her husband's survival by chance.

On October 15, 1972, Bruno Sattler died under unexplained circumstances in the prison in Leipzig- Meusdorf .

His daughter Beate Niemann, born in 1942, researched Sattler's activities during the Nazi era and wrote a book about it under the title “My good father”. There is also a TV documentary about her research, The Good Father: A Daughter Charges From 2003, directed by Yoash Tatari .

literature

  • Beate Niemann: My good father. My life with its past. A perpetrator biography . Hentrich & Hentrich, Berlin / Teetz 2005, ISBN 3-938485-03-5 .
  • Stefan Appelius: Heine. The SPD and the long road to power . Klartext-Verlag, Essen 1999, ISBN 3-88474-721-5 .
  • Siegfried Grundmann: The V-people of the Gestapo commissioner Sattler , Hentrich & Hentrich Verlag, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-941450-25-7 .

Web links

References and footnotes

  1. ↑ Beate Niemann: My good father . 3rd revised and supplemented edition, Metropol Verlag, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-940938-02-2 , p. 29.
  2. ↑ John Schehr and comrades. A Murder, a Myth and the Consequences ( Memento from March 4, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Feature on MDR Figaro from March 2, 2013
  3. ↑ According to the judgment of the Cologne Regional Court of June 20, 1953 against Emanuel Schäfer, 5,000 to 6,000 Jews were murdered.
  4. ↑ Proof in the IMDb .
personal data
SURNAME Saddler, Bruno
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German SS-Sturmbannführer and criminal director, head of Section IV A 2 of the Reich Security Main Office, Gestapo chief in Belgrade
DATE OF BIRTH April 17, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin-Schmargendorf
DATE OF DEATH October 15, 1972
Place of death Leipzig