Theodor Adrian von Renteln
Theodor Adrian von Renteln (15 September 1897 – 1946 (disputed)) was an activist and politician in
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
. During World War II, he was General Commissioner of ''
Generalbezirk Litauen
Generalbezirk Litauen ( lt, Lietuvos generalinė sritis, ) was one of the four administrative subdivisions of ''Reichskommissariat Ostland'', the 1941-1945 civilian occupation regime established by Nazi Germany for the administration of the three ...
'' and was involved in perpetrating
the Holocaust in Lithuania
The Holocaust in Lithuania resulted in the near total destruction of Lithuanian (Litvaks) and Polish Jews, living in '' Generalbezirk Litauen'' of ''Reichskommissariat Ostland'' within the Nazi-controlled Lithuanian SSR. Out of approximately 20 ...
.
Of
Baltic German
Baltic Germans (german: Deutsch-Balten or , later ) were ethnic German inhabitants of the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, in what today are Estonia and Latvia. Since their coerced resettlement in 1939, Baltic Germans have markedly declined ...
origin, von Renteln studied law and economics in
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
and
Rostock
Rostock (), officially the Hanseatic and University City of Rostock (german: link=no, Hanse- und Universitätsstadt Rostock), is the largest city in the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and lies in the Mecklenburgian part of the state, c ...
, but became a journalist. In 1928, he joined the
NSDAP
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...
and the following year, he became the founder and head of the
National Socialist Schoolchildren's League
The National Socialist Schoolchildren's League (Nationalsozialistischer Schülerbund), known under the acronyms NSS and more rarely NSSB, was a Nazi Party organisation for primary school pupils providing a student council and child protection sys ...
(NSS). In 1931, he was appointed the head of the
Hitler Youth
The Hitler Youth (german: Hitlerjugend , often abbreviated as HJ, ) was the youth organisation of the Nazi Party in Germany. Its origins date back to 1922 and it received the name ("Hitler Youth, League of German Worker Youth") in July 1926. ...
, but he gave up leadership of the two organizations upon his election to the
Reichstag in 1932.
In 1932–1933 he led the Combat League of the Commercial Middle Class (''
NS-Kampfbund für den Gewerblichen Mittelstand''), an organisation allegedly "Deflecting Jewish Atrocity and Boycott-Mongering", participating in the boycott of Jewish businesses and other forms of persecution. In June 1933, he was appointed President of the National Socialist Council of Industry and Trade (''Nationalsozialistische Handwerks-, Handels-, und Gewerbeorganisation'' or NS-HAGO), holding this position until 1935, when this organisation was merged with the
German Labor Front
The German Labour Front (german: Deutsche Arbeitsfront, ; DAF) was the labour organisation under the Nazi Party which replaced the various independent trade unions in Germany during Adolf Hitler's rise to power.
History
As early as March 1933, ...
(DAF). Von Renteln became a staff leader of the German Labor Front. In 1940, he was appointed the Reich Leader of the Trade and Artisanship Section of the NSDAP (''Hauptamtsleiter Handel und Handwerk in der Reichsleitung der NSDAP''). He was also the head of the Supreme Court of the Reich Labor Front.
In July 1941, he was appointed the ''Generalkommissar'' of ''
Generalbezirk Litauen
Generalbezirk Litauen ( lt, Lietuvos generalinė sritis, ) was one of the four administrative subdivisions of ''Reichskommissariat Ostland'', the 1941-1945 civilian occupation regime established by Nazi Germany for the administration of the three ...
'' (roughly modern
Lithuania
Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...
), where he took harsh measures against the Jewish population. On 26 August 1941 he ordered that all telephones and lines were to be stripped, postal service be cut off, and bridges to the
Kaunas (Kovno) Ghetto be surrounded with barbed wire fences to prevent people from jumping off. This order also forbade the Jews of the Kovno ghetto to use doors, window frames, or houses for fuel. In 1943, he was implicated in the clearing of the
Vilna Ghetto
The Vilna Ghetto was a World War II Jewish ghetto established and operated by Nazi Germany in the city of Vilnius in the modern country of Lithuania, at the time part of the Nazi-administered Reichskommissariat Ostland.
During the approximatel ...
, deporting 20,000 Jews to
concentration
In chemistry, concentration is the abundance of a constituent divided by the total volume of a mixture. Several types of mathematical description can be distinguished: '' mass concentration'', ''molar concentration'', ''number concentration'', an ...
or
death camp
Nazi Germany used six extermination camps (german: Vernichtungslager), also called death camps (), or killing centers (), in Central Europe during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million peoplemostly Jewsin the Holocaust. The v ...
s, as well as in plundering.
According to some accounts, after
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, he was captured by the Russians, tried, and hanged for war crimes in 1946. According to other sources, after the war he lived under a false identity in South America and died there.
[http://www.annaberger-annalen.de/jahrbuch/1997/Annaberg%20Nr.5%20Kap2.pdf ] His death has never been fully confirmed.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Renteln, Adrian Von
1897 births
1946 deaths
Baltic-German people
Executed German people
Holocaust perpetrators in Lithuania
German untitled nobility
Kovno Ghetto
Members of the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic
Members of the Reichstag of Nazi Germany
Nazi Party politicians
Nazis convicted of war crimes
Nazis executed by the Soviet Union by hanging
People executed for war crimes
People from Dzau District
Russian and Soviet-German people
Vilna Ghetto