Walther Bierkamp

Walther Bierkamp , also written Walter Bierkamp , (* December 17, 1901 in Hamburg , † May 15, 1945 in Scharbeutz ) was a German lawyer, SS-Brigadführer and Major General of the Police. As a senior councilor he was head of the Hamburg criminal police headquarters. He then worked as an inspector of the Security Police and SD Düsseldorf and as the leader of Einsatzgruppe D in the USSR and finally as commander of the Security Police and SD (BdS) in "Belgium-Northern France", in the Generalgouvernement and "Southwest" as well as Higher SS- and Police Leader "Southeast". Bierkamp and the units he commanded were responsible for the murder of tens of thousands of Jews in the Holocaust .

Origin and studies

Bierkamp was a member of the Bahrenfeld Freikorps in Hamburg from 1919 to 1920 , with whom he actively participated in the Kapp Putsch. He studied in Göttingen and Hamburg law , laid in 1924 for the first and 1928 second state examination and attained a doctorate to Dr. jur. He then entered the civil service and worked as a public prosecutor at the Hamburg district court until 1937 . Bierkamp joined the NSDAP as early as December 1, 1932 ( membership number 1,409,449).

At the criminal police and inspector of the security police and the SD

At the beginning of February 1937 he moved to the criminal police as senior government councilor and criminal director and was appointed head of the Hamburg criminal police headquarters. On April 1, 1939, he became a member of the SS (SS No. 310.172). On February 15, 1941, he was appointed inspector of the Security Police and SD (IdS) in Düsseldorf. He exercised this function, interrupted by an activity as commander of the security police and the SD (BdS) "Belgium-Northern France", based in Paris from September 1941 to April 1942, until June 24, 1942.

With the Einsatzgruppen of the Security Police and the SD in the USSR

On June 30, 1942 Bierkamp replaced SS-Standartenführer Otto Ohlendorf as leader of Einsatzgruppe D , which was deployed in the 11th Army in southern Ukraine and in the Crimea .

It was here that Einsatzgruppe D carried out the first major murders against Jews in August 1942 . In Krasnodar and Ejsk, for example, inmates of children's homes were killed in gas vans . 500 Jews from Krasnodar were shot in a forest on the outskirts on August 21 and 22. The same happened on September 1, 1942 in Mineralnye Vody . The Einsatzkommando 12 took the Jews from Essentuki and Kislowodsk on 9/10. September also to Mineralnye Vody to be shot. The Jews of Pyatigorsk were killed in the gas truck by the same squad. In total, over 6,000 Jews were killed. The surviving Jews, who were initially still needed as craftsmen, were killed on 4th / 5th Killed in Kislovodsk January 1943. The unit's total number of murders during the period was approximately 10,000 Jewish victims.

In the summer of 1942, the Wehrmacht launched the German summer offensive and invaded the Caucasus with the Edelweiß company . In May 1943, Einsatzgruppe D was renamed "Kampfgruppe Bierkamp" and continued to use this name until June 15, 1943.

Commander of the Security Police and the SD

From June 1943 to February 1945 Bierkamp was used as the BdS Generalgouvernement . In a circular of July 20, 1944, he ordered that all prison inmates and Jews in the armaments industry were to be removed before the arrival of the Red Army . In the event of a “surprising development of the situation” which makes evacuation impossible, the persons concerned are to be “liquidated” on the spot and their corpses disposed of by “burning, blowing up the building, etc.”.

Also as BdS, he then worked briefly in Stuttgart, finally acting until February 20, 1945, initially as Deputy and until March 17, 1945 as Higher SS and Police Leader (HSSPF) Southeast with headquarters in Breslau .

Then he worked again as a BdS at HSSPF Südwest until mid-April 1945. From April 14, 1945 until the end of the war, Bierkamp was BdS Hamburg.

Bierkamp committed in 1945 on May 15 suicide .

Promotions

• SS-Hauptsturmführer (entry rank when joining the SS on April 1, 1939)
• SS-Sturmbannführer (April 20, 1939)
• SS-Obersturmbannführer (December 15, 1940)
• SS Standartenführer (April 20, 1941)
• SS-Oberführer (May 1, 1942)
• Police Colonel (May 15, 1942)
• SS Brigade Leader and Major General of the Police (November 9, 1944)

Orders and awards

• War Merit Cross 2nd class with swords
• War Merit Cross 1st Class with Swords
• SS skull ring

literature

• Helmut Krausnick / Hans-Heinrich Wilhelm: The troops of the Weltanschauung war. The Einsatzgruppen of the Security Police and SD 1938–1942 . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1981, ISBN 3-421-01987-8 .
• Andrej Angrick : Occupation Policy and Mass Murder. The Einsatzgruppe D in the southern Soviet Union 1941–1943 , Hamburger Edition , Hamburg 2003, ISBN 3-930908-91-3 .
• Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich . Fischer, updated 2nd edition, Frankfurt am Main 2007. ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 .

Web links

Biography of Walther Bierkamp ( Memento from September 8, 2011 in the Internet Archive )

Individual evidence

1. ^ Herbert Diercks: Documentation town house. The Hamburg police under National Socialism. Texts, photos, documents , Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial , Hamburg 2012, p. 49.