Otto Bradfisch (born 10 May 1903 in Zweibrücken; died 22 June 1994 in Seeshaupt) was an economist, a jurist, an SS Obersturmbannführer, Leader of Einsatzkommando 8 of Einsatzgruppe B of the Security Police (Sicherheitspolizei) and the SD, and Commander of the Security Police in Litzmannstadt (Łódź) and Potsdam. May 10 is the 130th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (131st in leap years). ... 1903 (MCMIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... Zweibrücken is a city of Germany in Rhineland-Palatinate, on the Schwarzbach River at the border of the Palatine Forest. ... June 22 is the 173rd day of the year (174th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 192 days remaining. ... 1994 (MCMXCIV in Roman) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International year of the Family. ... An economist is an individual who studies economics and writes about economic policy. ... JURIST is an online legal news and research service hosted by the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, edited by Professor Bernard Hibbitts and a staff of more than 20 law students. ... The infamous double-sig rune SS insignia. ... SS-Obersturmbannführer Rank Patch SA-Obersturmbannführer Rank Patch Obersturmbannführer was a paramilitary Nazi Party rank which was used by both the SA and the SS. The title was first created as an SA rank in 1932 after an expansion of the SA created the need for an... A member of Einsatzgruppe D executes a Jew kneeling before a filled mass grave in Vinnitsa, Ukraine, in 1942. ... A member of Einsatzgruppe D executes a Jew kneeling before a filled mass grave in Vinnitsa, Ukraine, in 1942. ... The Sicherheitspolizei (security police) was a term used in Nazi Germany to described the combined forces of the Gestapo and Sicherheitsdienst (the SD) between 1934 and 1939. ... SD Insignia Patch The Sicherheitsdienst (SD, Security Service) was the intelligence service of the SS. The organization was the first Nazi Party intelligence organization to be established and was considered a sister organization with the Gestapo. ... Łódź (pronunciation: ), the second-largest city (population 776,297 in 2004) of Poland, lies in the centre of the country. ... Potsdam is the capital city of the state of Brandenburg in Germany. ...

School and training

Dr. Otto Bradfisch was born in 1903 in Zweibrücken, Saarland, as the second of grocery salesman Karl Bradfisch's four children. Saarland is one of the 16 states of Germany. ...

In Kaiserslautern he went to the Volksschule for four years and afterwards to the humanistic Gymnasium. In 1922, he did the school-leaving examination. Kaiserslautern is a town in the south of the Land Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany. ... A gymnasium is a type of school of secondary education in parts of Europe. ...

At the Universities of Freiburg, Leipzig, Heidelberg, and Innsbruck Bradfisch studied economics. He ended his studies with a graduation to Dr. rer. pol. at the University of Innsbruck in 1926. Afterwards, he also studied law in Erlangen and Munich to improve his professional chances in difficult times. He sat the first state law examination on 17 February 1932, and the second on 20 September 1935. Albert Ludwigs University of Freiburg was founded 1457 in Freiburg by the Habsburgs. ... The University of Leipzig (Universität Leipzig), located in Leipzig in the Free State and former Kingdom of Saxony, is one of the oldest universities in Europe. ... The Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg (German Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg; also known as simply University of Heidelberg) is one of the most prestigious universities of Germany. ... The Leopold-Franzens-Universität, more often simply called University of Innsbruck, is one of the major Austrian universities, offering a broad range of subjects. ... Law (from the Old Norse lagu) in politics and jurisprudence, is a set of rules or norms of conduct which mandate, proscribe or permit specified relationships among people and organizations, intended to provide methods for ensuring the impartial treatment of such people, and provide punishments of/for those who do... Erlangen around 1915 Erlangen is a German city in Middle Franconia. ... February 17 is the 48th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1932 (MCMXXXII) is a leap year starting on Friday. ... September 20 is the 263rd day of the year (264th in leap years). ... 1935 (MCMXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ...

