Karl Gesele

Karl Gesele (left) with Hermann Fegelein (Russia 1942)

Karl Gesele (born August 15, 1912 in Riedlingen , † April 8, 1968 in Friedrichshafen ) served for years in SS and Waffen SS units that guarded concentration camps and were involved in massacres of civilians in Italy . He rose from 1931 to 1945 in a continuous career in the SS and then in the Waffen-SS up to the SS-Standartenführer , the second highest rank in the Waffen-SS.

Career

Gesele was a member of the NSDAP (membership number 724 050) and since August 1931 of the SS (membership number 10 596).

From August 1931 to 1933 Gesele was with the SS-Standarten , which from 1934 were charged with guarding the concentration camps and then until October 1934 with the Political Readiness of Baden-Württemberg , the forerunner of the Waffen-SS. From October 1934 to December 1936 he was platoon leader in the 9th, 10th and 17th companies of the SS-Standarte Deutschland . He was then assigned to the rank of adjutant to the battalion commander of the 10th SS Standard Germany. In May 1938 he was promoted to commander of the 10th / SS Standarte Germany, where he stayed until August 1940. In June 1939 he was promoted to SS-Hauptsturmführer .

From August 1940 to September 1941 Gesele was assigned to training in military tactics at the SS Junker School Bad Tölz , an officers' school of the Waffen SS. From September 1941 he was employed as the first general staff officer (Ia) in the SS Cavalry Brigade , which was expanded to form the 8th SS Cavalry Division in 1942. From the summer of 1941 after the attack on the Soviet Union, the SS Cavalry Brigade was heavily involved in terrorist actions against the civilian population in Belarus as part of the Reichsführer SS command staff . The command staff and the troops subordinate to it are regarded as “pioneers of the Shoah ”, which in 1941 set in motion the extermination of the Jews in the Soviet Union .

Because of an illness, Gesele was suspended from duty from August 1942 and after his recovery, on October 5, 1942, he was appointed commander of the accompanying battalion "Reichsführer-SS". The battalion was subsequently increased to the size of a brigade and renamed the SS Sturmbrigade Reichsführer-SS in February 1943 . On June 21, 1943 he was promoted to SS-Obersturmbannführer . On October 18, 1943, he took command of the SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment 35, which was assigned to the 16th SS Panzer Grenadier Division "Reichsführer SS" , which had emerged from the SS Sturmbrigade . This division was involved in numerous massacres in Italy, including nationally and internationally known ones such as that of Marzabotto and Sant'Anna di Stazzema . The SS-Panzer-Grenadier-Regiment 35 was not only actively involved in the last-mentioned massacre, which took place on August 12, 1944, but also played a leading role. The 16th SS Panzer Grenadier Division was withdrawn from Italy in January 1945 and relocated to Hungary . From January he was in command of the SS Cavalry School Weende and from March to 8 May 1945 he was in command of the 37th SS Volunteer Cavalry Division with the rank of SS standard leader.

Awards (selection)

Gesele has received several awards, including the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross , the German Cross in Gold and the Iron Cross . He also wore the general assault badge in silver . He was awarded the skull ring of the SS and the sword of honor of the Reichsführer SS .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Gesele, Karl , on Geocities. Retrieved September 26, 2019
2. ↑ L'individuazione dei responsabili dell'eccidio di Sant'Anna. In: difesa.it. Retrieved September 27, 2019 (Italian). 
3. ↑ Martin Cüppers : Trailblazers of the Shoah: The Waffen-SS, the command staff Reichsführer-SS and the extermination of the Jews 1939-1945. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2005 ISBN 978-3-534-16022-8 pp. 189–203, 222–230
4. ^ Carlo Gentile : Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS in Partisan War: Italy 1943–1945 . Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2012, ISBN 978-3-506-76520-8 . P. 218