Karl Rahm (2 April 1907 – 30 April 1947) was a

Sturmbannführer __NOTOC__ ''Sturmbannführer'' (; ) was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank equivalent to major that was used in several Nazi organizations, such as the SA, SS, and the NSFK. The rank originated from German shock troop units of the First World War ...

(major) in the German ''

Schutzstaffel The ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS; also stylized as ''ᛋᛋ'' with Armanen runes; ; "Protection Squadron") was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany, and later throughout German-occupied Europe d ...

'' who, from February 1944 to May 1945, served as the commandant of the

Theresienstadt concentration camp Theresienstadt Ghetto was established by the Schutzstaffel, SS during World War II in the fortress town of Terezín, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (German occupation of Czechoslovakia, German-occupied Czechoslovakia). Theresienstad ...

. Rahm was the third and final commander of the camp, succeeding Siegfried Seidl and Anton Burger. He was hanged for war crimes.

Early life and Nazi membership

Rahm was born in 1907 in the city of

Klosterneuburg Klosterneuburg (; frequently abbreviated as Kloburg by locals) is a town in Tulln District in the Austrian state of Lower Austria. It has a population of about 27,500. The Klosterneuburg Monastery, which was established in 1114 and soon after give ...

, in what was then the

Austro-Hungarian Empire Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...

. He apprenticed as a toolmaker and worked for a time in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, where during the 1920s he was exposed to the activities of the

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

Nazi Party 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 ...

. He became a member of the Nazis in the early 1930s and joined the underground

Austrian SS The Austrian SS was that portion of the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) membership from Austria. The term and title was used unofficially. They were never officially recognized as a separate branch of the SS. Austrian SS members were seen as regular personn ...

at the same time. In 1938, after the

Anschluss The (, or , ), also known as the (, en, Annexation of Austria), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the German Reich on 13 March 1938. The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a " Greater Germany ...

with

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 ...

, Rahm became an SS officer attached to

SS-Oberabschnitt Donau The Austrian SS was that portion of the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) membership from Austria. The term and title was used unofficially. They were never officially recognized as a separate branch of the SS. Austrian SS members were seen as regular personn ...

under the command 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 ...

. His brother Franz was deported to a concentration camp as a Communist.

World War II

At the start of

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 ...

in 1939, Rahm was an SS-

Obersturmführer __NOTOC__ (, ; short: ''Ostuf'') was a Nazi Germany paramilitary rank that was used in several Nazi organisations, such as the SA, SS, NSKK and the NSFK. The rank of ''Obersturmführer'' was first created in 1932 as the result of an expa ...

in the

Allgemeine-SS The ''Allgemeine SS'' (; "General SS") was a major branch of the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) paramilitary forces of Nazi Germany; it was managed by the SS Main Office (''SS-Hauptamt''). The ''Allgemeine SS'' was officially established in the autum ...

. Applying for transfer to full-time SS duties, Rahm was attached to the

Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...

and assigned to the

Central Agency for Jewish Emigration in Vienna The Central Agency for Jewish Emigration in Vienna () was a ''Sicherheitsdienst'' (SD-Security Service) agency established in August 1938 to accelerate the forced emigration of the Austrian Jews and (starting in October 1939) to organize and carr ...

, where he served under

Adolf Eichmann Otto Adolf Eichmann ( ,"Eichmann"
''

Hans Günther. In March 1941, Rahm was briefly sent to the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

together with Günther, to set up the same institution here, which however failed.

Theresienstadt

Rahm was promoted to SS-

in February 1944 and ordered to assume duties as Kommandant (commander) of the

Theresienstadt Theresienstadt Ghetto was established by the Schutzstaffel, SS during World War II in the fortress town of Terezín, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (German occupation of Czechoslovakia, German-occupied Czechoslovakia). Theresienstad ...

camp. One of his first duties was to oversee the camp "beautification project" as a prelude for orchestrating the infamous show-tour of the concentration camp to the

International Red Cross The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC; french: Comité international de la Croix-Rouge) is a humanitarian organization which is based in Geneva, Switzerland, and it is also a three-time Nobel Prize Laureate. State parties (signato ...

(IRC). The affair was part of a much larger scheme to influence world opinion that

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 ...

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

-occupied

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

were well treated. After the IRC visit Rahm supervised the creation of a propaganda film, '' Theresienstadt. Ein Dokumentarfilm aus dem jüdischen Siedlungsgebiet'' (''Terezin: A Documentary Film of the Jewish Resettlement''), that was to be shown in neutral countries. During his time as Kommandant, Rahm oversaw mass deportations of Jews from Theresienstadt to

Auschwitz concentration camp Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...

, the heaviest volume of which occurred in the fall of 1944, after the IRC visit and the making of the propaganda film. 18,000 people were deported within one month. Theresienstadt had imprisoned prominent artists, musicians, and intellectuals of the era, some of whom died in Theresienstadt or subsequently in Auschwitz. Rahm was known for his cynical and rash character; he frequently beat prisoners himself and oversaw torture sessions. On the other hand, Rahm appears to have had an interesting, almost cordial relationship with some Jewish inmates, especially those who shared his working-class Viennese background. He further was known to spare some Jews from deportation (albeit in return for a

bribe Bribery is the offering, giving, receiving, or soliciting of any item of value to influence the actions of an official, or other person, in charge of a public or legal duty. With regard to governmental operations, essentially, bribery is "Corr ...

) as well as on occasion referring to members of the Theresienstadt

Judenrat A ''Judenrat'' (, "Jewish council") was a World War II administrative agency imposed by Nazi Germany on Jewish communities across occupied Europe, principally within the Nazi ghettos. The Germans required Jews to form a ''Judenrat'' in every com ...

in the German tense of ''Sie'' (indicating respect) instead of ''du'', even in front of other SS officers.

Post-war capture, trial, and execution

Rahm evacuated Theresienstadt on May 5, 1945, along with the last of the SS personnel. He was captured shortly afterward by American forces in Austria and extradited in 1947 to

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

. Put on trial, Rahm was found guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to death. Rahm was hanged on April 30, 1947, four hours after his guilty verdict had been handed down by the Czech court.State Regional Archive Litomerice, MLS 441/47

Depictions in media

In the mini-series ''

War and Remembrance ''War and Remembrance'' is a novel by Herman Wouk, published in October 1978 as the sequel to Wouk's ''The Winds of War'' (1971). ''The Winds of War'' covers the period 1939 to 1941, and ''War and Remembrance'' continues the story of the extended ...

'', Rahm is portrayed by British actor

Robert Stephens Sir Robert Graham Stephens (14 July 193112 November 1995) was a leading English actor in the early years of Britain's Royal National Theatre. He was one of the most respected actors of his generation and was at one time regarded as the natur ...

. John Collin portrayed Rahm in the miniseries ''

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; a ...

''.

References

External links

Axis History Forum

Documents about Karl Rahm
in the collection of th
Jewish Museum Prague
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rahm, Karl 1907 births 1947 deaths SS-Sturmbannführer Theresienstadt concentration camp personnel People from Klosterneuburg Nazis executed by Czechoslovakia by hanging Executed Austrian Nazis Gestapo personnel Austrian people convicted of crimes against humanity Austrian people executed abroad Holocaust perpetrators in Bohemia and Moravia People extradited from Austria People extradited to Czechoslovakia Executed Nazi concentration camp commandants People executed for crimes against humanity Executed mass murderers