Professional and political career

Engaged first as an Assessor in the Upper Bavarian government, he was at once transferred to the Bavarian State Ministry for the Interior as a Government Assessor. Oberbayern (Upper Bavaria) is one of the seven administrative regions of Bavaria, Germany, located in the south of Bavaria, around the city Munich. ... The Free State of Bavaria  (German: Freistaat Bayern), with an area of 70,553 km² (27,241 square miles) and 12. ...

Already by 1 January 1931, Bradfisch had joined the NSDAP (membership no. 405 869). At the time he was studying in Munich, he was working as the acting local group leader (Ortsgruppenleiter) in Munich-Freimann. On 26 September 1938 he joined the SS (membership no. 310 180) as an Obersturmführer. In the two years before that, he had belonged to the National Socialist Motor Corps. January 1 is the first day of the calendar year in both the Julian and Gregorian calendars. ... 1931 (MCMXXXI) is a common year starting on Thursday. ... The Nazi swastika The National Socialist German Workers Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei), better known as the NSDAP or the Nazi Party was a political party that was led to power in Germany by Adolf Hitler in 1933. ... 1938 (MCMXXXVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ... Obersturmführer collar insignia Obersturmführer was a paramilitary rank of the Nazi party that was used by the Schutzstaffel and also as a rank of the SA. Translated as “Senior Storm Leader”, the rank of Obersturmführer was first created in 1932 as the result of an expansion of... The National Socialist Motor Corps (Nationalsozialistisches Kraftfahrerkorps), also known as the National Socialist Drivers Corps, was a paramilitary organization of the Nazi party that existed between the years of 1931 and 1945. ...

At an acquaintance's urging, Bradfisch applied for service in the Gestapo, into which he was hired on 15 March 1937, whereupon he was also given the acting leadership of the State Police post at Neustadt an der Weinstraße. The Deaths Head emblem similar to Skull and crossbones, often used as the insignia of the Gestapo The â–¶ (help· info) (acronym of Geheime Staatspolizei; secret state police) was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. ... March 15 is the 74th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (75th in Leap years). ... 1937 (MCMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... Neustadt an der Weinstraße, otherwise known as Neustadt a. ...

Appointed government adviser on 4 November 1938, he stayed there until his assignment as leader of Einsatzkommando (EK) 8, attached to Einsatzgruppe (EG) B of the Security Police and the Sicherheitsdienst in June 1941 November 4 is the 308th day of the year (309th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 57 days remaining. ... 1938 (MCMXXXVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ...

Leader of Einsatzkommando 8 of Einsatzgruppe B

Einsatzgruppe B belonged to the four Einsatzgruppen that were deployed for special operations during Operation Barbarossa, the attack on the Soviet Union. This Einsatzgruppe was led by Arthur Nebe, an SS Brigadeführer and Chief of the Reich Criminal Police Bureau (Reichskriminalpolizeiamt) at the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Amt V), and was subdivided into Einsatzkommandos 8 and 9, and the Sonderkommandos 7a und 7b, as well as the Vorkommando Moskau. It was also grouped with Army Group Middle. Combatants Germany Soviet Union Commanders Adolf Hitler Josef Stalin Strength ~ 3,200,000 ~ 2,600,000 Casualties unknown unknown {{{notes}}} Operation Barbarossa (Unternehmen Barbarossa) was the German codename for Nazi Germanys invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that commenced on June 22, 1941. ... SS-Gruppenführer Artur Nebe (1894–21 March 1945) was Berlin Police Commissioner in the 1920s and an early member of both the Sturmabteilung (SA) and the Schutzstaffel (SS). ... Brigadeführer was an SS rank that was used in Nazi Germany between the years of 1932 and 1945. ... RSHA, or the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, was a subsidiary organization of the S.S. created by Heinrich Himmler on September 22, 1939, through the merger of the Sicherheitsdienst, the Gestapo and the Kriminalpolizei. ... Sonderkommandos were work units of Nazi death camp prisoners forced to aid the killing process. ... Moscow (Russian: Москва́, Moskva, IPA: (help· info)) is the capital of Russia and the countrys principal political, economic, financial, educational and transportation center, located on the river Moskva. ...

