Waldemar von Radetzky

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Waldemar von Radetzky during the task force process

Waldemar von Radetzky (born May 8, 1910 in Moscow , † February 21, 1990 ) was a German-Baltic SS-Sturmbannführer who was involved in the special command 4a of Einsatzgruppe C in the murder of Jews in occupied Ukraine . Radetzky was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment in the Einsatzgruppen trial in 1948 , but was released in 1951. In the Federal Republic he was involved in the German-Baltic country team.

Life

Origin from Latvia (until 1939)

Waldemar von Radetzky attended school in Riga until 1928 , after which he completed an apprenticeship with a Riga forwarding company. From 1932 to 1933 he did his military service in the Latvian Army . Until November 1939 he was employed in a Riga import company.

As a result of the Hitler-Stalin Pact of August 1939, Latvia came under the influence of the Soviet Union in October 1939 . A resettlement agreement was concluded with Latvia, and most of the Baltic Germans left Latvia and were resettled in the districts of Wartheland and Danzig-West Prussia . Radetzky also left Latvia and went to Posen in the Wartheland.

Use in the Second World War (1939-45)

From November 1939 Radetzky worked in the immigration advice center in Posen, which supported the settlement of "ethnic Germans" in the Warthegau. The authority was headed by Standartenführer Erhard Kroeger , who acted as the leader of the ethnic Germans in the Baltic States. Radetzky joined the SS on December 13, 1939 . (SS membership no .: 351254.) Radetzky worked in the Posen immigration counseling center until January 1940, then in the “Office for the Reintegration of Ethnic Germans”. On December 1, 1940 Radetzky joined the NSDAP . (NSDAP membership number: 8047747) Radetzky was employed in the office for reintegration in Poznan until he left the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA).

In May 1941, through the mediation of Friedrich Buchardt , Radetzky switched to the RSHA after Himmler had requested an officer who spoke Russian and who knew his way around the Soviet Union. Radetzky came to Pretzsch an der Elbe, where the task forces were assembled and trained in the border police school . Radetzky was assigned to Sonderkommando 4a within Einsatzgruppe C , led by Paul Blobel . After the beginning of the war against the Soviet Union , he transferred with the Sonderkommando 4a to Hrubieszów in eastern Poland and from there to the Ukrainian Lutsk . In Lutsk Radetzky belonged to a part of Sonderkommando 4a. During the occupation of Zhitomir in July 1941, he was a member of the advance command of Sonderkommando 4a, which, together with the group staff, shot about “400 Jews , Communists and NKVD informants ”. Radetzky was actively involved in the selection of the victims by translating confiscated NKVD documents and participating in interrogations, according to findings from the order group process.

Radetzky was on home leave from December 1941 to spring 1942. In March 1942 he reported back to duty with Sonderkommando 4a, which was meanwhile in Kharkov in eastern Ukraine. In addition to his duties as an interpreter when questioning prisoners, he worked as a liaison officer between the Einsatzkommando and German and Hungarian army units. In November 1942 Radetzky was promoted to SS-Sturmbannführer. He remained with Sonderkommando 4a until December 1942, which was meanwhile commanded by Eugen Steimle . In January 1943, changed as a result of breaking 6th Army in Stalingrad , the subordination of the army rear areas in the field of application of the Sonderkommando 4a, and Radetzky belonged to Einsatzgruppe B . In the winter of 1943/44 he returned to Berlin .

Legal processing after the end of the war (1945–1951)

Radetzky was arrested in May 1945. From 1947 to 1948 Radetzky was one of 24 defendants in the Einsatzgruppen trial ; his defense attorney was Dr. Paul Ratz with the assistance of Heinrich Rentsch. The judge was Michael A. Musmanno . On April 9, 1948, von Radetzky was found guilty on all three charges - (1) crimes against humanity , (2) war crimes, and (3) membership in a criminal organization. In the grounds of the judgment, the question of whether Radetzky led Sonderkommando 4a in the absence of Paul Blobel - as stated by Blobel on the witness stand - was not conclusively answered. However, he was found guilty of having led parts of the Sonderkommando during shootings as a commando, for example in Lutsk . Radetzky was sentenced on April 10, 1948 to 20 years imprisonment. To serve his sentence, he was taken to the Landsberg War Crimes Prison .

