Ernst Rassow

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Ernst Erich Viktor Rassow (born December 27, 1898 in Berlin ; † January 4, 1946 near Schwerin ) was a German detective who was in charge of the Secret Field Police during World War II and was later executed as a war criminal.

Life

After attending school, the First World War and membership in a volunteer corps , Rassow embarked on a career in the police force in 1919, where he made a career. Initially with the security police, he switched to the criminal police in 1924. He attended the police college from 1925 and was promoted to commissioner. After the National Socialists seized power , he joined the NSDAP in 1933 (membership number 1.418.096), of which he was a member until 1939. In the Reich Criminal Police Office, he was employed in Department 2b (embezzlement, black coiners) as a criminal inspector.

After the establishment of the Reich Security Main Office , Rassow headed Section VB 2 (“Fraud”) as Criminal Director from March 1941 , which belonged to Department VB (“Operation”) within Office Group V (“Combating Crimes - Reich Criminal Police Office ”). In 1941 he was also promoted to SS-Sturmbannführer (SS-No. 290.5929).

At the beginning of the Second World War he was drafted into the 312nd Group of the Secret Field Police with changing locations. Then followed his employment as a police director with the troop commander in north-west France. From June 1941 to January 1942, Rassow was also, with the rank of Army Police Chief, head of the groups of about 4,000 men in the Secret Field Police deployed on the Eastern Front . From June 1942 to April 1945 he was head of personnel in the staff of the secret field police in Berlin . Most recently, he served in the army in Bavaria with the rank of lieutenant colonel and was eventually taken prisoner by the British.

After the end of the war, Rassow was arrested in Rudolstadt on October 7, 1945 by members of the Red Army . On December 24, 1945 he was sentenced to death by a Soviet military tribunal for war crimes according to a court martial of the 5th Shock Army of the USSR and shot at the beginning of January 1946 in a forest 10 km southeast of Schwerin. On June 4, 1999, he was rehabilitated by the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation.

Fonts

  • “The position of the criminal police in criminal proceedings and their relationship to the judiciary”, in: Pol 25 (1928), pp. 440–444 and 483–486.

literature

  • Paul B. Brown: “The Senior Leadership Cadre of the Geheime Feldpolizei 1939-1945”, in: Holocaust and Genocide Studies 17, 2003, pp. 278-304.
  • Reinhard Rürup: Topography of Terror. Gestapo, SS and Reich Security Main Office , 1989.
  • Andreas Weigelt, Klaus-Dieter Müller, Thomas Schaarschmidt, Mike Schmeitzner (eds.): Death sentences of Soviet military tribunals against Germans (1944–1947). A historical-biographical study. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-525-36968-5 , pp. 538-539.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Andreas Weigelt, Klaus-Dieter Müller, Thomas Schaarschmidt, Mike Schmeitzner (eds.): Death sentences of Soviet military tribunals against Germans (1944–1947). A historical-biographical study. , Göttingen 2015, pp. 538-539
  2. ↑ Bernhard Koerner: German Gender Book , 2004, Vol. 128, p. 284.
personal data
SURNAME Rassow, Ernst
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rassow, Ernst Erich Viktor (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German policeman
DATE OF BIRTH December 27, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH January 4, 1946
Place of death near Schwerin