The Einsatzgruppen's job was, as determined by oral "Führer decree" and a written order from Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA) Chief Reinhard Heydrich on 2 July 1941, alongside both the securing of areas to the advancing army's rear and the perception of common police tasks until the establishment of a civil administration in the conquered eastern areas, the "Special handling of potential opponents", that is, their elimination. As to who these opponents were, Heydrich defined them in the aforesaid order: "all Comintern functionaries (like utterly all professional Communist politicians, absolutely), the higher, middle and radical lower functionaries of the Party, the Central Committee and the regional and area committees, people's commissars, Jews in Party and state posts, various radical elements (saboteurs, propagandists, snipers, assassins, agitators, and so on)". This circle of persons was later expanded to all "politically intolerable elements" among prisoners of war and eventually all "racial inferiors" such as Jews, Gypsies, and "Asiatic elements". RSHA, or the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, was a subsidiary organization of the S.S. created by Heinrich Himmler on September 22, 1939, through the merger of the Sicherheitsdienst, the Gestapo and the Kriminalpolizei. ... Reinhard Heydrich as SS-Gruppenführer Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich (March 7, 1904 – June 4, 1942) was an SS-Obergruppenführer, chief of the Reich Main Security Office, and Reich governor of Bohemia and Moravia. ... July 2 is the 183rd day of the year (184th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 182 days remaining. ... The Comintern (from Russian Коммунистический Интернационал (Kommunisticheskiy Internatsional) – Communist International), also known as the Third International, was an independent international Communist organization founded in March 1919 by Vladmir Lenin, Leon Trotsky and the Russian Communist Party (bolshevik), which intended to fight by all available means, including armed force, for the overthrow of... Communism - Wikipedia /**/ @import /w/skins-1. ... The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Russian: Коммунисти́ческая Па́ртия Сове́тского Сою́за = КПСС) was the name used by the successors of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party from 1952 to 1991, but the wording Communist Party was present in the partys name since 1918 when the Bolsheviks became the All... Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening an enemy through subversion, obstruction, disruption, and/or destruction. ... North Korean propaganda showing a soldier destroying the United States Capitol building. ... It has been suggested that Targeted killing be merged into this article or section. ... Geneva Convention definition A prisoner of war (POW) is a soldier, sailor, airman, or marine who is imprisoned by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict. ... Tzigane redirects here; for the composition by Maurice Ravel, see Tzigane (Ravel). ... See also: Asian and Eurasian World map showing Asia. ...

Meant at first to take the job as staff consultant on Einsatzgruppe B's staff, Bradfisch took part in a major discussion at the Pretzsch Border Police School at which Heydrich and the Leader of RSHA Bureau IV (Gestapo), Heinrich Müller, explained to the Einsatzgruppe and Einsatzkommando leaders in all plainness their task. After the presentation of this instruction, which without doubt was recognized by all participants as wrongful and criminal, the originally foreseen leader of Einsatzkommando 8, the provisional leader of the Liegnitz State Police post Ernst Ehlers appealed to Einsatzgruppe B's leader Nebe with the wish to be released from this duty. Nebe complied with Ehlers's wish and appointed Bradfisch as his replacement. He had no doubts about the work that lay ahead. The Einsatzkommando 8, led by Bradfisch from the beginning of the Russian Campaign onwards, consisted of six subdivisions varying in strength, each under an SS leader. The unit's total strength was about 60 to 80 men. In view of his official position as government adviser and Leader of the Neustadt an der Weinstraße State Police post, Bradfisch, as the EK 8 leader, was awarded the rank deemed to befit a man in his position: SS Sturmbannführer. Heinrich Müller (May 28, 1900-?) was the head of Nazi Germanys RSHAs Amt IV and led the Gestapo from 1939 until his mysterious disappearance at the close of World War II. He served as a Military Pilot 1917-1919 [[1]] and received the Iron Cross [1st and... Legnica (pronounce: [lεgniʦa], formerly Lignica, German Liegnitz) is a town in south-western Poland, with 108,000 inhabitants (1995). ... The Eastern Front of World War II was the theatre of war covering the conflict in eastern Europe, notorious for its unprecedented ferocity, destruction, and immense loss of life. ... Sturmbannführer Collar Patch Sturmbannführer was a paramilitary rank of the Nazi Party which was used by both the Sturmabteilung (SA) and the Schutzstaffel (SS). ...

