Lothar Beutel (6 May 1902 – 16 May 1986) was a German pharmacist by profession and

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 ...

(SS) officer in World War II serving on behalf of the

Sicherheitsdienst ' (, ''Security Service''), full title ' (Security Service of the ''Reichsführer-SS''), or SD, was the intelligence agency of the SS and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. Established in 1931, the SD was the first Nazi intelligence organization ...

branch of the SS.

Biography

Born in

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...

in 1902, Beutel served as a volunteer in the Infantry Regiments 11 and 38 from 1921 to 1923 while studying pharmacy, economy and art history, finishing his degree in

Chemnitz Chemnitz (; from 1953 to 1990: Karl-Marx-Stadt , ) is the third-largest city in the German state of Saxony after Leipzig and Dresden. It is the 28th largest city of Germany as well as the fourth largest city in the area of former East Germany a ...

Saxony Saxony (german: Sachsen ; Upper Saxon: ''Saggsn''; hsb, Sakska), officially the Free State of Saxony (german: Freistaat Sachsen, links=no ; Upper Saxon: ''Freischdaad Saggsn''; hsb, Swobodny stat Sakska, links=no), is a landlocked state of ...

. Beutel originally joined the 'Orgesch' (from 'Organisation Escherich), an anti-Semitic paramilitary group, and, later, the

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 ...

in June 1929. In May 1930 he joined the

, the SS. From 1933 to 1938 he was in charge of the ''

'' for south east Germany, based in Leipzig. At the same time, since 1933, he was also the assistant ''Reichsapothekerführer'', the head of the national Nazi-controlled association of pharmacists. Beutel was involved in the

Night of the Long Knives The Night of the Long Knives (German: ), or the Röhm purge (German: ''Röhm-Putsch''), also called Operation Hummingbird (German: ''Unternehmen Kolibri''), was a purge that took place in Nazi Germany from 30 June to 2 July 1934. Chancellor Ad ...

, the purge of the SA, leading a death squad in Saxony. From 1937 to 1939 Beutel commanded the Bavarian branch of 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 ...

. He was drafted to the

Waffen-SS The (, "Armed SS") was the combat branch of the Nazi Party's ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) organisation. Its formations included men from Nazi Germany, along with Waffen-SS foreign volunteers and conscripts, volunteers and conscripts from both occup ...

on 28 August 1939, during 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 ...

invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week aft ...

, then the SS-''

Brigadeführer ''Brigadeführer'' (, ) was a paramilitary rank of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) that was used between the years of 1932 to 1945. It was mainly known for its use as an SS rank. As an SA rank, it was used after briefly being known as ''Untergruppenf� ...

'' Beutel commanded ''

Einsatzgruppe (, ; also 'task forces') were (SS) paramilitary death squads of Nazi Germany that were responsible for mass murder, primarily by shooting, during World War II (1939–1945) in German-occupied Europe. The had an integral role in the imple ...

IV''. In this position Beutel organised the initial capture of

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 ...

Jewish 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 ...

population and set in motion their ghettoization. Beutel was also active in

Bydgoszcz Bydgoszcz ( , , ; german: Bromberg) is a city in northern Poland, straddling the meeting of the River Vistula with its left-bank tributary, the Brda. With a city population of 339,053 as of December 2021 and an urban agglomeration with more ...

where he personally ordered a number of mass shootings including the murder of around 120-150 Poles taken to nearby woods and shot on 11 and 12 September 1939.

Jochen Böhler Jochen Böhler (born 1969 in Rheinfelden) is a German historian, specializing in the history of Eastern Europe in the 19th and 20th century, especially the World Wars, the Holocaust, nationality and borderland studies. He is the recipient of sev ...

Klaus-Michael Mallmann Klaus-Michael Mallmann (born 3 November 1948, in Kaiserslautern) is a German historian at the University of Stuttgart. Scientific career Mallmann studied history, Sociology, Politics and German studies at the Saarland University. In 1979 he was a ...

Jürgen Matthäus Jürgen Matthäus (born 1959) is a German historian and head of the research department of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. He is an author and editor of multiple works on the history of World War II and the Holocaust. Matthäus was ...

: ''Einsatzgruppen w Polsce'' ("Einsatzgruppen in Poland"), Bellona, Warszawa 2009, pp. 80, 141 This figure is given as 900 by another source. Criminal police (

Kripo ''Kriminalpolizei'' (, "criminal police") is the standard term for the criminal investigation agency within the police forces of Germany, Austria, and the German-speaking cantons of Switzerland. In Nazi Germany, the Kripo was the criminal polic ...

) commander

Arthur Nebe Arthur Nebe (; 13 November 1894 – 21 March 1945) was a German Schutzstaffel, SS functionary who was key in the security and police apparatus of Nazi Germany and from 1941, a major perpetrator of the Holocaust. Nebe rose through the ranks of ...

ordered that Beutel, who quickly became noted for his corruption, be investigated for the rape of a Polish girl whose mother cooked for the SS. By mid-October 1939 Beutel had been replaced as ''Einsatzgruppe IV'' chief by

Josef Albert Meisinger Josef Albert Meisinger (14 September 1899 – 7 March 1947), also known as the "Butcher of Warsaw", was an SS functionary in Nazi Germany. He held a position in the Gestapo and was a member of the Nazi Party. During the early phases of World War ...

Barbara Engelking Barbara Engelking (born 22 April 1962) is a Polish sociologist specializing in Holocaust studies. The founder and director of the Polish Center for Holocaust Research in Warsaw, she is the author or editor of several works on the Holocaust in P ...

Jacek Leociak Jacek Leociak (born 2 June 1957, in Warsaw) is a Polish literary scholar and historian as well as author. He is a professor of humanities and an employee of the Institute of Literary Research at the Polish Academy of Sciences and the Polish Cente ...

, ''The Warsaw Ghetto: A Guide to the Perished City'',

Yale University Press Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day, and became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and operationally autonomous. , Yale Universi ...

, 2009, p. 31 Beutel was arrested on charges of embezzlement and for living with a Jewish woman and spent four weeks in

Dachau concentration camp , , commandant = List of commandants , known for = , location = Upper Bavaria, Southern Germany , built by = Germany , operated by = ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) , original use = Political prison , construction ...

. He was demoted in rank in October 1939 and lost his SS membership. He subsequently served in a penal unit of the SS-Totenkopfdivision in France before returning to civilian life, working as a pharmacist again. Beutel was once more drafted into the Waffen-SS in 1944 and wounded and captured by Soviet forces in Hungary. Beutel spent the next ten years as a prisoner of war, before being released in October 1955. He returned to his profession of pharmacist, now living in

West Berlin West Berlin (german: Berlin (West) or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin during the years of the Cold War. Although West Berlin was de jure not part of West Germany, lacked any sovereignty, and was under mi ...

. Beutel was arrested in May 1965, and released on bail in 1967. In 1971, charges were dropped against him due to a lack of evidence. He died in West Berlin in 1986.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Beutel, Lothar 1902 births 1986 deaths Military personnel from Leipzig Einsatzgruppen personnel People from the Kingdom of Saxony Waffen-SS personnel SS-Brigadeführer 20th-century Freikorps personnel Holocaust perpetrators in Poland German pharmacists German prisoners of war in World War II held by the Soviet Union