Walter Potzelt

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Walter Potzelt (* 16th July 1903 in Chemnitz , † 22. April 1955 in Bischofswiesen -Stanggass) was a German SS officer and temporarily deputy leader of the Einsatzgruppe A .

Life

Potzelt, son of a businessman, attended secondary school in Chemnitz and the Royal Higher Agricultural School in Döbeln .

Potzelt joined the NSDAP around 1930 ( membership number 266.433) and the SS (SS number 36.051). In this he was successively promoted to Untersturmführer (August 24, 1932), Obersturmführer (November 9, 1933), Sturmbannführer (April 20, 1934), Obersturmbannführer (July 4, 1934) and Staffelführer (April 20, 1936).

In 1932 he was accepted into the Security Service (SD), the Secret Service, the SS. As a member of the SD he became an adjutant to Reinhard Heydrich in his capacity as head of the Bavarian Political Police. On June 30, 1934, he took part in the organization of the wave of murders and arrests in the Berlin area as part of the so-called Röhm Putsch . At the end of 1935, Potzelt switched to the SD Upper Section East as staff leader .

In February 1936 he was entrusted with the management of the SD upper section Fulda-Werrat. In his function as SS-Obersturmbannführer he ran for the Reichstag election on March 29, 1936, but received no mandate. In April 1939 he was finally given the leadership of the 6th SS Standard in Berlin .

During the attack on Poland , Potzelt was Erich Naumann's deputy in Einsatzgruppe VI.

In 1940/1941 Potzelt joined the Waffen SS . In October 1941 the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA) claimed it was indispensable. In April 1942 he was appointed deputy commander of the Security Police and SD (BdS) Ostland in Riga as deputy to Walter Stahlecker . He was the second highest officer of the so-called Einsatzgruppe A, which carried out mass shootings of Jews and other "undesirable persons" or ideological opponents in the Ostland area.

Potzelt died in 1955 shortly before legal proceedings were initiated against him.

literature

  • Shlomo Aronson : Heydrich and the beginnings of the SD and the Gestapo. 1931-1935 , 1967.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Klaus-Michael Mallmann , Jochen Böhler , Jürgen Matthäus : Einsatzgruppen in Poland. Presentation and documentation. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2008, p. 39. ISBN 978-3-534-21353-5 .
  2. ↑ Helmut Krausnick : Die Truppe des Weltanschauungskrieges , 1981, p. 641.
personal data
SURNAME Potzelt, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German SS leader, MdR, member of the Einsatzgruppen and politicians (NSDAP), deputy BdS Ostland
DATE OF BIRTH July 16, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Chemnitz
DATE OF DEATH April 22, 1955
Place of death Bischofswiesen -Stanggass