Wolfgang Birkner
SS officer
Wolfgang Birkner (27 October 1913 – 24 March 1945) was a German SS functionary and a Holocaust perpetrator in World War II. Birkner served as the KdS Warschau (Komandeur der Sicherheitspolizei) in Warsaw following the German invasion of Poland in 1939.
After the German attack on the Soviet Union in 1941, Birkner and his Einsatzkommando were deployed in the newly-formed Bialystok District in the Army Group Centre Rear Area. Birkner arrived in Białystok from the General Government on 30 June 1941, sent in by the SS Police commander Eberhard Schöngarth on orders from the Reich Security Main Office. As veteran of Einsatzgruppe IV from the 1939 invasion of Poland, Birkner was a specialist in rear security operations.[1]
Kommando Bialystok
Birkner was appointed chief of the Kommando Bialystok under Arthur Nebe, commander of Einsatzgruppe B. Birkner's death squad was made up of 29 SS men, as well as Gestapo functionaries. It was one of several units summoned at around the same time by Karl Eberhard Schöngarth stationing in Kraków.[citation needed] Birkner and his squad committed mass murder in and around Białystok.[2] In the two initial months of operation, between 30 June and 28 August 1941, they had claimed the lives of 1,800 Jews. Birkner was promoted to the rank of SS-Hauptsturmführer Kriminalkommissar (the equivalent of a police captain) on 20 April 1943. He was killed in the Pomorze Province on 24 March 1945.[3]
Birkner was investigated by the West German prosecutors in 1960, prior to a court trial of the SS commander Hermann Schaper, who had directed parallel mass murders by Kommando SS Zichenau-Schröttersburg in the same area.[4]
Notes and references
- ^ Tomasz Szarota (2–3 December 2000). "Do we now know everything for certain? (translation)". Gazeta Wyborcza. Retrieved 13 May 2011.
- ^ Piotr Wróbel (in) Dagmar Herzog (2006). Lessons and Legacies: The Holocaust in international perspective. Northwestern University Press. p. 392. ISBN 0-8101-2370-3. Retrieved 13 May 2011.
- ^ Tomasz Szarota (April 2001). "Reflections on national stereotypes". Więź. Retrieved 14 May 2011.
- ^ Rossino, Alexander B. (1 November 2003). ""Polish 'Neighbours' and German Invaders: Anti-Jewish Violence in the Białystok District during the Opening Weeks of Operation Barbarossa."". In Steinlauf, Michael C.; Polonsky, Antony (eds.). Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry Volume 16: Focusing on Jewish Popular Culture and Its Afterlife. The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization. pp. 431–452. doi:10.2307/j.ctv1rmk6w.30. ISBN 978-1-909821-67-5. JSTOR j.ctv1rmk6w.
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