With the onset of the Russian Campaign on 22 June 1941, the EK 8 followed Army Group Middle through Białystok and Baranavičy in late 1941 to Minsk. On 9 September 1941 they reached Mahilyow where, given the slowdown that the German offensive had suffered, and the forthcoming winter, plans were made for a lengthy stay. June 22 is the 173rd day of the year (174th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 192 days remaining. ... Motto: none Voivodship Podlasie Municipal government Rada miejska BiaÅ‚egostoku Mayor Ryszard Tur Area 94 km² Population  - city  - urban  - density 295 000 (01. ... Baranavičy (Belarusian Баранавiчы; Polish Baranowicze; Russian Барановичи (Baranovichi)) is a city in the Brest voblast in western Belarus with a population of 173 000 (as of 1995). ... Victory Square, the central place of Minsk Minsk or Miensk (Belarusian: ; Russian: ; Polish: ) is the capital and a major city of Belarus with a population of 1. ... September 9 is the 252nd day of the year (253rd in leap years). ... Mahilyow, or MahiloÅ­ (Belarusian Магілёў (MahiloÅ­), Russian Могилёв (Mogilyov), Polish Mohylew or Mogilew) is a city in eastern Belarus, close to the border to Russia with about 300,000 inhabitants. ...

As to the ways of doing things whereby the EK 8 fulfilled the tasks that it was ordered to do, and which were more or less the same for every Einsatzkommando, the Munich State Court I in their ruling of 21 July 1961 at the Einsatzgruppe Trial portrayed them as follows: July 21 is the 202nd day (203rd in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 163 days remaining. ... 1961 (MCMLXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ...

"In carrying out the order to annihilate the Jewish eastern population as well as other population groups considered to be racially inferior, and functionaries of the Russian CP, the EK 8, after crossing the demarcation line between the German Reich and the Soviet Union established in the year 1939, conducted ongoing shooting campaigns, in which mainly Jews were killed. (…) The gathering of the Jews in each of the affected places – as the usage of the time had it, the "maintenance" ("Überholung") – happened in such a way that the locality or street was surrounded by some members of the Einsatzkommando and then next the victims were driven together out of their houses and flats randomly by other Kommando members. The victims were then either transported right after being taken prisoner by truck to the shooting places already established beforehand, or held prisoner in suitable buildings (schools, factories) or other localities, until they were then shot the next day or a few days later. Already in these so-called "through-combing actions" ("Durchkämmungsaktionen") it came to bodily mishandling and in the odd case even to killing old and sick people who could not walk, and who were thus shot in their dwellings or right nearby.

