Edmund Veesenmayer (12 November 1904 – 24 December 1977) was a high-ranking German SS functionary and

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

-perpetrator during the

Nazi era 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 ...

. He significantly contributed to

the Holocaust in Hungary The Holocaust in Hungary was the dispossession, deportation, and systematic murder of more than half of the Hungarian Jews, primarily after the German occupation of Hungary in March 1944. At the time of the German invasion, Hungary had a Jewis ...

and in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH). Veesenmayer was a subordinate of

Ernst Kaltenbrunner Ernst Kaltenbrunner (4 October 190316 October 1946) was a high-ranking Austrian SS official during the Nazi era and a major perpetrator of the Holocaust. After the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in 1942, and a brief period under Heinrich Hi ...

and

Joachim von Ribbentrop Ulrich Friedrich Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop (; 30 April 1893 – 16 October 1946) was a German politician and diplomat who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nazi Germany from 1938 to 1945. Ribbentrop first came to Adolf Hitler's not ...

, and worked with

Adolf Eichmann Otto Adolf Eichmann ( ,"Eichmann"
'' Czecho-Slovakia in 1939, in the establishment of the

Ustaše The Ustaše (), also known by anglicised versions Ustasha or Ustashe, was a Croats, Croatian Fascism, fascist and ultranationalism, ultranationalist organization active, as one organization, between 1929 and 1945, formally known as the Ustaš ...

-run NDH

puppet state A puppet state, puppet régime, puppet government or dummy government, is a state that is ''de jure'' independent but ''de facto'' completely dependent upon an outside power and subject to its orders.Compare: Puppet states have nominal sove ...

following the April 1941 German

invasion of Yugoslavia The invasion of Yugoslavia, also known as the April War or Operation 25, or ''Projekt 25'' was a German-led attack on the Kingdom of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers which began on 6 April 1941 during World War II. The order for the invasion was ...

, and in the selection and installation of the 1941-1944

puppet regime A puppet state, puppet régime, puppet government or dummy government, is a state that is ''de jure'' independent but ''de facto'' completely dependent upon an outside power and subject to its orders.Compare: Puppet states have nominal sover ...

Milan Nedić Milan Nedić ( sr-Cyrl, Милан Недић; 2 September 1878 – 4 February 1946) was a Yugoslav and Serbian army general and politician who served as the chief of the General Staff of the Royal Yugoslav Army and minister of war in the R ...

in the

German-occupied territory of Serbia The Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia (german: Gebiet des Militärbefehlshabers in Serbien; sr, Подручје Војног заповедника у Србији, Područje vojnog zapovednika u Srbiji) was the area of the Kin ...

. 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 World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

Veesenmayer was tried and convicted at the Ministries Trial; in 1949 he was sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment, but was released after serving two years.

Early life

Veesenmayer was the son of school teacher Franz Xaver Veesenmayer from Oberstaufen in

Kempten Kempten (, (Swabian German: )) is the largest town of Allgäu, in Swabia, Bavaria, Germany. The population was about 68,000 in 2016. The area was possibly settled originally by Celts, but was later taken over by the Romans, who called the town ' ...

(Allgäu). From 1923–1926 he studied political science in

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and ...

, where he received a doctorate in political science in 1928. After, he taught at the Political-Economic Institute of the

Technical University of Munich The Technical University of Munich (TUM or TU Munich; german: Technische Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It specializes in engineering, technology, medicine, and applied science, applied and Natural sci ...

for four years.Jefferson Adams: Historical Dictionary of German Intelligence, Scarecrow Press, 2009 p. 470

Schenker AG career

Veesenmayer served on the advisory committee of the German transportation firm

Schenker AG Schenker AG is a German logistics company and a subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn, the German railway company. Within DB Logistics, the logistics branch of Deutsche Bahn, Schenker is responsible for land, sea, and air transport and contract logistics. ...

, which played a key role in moving Nazi plunder throughout Europe between 1938 and 1945.

SS career

Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1993-021-20, Edmund Veesenmayer

Veesenmayer joined the Nazi Party (

NSDAP The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...

) in November 1932 and the SS in 1934. By 1934 he had obtained a position in Hitler's economic affairs office in Berlin. Before the

July Putsch The July Putsch was a failed coup attempt against the Austrofascist regime by Austrian Nazis from 25 to 30 July 1934. Just a few months after the Austrian Civil War, Austrian Nazis and German SS soldiers attacked the Chancellery in Vienna in an ...

, he worked on aligning rivaling factions of the outlawed

Austrian Nazi Party Austrian Nazism or Austrian National Socialism was a pan-German movement that was formed at the beginning of the 20th century. The movement took a concrete form on 15 November 1903 when the German Worker's Party (DAP) was established in Austria ...

, forcing the resignation of Chancellor

Kurt Schuschnigg Kurt Alois Josef Johann von Schuschnigg (; 14 December 1897 – 18 November 1977) was an Austrian Fatherland Front politician who was the Chancellor of the Federal State of Austria from the 1934 assassination of his predecessor Engelbert Doll ...