In the course of the intensified discussion of West German rearmament after the outbreak of the Korean War from the summer of 1950, High Commissioner John McCloy changed on January 31, 1951, on the recommendation of the Advisory Board on Clemency for War Criminals, of the 15 death sentences against 4 prisoners in Landsberg to life imprisonment and 6 sentenced to between ten and twenty-five years in prison, while 5 death sentences were to be carried out. The sentence against Radetzky was halved and converted into a prison sentence of 10 years. He was released in February 1951 after he had been released from his remaining prison term after taking into account the time he had served since 1945.

In the Federal Republic (1951–1990)

After his release, thanks to his comrades in Landsberg, he received a well-paid post at Bayer AG in Leverkusen. Until his death in Leverkusen he was involved in the German-Baltic Landsmannschaft North Rhine-Westphalia. In 1976, together with his wife, he founded the "Carl-Schirren-Förderer-Kreis" and the later "Georg Dehio Society". This acquired u. a. the medieval choir screen of St. Petri Church in Riga and published dictionaries of German Baltic artists and scientists. The von Radetzky couple's collection of Baltic silversmiths has been exhibited in the House of the German-Balts in Darmstadt since 2008 . In 1990 Waldemar von Radetzky died.

literature

  • Andrej Angrick : The Einsatzgruppe D . In: Peter Klein (editor): “The Einsatztruppen in the occupied Soviet Union 1941/42” Hentrich, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-89468-200-0 . (Volume 6 of the publications of the House of the Wannsee Conference Memorial and Education Center )
  • Norbert Frei : Politics of the past: the beginnings of the Federal Republic and the Nazi past . CH Beck, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-406-41310-2
  • Michael Garleff (Ed.): Baltic Germans, Weimar Republic and Third Reich . Böhlau, Cologne 2007 ISBN 3-412-12299-8
  • Matthias Schröder: Baltic German SS leaders and Andrej Vlasov 1942–1945: "Russia can only be defeated by Russians": Erhard Kroeger, Friedrich Buchardt and the Russian Liberation Army . Schöningh, Paderborn 2001, ISBN 3-506-77520-0 .
  • Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals Under Control Council Law No. 10 , Vol. 4 : United States of America vs. Otto Ohlendorf , et al. (Case 9: “Einsatzgruppen Case”) . US Government Printing Office, District of Columbia 1950. (Excerpts from the grounds of the judgment on Waldemar von Radetzky: pp. 573 - 578.)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Matthias Schröder: German Baltic SS leaders and Andrej Vlasov 1942–1945 . Schöningh, Paderborn 2001, p. 168.
  2. ^ Matthias Schröder: German Baltic SS leaders and Andrej Vlasov 1942–1945 . Schöningh, Paderborn 2001, p. 55.
  3. ^ Matthias Schröder: German Baltic SS leaders and Andrej Vlasov 1942–1945 . Schöningh, Paderborn 2001, p. 170.
  4. ^ A b c Records of the United States Nuremberg War Crimes Trials , Vol. 4, US Government Printing Office, District of Columbia 1950, pp. 573-578.
  5. ↑ Records of the United States Nuremberg War Crimes Trials , Vol. 4, United States Government Printing Office , District of Columbia 1950, p. 11.
  6. ↑ Norbert Frei: Politics of the Past . Beck, Munich 1996, pp. 195-233.
  7. ↑ Eberhard Jäckel (Ed.): Enzyklopädie des Holocaust , Vol. 3. S – Z, Argon, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-87024-303-1 , p. 1747.
  8. ↑ Personal - Gertrud von Radetzky † ( Memento from August 1, 2014 in the Internet Archive ). In: “Messages from Baltic life”, official organ of the German-Baltic Society eV approx. 2007/2008.
  9. ↑ Biobibliographies: Lexicon of Baltic German Music at the Baden-Württemberg Library Service Center (BSZ). (Retrieved July 23, 2009.)
personal data
SURNAME Radetzky, Waldemar von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Radetzky, Waldemar Hermann von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Baltic SS officer in Einsatzgruppe C
DATE OF BIRTH May 8, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Moscow
DATE OF DEATH February 21, 1990