Ferdinand von Sammern-Frankenegg (17 March 1897 – 20 September 1944) was an Austrian SS functionary during the Nazi era. He was born in

Grieskirchen Grieskirchen is a town in Austria. It is capital of the Grieskirchen district of Upper Austria Upper Austria (german: Oberösterreich ; bar, Obaöstareich) is one of the nine states or of Austria. Its capital is Linz. Upper Austria border ...

. Von Sammern-Frankenegg served in

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

as a member of the Kaiserschützen, then of the K.u.k. Feldjäger and then after Austria-Hungary had formally surrendered, in the German

Freikorps Oberland The ''Freikorps Oberland'' (also ''Bund Oberland'' or ''Kameradschaft Freikorps und Bund Oberland'') was a voluntary paramilitary organization that, in the early years of the Weimar Republic, fought against Communist and Polish insurgents. It w ...

and the Steirischer Heimatschutz. Ferdinand von Sammern-Frankenegg earned his PhD in legal studies at the

University of Innsbruck The University of Innsbruck (german: Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck; la, Universitas Leopoldino Franciscea) is a public research university in Innsbruck, the capital of the Austrian federal state of Tyrol, founded on October 15, 1669. ...

in 1922. He had been a member of the dueling fraternity '' Universitätssängerschaft Skalden zu Innsbruck''. Von Sammern-Frankenegg worked as a lawyer in

Peuerbach Peuerbach is a town in Austria, in Grieskirchen (district) in the Austrian state of Upper Austria. On the 6th November 2016 there was a vote on whether Peuerbach would be merged with the neighbouring municipalities of Bruck-Waasen and Steegen ...

. He served as SS and Police Leader of the

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

area in

German-occupied Poland German-occupied Poland during World War II consisted of two major parts with different types of administration. The Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany following the invasion of Poland at the beginning of World War II—nearly a quarter of the ...

from 1941 until 1943 during

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 opposing ...

. Sammern-Frankenegg was in charge of the Großaktion Warschau, the single most deadly operation against the

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

in the course of

the Holocaust in occupied Poland The Holocaust in Poland was part of the European-wide Holocaust organized by Nazi Germany and took place in German-occupied Poland. During the genocide, three million Polish Jews were murdered, half of all Jews murdered during the Holocaust. ...

, which entailed sending between 254,000 and 265,000 men, women and children aboard overcrowded

Holocaust trains Holocaust trains were railway transports run by the '' Deutsche Reichsbahn'' national railway system under the control of Nazi Germany and its allies, for the purpose of forcible deportation of the Jews, as well as other victims of the Holocau ...

to the

extermination 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 ...

Treblinka Treblinka () was an extermination camp, built and operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II. It was in a forest north-east of Warsaw, south of the village of Treblinka in what is now the Masovian Voivodeship. The cam ...

.Holocaust Encyclopedia (10 June 2013)
"Treblinka: Chronology"
(Internet Archive). United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Archived from the original on 5 June 2012. Retrieved 21 October 2014. "Deportations." The "liquidation" of the

Warsaw Ghetto The Warsaw Ghetto (german: Warschauer Ghetto, officially , "Jewish Residential District in Warsaw"; pl, getto warszawskie) was the largest of the Nazi ghettos during World War II and the Holocaust. It was established in November 1940 by the G ...

between 23 July and 21 September 1942 was disguised as a "resettlement action" in order to trick the victims into cooperating. It was a major part of the murderous campaign codenamed Operation Reinhard in 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 ...

.Arad, Yitzhak (1999)
Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: The Operation Reinhard Death Camps
(Google Books preview). Indiana University Press. pp. 152–153. . Von Sammern-Frankenegg remained in Warsaw until his first offensive operation in the suppression of the

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising; pl, powstanie w getcie warszawskim; german: link=no, Aufstand im Warschauer Ghetto was the 1943 act of Jewish resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto in German-occupied Poland during World War II to oppose Nazi Germany' ...

on 19 April 1943, which was unsuccessful. After the failed offensive, von Sammern-Frankenegg was replaced by

Jürgen Stroop Jürgen Stroop (born Josef Stroop, 26 September 1895 – 6 March 1952) was a German SS commander during the Nazi era, who served as SS and Police Leader in occupied Poland and Greece. He led the suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 19 ...

,The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
by

Marek Edelman Marek Edelman ( yi, מאַרעק עדעלמאַן, born either 1919 in Homel or 1922 in Warsaw – October 2, 2009 in Warsaw, Poland) was a Polish political and social activist and cardiologist. Edelman was the last surviving leader of the ...

. Interpress Publishers, pp. 17–39 (undated). and court-martialed by SS leader

Heinrich Himmler Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was of the (Protection Squadron; SS), and a leading member of the Nazi Party of Germany. Himmler was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and a main architect of th ...

on 24 April 1943 for his alleged ineptitude; which, for the SS, meant only one thing: guilty of "defending Jews".Ferdinand von Sammern-Frankenegg
at the Jewish Virtual Library. He was subsequently transferred to

Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hungar ...

where in September 1944 he was killed in a

Yugoslav partisan The Yugoslav Partisans, Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian, Slovene: , or the National Liberation Army, sh-Latn-Cyrl, Narodnooslobodilačka vojska (NOV), Народноослободилачка војска (НОВ); mk, Народноослобод ...

ambush An ambush is a long-established military tactic in which a combatant uses an advantage of concealment or the element of surprise to attack unsuspecting enemy combatants from concealed positions, such as among dense underbrush or behind mo ...

near the town of Klašnić.

Notes

References

"Warsaw Ghetto Uprising"
by the

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust hi ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sammern-Frankenegg, Ferdinand von 1897 births 1943 deaths University of Innsbruck alumni Austrian military personnel killed in World War II Holocaust perpetrators in Poland SS and Police Leaders Warsaw Ghetto SS-Brigadeführer Members of the Reichstag of Nazi Germany Recipients of the Iron Cross (1939), 1st class Recipients of the Order of the Crown of King Zvonimir 20th-century Freikorps personnel People killed by Yugoslav Partisans