"The mass shootings took place in each case outside the "maintained" town or locality, where natural hollows, abandoned infantry and artillery posts, and above all armoured dugouts or mass graves dug by the victims themselves, served as execution places. At the executions that happened in the first few weeks of the Russian Campaign, only men aged about 18 to 65 were killed, whereas women and children were often spared at first. Beginning in August 1941 at the latest, however – already at the shootings in Minsk – they furthermore switched over to killing men and women of all ages, and even children. After completing the preparations, the victims, who were offloaded from the trucks right near the shooting pit and who had to sit on the ground awaiting the further events, were either brought forth to the pit by EK 8 members, or driven forth through laneways built by Kommando members to the pits, if needed with the help of blows. After they had first given up their things of value and pieces of clothing that were in good condition, unless this had already happened when they were taken prisoner, they then had to lay themselves with their faces to the ground, and were then killed with shots to the back of the head. In the earlier shooting campaigns (Białystok, Baranavičy, Minsk) but also occasionally even later on the occasion of major actions, execution squads were put together from Einsatzkommando members and policemen assigned to them, which in strength matched in each case the numbers of the groups of people driven to the shooting pit, or in the odd case even possessed twice the strength, so that in each case, one shooter or two shooters had to shoot at one victim. These shooting squads, which were armed with carabiners, were put together mostly from policemen.and commanded by a platoon leader from the police unit put under him who was appropriate to the command given him by the EK 8 leadership. At these executions undertaken by shooting squads it occasionally came to pass that the victims had to put themselves at the edge of the pit, to be then "shot into" the pit.

"In the course of the deployment, there was an ever greater changeover from shooting with rifle salvos to killing the intended people with single shots or machine pistols. The grounds for this lay in the claim that shooting with rifle salvos took a relatively long time, and moreover, the force of the shots delivered from the shortest distance was so violent that the shooting squad and sundry other persons participating in the action were sprayed with the killed people's blood and bits of brain, a circumstance which raised the mental burden of the men on the execution squad, which was already extraordinary anyway, that often there were misses and therefore the victims' suffering was prolonged.

"The shootings with machine pistols were carried out as a rule in such a way that the Einsatzkommando members in the pit designated to carry out the execution went along the row of persons to be shot, killing one victim after another with shots to the back of the head. This method of execution inevitably led to some of the victims having to wait a longer time lying on badly or not at all buried dead bodies, with certain death before their eyes, until they themselves were given the death shot. In some cases, the killing of the victims was carried out in such a way that they were brought to the shooting place double-quick, thrust into the pit, and then, while they were falling, they were shot. While at the shootings in Białystok and Baranavičy, and partly still at the executions in Minsk, the dead bodies were more or less well covered with sand or earth before the next group were driven or led to the pit, such a covering only seldom took place in the later shooting campaigns, so that the victims that followed, if they were shot in the pit, each had to lay themselves down on the dead bodies of those who had just been killed. But also in cases in which the dead bodies had had sand or earth thrown over them lightly, the victims that followed noticed their killed fellow doomed people's bodies, whose parts often jutted out of the thin sand or earth covering. A doctor was not called in to the executions. If one of the victims still showed signs of life, he was administered an aftershot with a pistol by a Kommando member, usually a leader.

The execution places were each sealed off by Einsatzkommando members or police officials subordinate to them, so that for the people right near the shooting pit waiting for their deaths there was no possibility of escaping their doom. In fact, they had the opportunity – this circumstance demonstrates a particular intensification of their suffering – to hear the crack of rifle salvos or machine pistol shots and in the odd case to observe the shootings to which neighbours, friends and kin fell victim.

"Given this ghastly fate, the victims often broke out in loud crying and moaning, prayed loudly and tried to reaffirm their innocence. Some, however, went quietly and calmly to their deaths."

Bradfisch was as leader of the EK 8 responsible for all measures and executions. To some extent, he led the executions, and in the odd case even shot with his own hand. Some examples follow:

• Białystok, two shooting campaigns of at least 1100 Jews and Bolshevist functionaries
• Baranavičy, two shooting campaigns of at least 381 Jews
• Minsk, seven Jew shootings of at least 2000 people
• Mahilyow, eight shooting campaigns of at least 4100 Jewish men, women and children as well as Russian prisoners of war
• Babruysk, major action, in which at least 5000 Jewish men, women and children were shot.

About his Einsatzkommando's activities, Bradfisch had to report to the higher-ranking Einsatzgruppe B, who sent the RSHA these reports compiled with those from the other Einsatzkommandos. There, the individual reports were condensed into the so-called event reports by Office IV A. The city of Babruysk (Belarusian: Бабру́йск; Russian: Бобру́йск, Bobruisk) is located in Mahilyow voblast of Belarus on the Berezina river. ...