, and establishing key economic connections between Austria and Germany. For this effort he was promoted to SS-Standartenführer in March 1938. His next job was dismembering Czechoslovakia and making

Jozef Tiso Jozef Gašpar Tiso (; hu, Tiszó József; 13 October 1887 – 18 April 1947) was a Slovak politician and Roman Catholic priest who served as president of the Slovak Republic, a client state of Nazi Germany during World War II, from 1939 to 194 ...

's Slovakia subservient to Nazi Germany in March 1939. In August of the same year he worked on intelligence gathering in the

Free City of Danzig The Free City of Danzig (german: Freie Stadt Danzig; pl, Wolne Miasto Gdańsk; csb, Wòlny Gard Gduńsk) was a city-state under the protection of the League of Nations between 1920 and 1939, consisting of the Baltic Sea port of Danzig (now Gda ...

where he worked on various measures designed to heighten tensions between Poland and Germany. For these efforts he was awarded the Danzig Cross Second Class. He joined influential business circles, making many friends in high places. From March 1940 to July 1943 he was entrusted with planning to move the (neutral)

Irish Free State The Irish Free State ( ga, Saorstát Éireann, , ; 6 December 192229 December 1937) was a state established in December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. The treaty ended the three-year Irish War of Independence between ...

against Britain. At the beginning of 1941 he was attached to the German diplomatic staff in

Zagreb Zagreb ( , , , ) is the capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Croatia#List of cities and towns, largest city of Croatia. It is in the Northern Croatia, northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slop ...

. Here, he arranged (with Ustashe leader

Slavko Kvaternik Slavko Kvaternik (25 August 1878 – 7 June 1947) was a Croatian Ustaše military general and politician who was one of the founders of the Ustaše movement. Kvaternik was military commander and Minister of '' Domobranstvo'' (''Armed Forces''). O ...

) the proclamation of the

Independent State of Croatia The Independent State of Croatia ( sh, Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, NDH; german: Unabhängiger Staat Kroatien; it, Stato indipendente di Croazia) was a World War II-era puppet state of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy (1922–1943), Fascist It ...

, four hours before the Germans entered the city. What Ante Pavelic meant by "independence", as Veesenmeyer reported to Berlin, was firstly to obtain German recognition of Croatia; and secondly, an opportunity to thank Hitler in person and promise him "to live and die for the Führer". Veesenmayer played an important role in the persecution and murder of Croatian and

Serbian Serbian may refer to: * someone or something related to Serbia, a country in Southeastern Europe * someone or something related to the Serbs, a South Slavic people * Serbian language * Serbian names See also * * * Old Serbian (disambiguation ...

Jewry. He was involved in an operation to overthrow the Hungarian government in 1944. On 15 March 1944 he was promoted to SS-Brigadeführer and became Reich plenipotentiary after the German occupation of Hungary. From March to October the same year he was involved in organising the

Final Solution The Final Solution (german: die Endlösung, ) or the Final Solution to the Jewish Question (german: Endlösung der Judenfrage, ) was a Nazi plan for the genocide of individuals they defined as Jews during World War II. The "Final Solution to th ...

for Hungary's Jews.Robert S. Wistrich: Who's Who in Nazi Germany, Routledge, 2013, , p. 266 In a telegram dated 13 June 1944 he reported to the Foreign Office: “transport Jews from Carpathian Mountains and Transylvania space … with a total of 289,357 Jews in 92 complete trains of 45 cars”. On 15 June 1944 Veesenmayer told

in a telegram that some 340,000 Jews had been delivered to the Reich. He also announced that after the final settlement of the Jewish question, the number of deported Hungarian Jews would reach 900,000.

Trial and conviction

In the Ministries Trial in 1949, Veesenmayer received a sentence of 20 years' imprisonment for crimes against humanity, slavery and membership in a criminal organization. In 1951, that was reduced to 10 years by U.S. High Commissioner of Germany

John J. McCloy John Jay McCloy (March 31, 1895 – March 11, 1989) was an American lawyer, diplomat, banker, and a presidential advisor. He served as Assistant Secretary of War during World War II under Henry Stimson, helping deal with issues such as German sa ...

under massive pressure from the West German government and public. Veesenmayer was released on 16 December 1951. After his release, between 1952 and 1955, Veesenmayer worked in

Tehran Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most popul ...

as a representative of Toepfer, a German

commodity In economics, a commodity is an economic good, usually a resource, that has full or substantial fungibility: that is, the market treats instances of the good as equivalent or nearly so with no regard to who produced them. The price of a co ...

trading company.Richard J. Evans: The Third Reich in History and Memory, Oxford University Press, 2015, , p. 233 At the end of his life, he lived in Darmstadt, where he died in 1977.

Early life

Schenker AG career

SS career

Trial and conviction

Notes

Sources

Further reading