Helmut Tanzmann

Helmut Tanzmann (born January 18, 1907 in Oschatz ; † March 6, 1946 ) was a German lawyer, SS leader and government councilor at the security service of the Reichsführer SS (SD).

biography

Tanzmann attended high school and graduated after completing his schooling law . In the early 1930s his doctorate he became Dr. jur. From 1933 to 1937 he worked for the Ministry of Finance in Saxony.

Tanzmann joined the NSDAP (membership number 2,433,947) and SA in 1933. He was a member of the SA until 1936 and then switched to the SS (membership number 290.002). Tanzmann rose to SS-Obersturmbannführer in the SS in 1941 . From 1937 Tanzmann worked as an assistant at the Berlin State Police Office.

After the outbreak of World War II he was head of the Gestapo in Danzig from November 1939 to May 1940 . In the German-occupied so-called Generalgouvernement he was then assigned to the commander of the security police and the SD (BdS) as head of office and from July 1941 was commander of the security police and the SD (KdS) in Lemberg . In the district of Galicia , Tanzmann also organized the murders of Jews and issued orders to kill Jews (" Jew-free "). These so-called "Jewish actions", in which thousands of people were shot, were started in autumn 1941 and temporarily stopped at the end of 1941. After the Reinhardt campaign began , Tanzmann, as KdS, coordinated the deployment of the security police in the deportation of Jews to the Belzec extermination camp .

For disciplinary reasons - for embezzlement - he was temporarily represented as KdS Lemberg from the end of 1942 / beginning of 1943 and was finally officially replaced in this office by Josef Witiska in March 1943 . The background to this was a review of the police stations in the Galicia district by employees of the Court of Auditors . The auditors discovered valuables and black coffers with money from murdered Jews that members of Einsatzgruppe C had made available to the police.

Then Tanzmann became KdS in Montpellier , where he worked until August 1944. In Montpellier Tanzmann u. a. also persecution of Jews and deportations as well as repressive measures against the French resistance. Tanzmann was also temporarily employed as a KdS in Marseille . In the late summer of 1944 he formed the Sonderkommando Tanzmann named after him (Kommando z. B. V. 21 Tanzmann), which consisted of around a hundred members of his SD agency in France. With these employees, he was transferred to Northern Norway via Flensburg at the end of the year 1944/1945 at the latest . Tanzmann solved there - during the laying of the KdS / SD office Tromso to Narvik - Oswald Poche as KdS from. In May 1945 this department still had 160 employees.

At the end of the war , he fled to Scotland on a submarine in May 1945 and was immediately arrested. He was interrogated while interned in the UK. In order to escape a threatening process, he committed 1946 suicide .

literature

• Dieter Pohl : National Socialist Persecution of Jews in East Galicia, 1941–1944. Oldenbourg, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-486-56233-9 .
• Thomas Sandkühler: Final solution in Galicia. The murder of Jews in Eastern Poland and the rescue initiatives of Berthold Beitz 1941–1944 . Dietz successor, Bonn 1996, ISBN 3-8012-5022-9 .
• Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich . Who was what before and after 1945 . 2nd Edition. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Date of death according to Thomas Sandkühler: Final solution in Galicia. The murder of Jews in Eastern Poland and the rescue initiatives of Berthold Beitz 1941–1944 , Bonn 1996, p. 438. In Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 618, the date of death of Tanzmann is May 6, 1946 .
2. ↑ ^{a b c d} Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, second updated edition, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 , p. 618.
3. ^ ^{A b} Dieter Pohl: National Socialist Persecution of Jews in East Galicia, 1941–1944. , Munich 1997, p. 421.
4. ↑ Dieter Pohl: National Socialist Persecution of Jews in East Galicia, 1941–1944. , Munich 1997, p. 86f.
5. ↑ Dieter Pohl: National Socialist Persecution of Jews in East Galicia, 1941–1944. , Munich 1997, p. 147ff.
6. ↑ Dieter Pohl: National Socialist Persecution of Jews in East Galicia, 1941–1944. , Munich 1997, p. 189.
7. ↑ Dieter Pohl: National Socialist Persecution of Jews in East Galicia, 1941–1944. , Munich 1997, p. 303.
8. ^ ^{A b} Robert Bohn: Reichskommissariat Norway: "National Socialist Reorganization" and War Economy, Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 2000, ISBN 978-3-486-56488-4 , p. 89.
9. ↑ Peter Lieb : Conventional War or Nazi Weltanschauungskrieg - Warfare and Fight against Partisans in France 1943/44 , R. Oldenbourg, Munich 2007 (= sources and representations on contemporary history , vol. 69). ISBN 3-486-57992-4 , p. 67.
10. ^ Bernhard Brunner, The France Complex: The National Socialist Crimes in France and the Justice of the Federal Republic of Germany , Göttingen 2004 ISBN 3-89244-693-8 , p. 93.
11. ↑ Dieter Pohl: National Socialist Persecution of Jews in East Galicia, 1941–1944. , Munich 1997, pp. 388, 421.