Waldemar Fegelein

Waldemar Fegelein (born January 9, 1912 in Ansbach ; † November 20, 2000 in Obermeitingen ) was an officer in the Waffen SS . He has been linked to numerous war crimes .

Life

Waldemar Fegelein came from a petty-bourgeois background. He was the younger brother of Hermann Fegelein . Through his parents' riding stables near Munich , he had early contact with the Reiter-SS , which he eventually joined ( SS no. 229.780). He was a member of the NSDAP ( membership number 2,942,829).

In July 1937, the parents' equestrian center near Munich was named an SS main riding school and this was subject to Heinrich Himmler's "special use" . The area was later used as the Riem riding arena , including the 1972 Olympic riding center.

Waldemar Fegelein won the German Jumping Derby in Hamburg in 1939 on his horse "Nordrud" .

During the Second World War , Fegelein, as a member of the SS cavalry brigade subordinate to the RFSS command staff, was actively involved in the extermination of Jews, later referred to as the Holocaust , as part of "cleaning operations" in the area north of the Pripjet Marshes . As temporary commander of the 1st SS Cavalry Regiment and its 1st Squadron, he personally directed the shooting of the Jewish population in several shtetls . Later he commanded the SS Reiter Regiment 2 of the 8th SS Cavalry Division "Florian Geyer" . On February 26, 1945 he took over command of a newly founded volunteer association, namely the 37th SS volunteer cavalry division "Lützow", which he led only a few weeks until March 1945.

With the rank of Sturmbannführer he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross by Himmler on December 16, 1943 . He received the German Cross in Gold on December 2, 1944. In addition, he was a bearer of the close combat clasp first level (bronze), his last rank at the end of the war was SS standard leader .

After the war, Fegelein went into hiding under the name Axel Fegelein and most recently managed a riding stable near Bad Wörishofen . It is not known why Fegelein did not change his surname in the post-war period. He never had to answer to court for his crimes committed during the German-Soviet war .

Individual evidence

↑ Cf. Martin Cüppers : Wegbereiter der Shoah. The Waffen-SS, the Reichsführer SS command staff and the extermination of the Jews 1939-1945 (publications by the Ludwigsburg Research Center of the University of Stuttgart, vol. 4). 2nd, unchanged edition, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2011, ISBN 978-3-89678-758-3 , p. 324. - In 1946, when he was a prisoner of war, he told a former combatant: “[W] hen things are in the Pripjet swamps once came out there would be something else. “Ibid., P. 313.
↑ Cüppers (2011), p. 324.

personal data
SURNAME	Fegelein, Waldemar
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German soldier, member of the Reiter-SS and officer of the Waffen-SS
DATE OF BIRTH	January 9, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH	Ansbach , Germany
DATE OF DEATH	November 20, 2000
Place of death	Obermeitingen

[1] Cf. Martin Cüppers : Wegbereiter der Shoah. The Waffen-SS, the Reichsführer SS command staff and the extermination of the Jews 1939-1945 (publications by the Ludwigsburg Research Center of the University of Stuttgart, vol. 4). 2nd, unchanged edition, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2011, ISBN 978-3-89678-758-3 , p. 324. - In 1946, when he was a prisoner of war, he told a former combatant: “[W] hen things are in the Pripjet swamps once came out there would be something else. “Ibid., P. 313.

[2] Cüppers (2011), p. 324.