Rossbach Freikorps veteran who led Nazi Germany’s Order Police and directed the Lidice reprisals
When Reinhard Heydrich was assassinated in 1942 he became acting Protector of Bohemia and Moravia. He directed the German reprisals, including the Lidice massacre.
The son of a Prussian official from Kreuzburg in Upper Silesia, he was badly wounded in the First World War. Afterwards he led the Upper Silesian Self Defence against the Poles and, while studying civil engineering in Berlin, commanded a unit of Freikorps Rossbach in 1922. He joined the Nazi Party in 1923, became SA leader in Berlin and moved to the SS in 1930. Put in charge of the Prussian police by Göring in 1933, he helped carry out the Night of the Long Knives, and in 1936 Himmler made him chief of the Order Police, whose battalions carried out deportations and mass killings in occupied Europe. After Heydrich’s assassination in 1942 he became acting Protector of Bohemia and Moravia and directed the reprisals, including the Lidice massacre. Extradited to Czechoslovakia, he was hanged in 1946.
Activities and affiliations
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1921–1922
Freikorps (Germany, 1918–1923)Unit commander, Freikorps Roßbach
Military command -
1923–1945
Security, intelligence and policing
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1933–1943
Germany state institutionsChief of the Order PoliceMain
Security, intelligence and policing -
1942–1943
Germany state institutionsActing Protector of Bohemia and Moravia
Government and administration