Commander of the Security Police and the Sicherheitsdienst (SD)

Bradfisch was active as EK 8 leader until March 1942. On 26 April 1942 he was transferred to Łódź – which the Nazis called Litzmannstadt – and appointed leader of the State Police post there. In this function he was also responsible for deporting Jews to the Chełmno extermination camp. He became Commander of the Security Police and the SD in summer 1942. In autumn of the same year came his provisional appointment as Łódź's mayor. In this capacity he was also promoted to high government adviser and SS Obersturmbannführer on 25 January 1943. April 26 is the 116th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (117th in leap years). ... CheÅ‚mno concentration camp was a Nazi extermination camp that was situated 70 km from Łódź near a small village CheÅ‚mno nad Nerem (Kulmhof an der Nehr, in German), in Greater Poland (which was, in 1939, annexed and incorporated into Germany under the name of Reichsgau Wartheland). ... January 25 is the 25th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1943 (MCMXLIII) is a common year starting on Friday. ...

War's end

After the city's evacuation due to the war in December 1944, Bradfisch worked as Commander of the Security Police and the SD in Potsdam for the last few months of the war. As the Red Army loomed, he managed to escape westwards, procuring for himself a Wehrmacht pay book with junior officer Karl Evers's name on it. Mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rising 18 km into the air. ... 1944 (MCMXLIV) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ... The short forms Red Army and RKKA refer to the Workers and Peasants Red Army, (in Russian: Рабоче-Крестьянская Красная Армия - Raboche-Krestyanskaya Krasnaya Armiya), the armed forces first organised by the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War in 1918. ... Wehrmacht ▶ (help· info) was the name of the armed forces of Germany from 1935 to 1945. ...

He then first found himself in American custody as a prisoner of war, but was then transferred to British custody, and by August 1945, he was released. 1945 (MCMXLV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ...

After the war

Until 1953, Bradfisch managed to hide his true identity by using the name Karl Evers. He busied himself first in farming and then later in mining. When he became an insurance agent in Kaiserslautern, eventually for Hamburg-Mannheimer as a regional director, he once again began using his true name. Farming, ploughing rice paddy, in Indonesia Agriculture is the process of producing food, feed, fiber and other desired products by cultivation of certain plants and the raising of domesticated animals (livestock). ... The El Chino Mine located near Silver City, New Mexico is an open-pit copper mine This article is about mineral extraction. ... Insurance, in law and economics, is a form of risk management primarily used to hedge against the risk of potential financial loss. ... Kaiserslautern is a town in the south of the Land Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany. ...

On 21 April 1958, Bradfisch was temporarily seized and sentenced by the Munich State Court I on 21 July 1961 to 10 years in labour prison (Zuchthaus) for the crime, committed with Bradfisch as part of a group, of abetting collaborative murder in 15,000 cases. In 1963, he was sentenced to 13 years in prison. April 21 is the 111th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (112th in leap years). ... 1958 (MCMLVIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Bradfisch and his wife, who were married on 23 November 1932, had three children, the youngest of whom, a girl born in Łódź, died as they were fleeing the Soviet advance. November 23 is the 327th day of the year (328th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 38 days remaining. ... 1932 (MCMXXXII) is a leap year starting on Friday. ...

Literature

• Krausnick, Helmut und Wilhelm, Hans-Heinrich: Die Truppe des Weltanschauungkrieges. Die Einsatzgruppen der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD 1938 - 1942, Stuttgart 1981, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, ISBN 3421019878
• Klein, Peter (publisher): Die Einsatzgruppen in der besetzten Sowjetunion 1941/42. Die Tätigkeits- und Lageberichte des Chefs der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD, Edition Hentrich, Berlin 1997 ISBN 3894682000

External links

• Biography and picture of Bradfisch (in Italian)