Theodor Emil Saevecke (–) was an SS officer and perpetrator of the

Holocaust in 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. ...

and the

Holocaust in Italy The Holocaust in Italy was the persecution, deportation, and murder of Jews between 1943 and 1945 in the Italian Social Republic, the part of the Kingdom of Italy occupied by Nazi Germany after the Italian surrender on September 8, 1943, dur ...

Biography

In 1926, he was a member of the ''

Freikorps (, "Free Corps" or "Volunteer Corps") were irregular German and other European military volunteer units, or paramilitary, that existed from the 18th to the early 20th centuries. They effectively fought as mercenary or private armies, regar ...

'', fighting against both the

Weimar Republic The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is al ...

and communists. On 1 February 1929, Saevecke became a member of 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 ...

(Nazi Party) (member 112,407). In 1938 he became a member of the ''

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) (member 396,401). After the war in Europe started, he was a member of the mobile SS

death squad A death squad is an armed group whose primary activity is carrying out extrajudicial killings or forced disappearances as part of political repression, genocide, ethnic cleansing, or revolutionary terror. Except in rare cases in which they are ...

, ''

Einsatzgruppen (, ; 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 im ...

'' IV in Poland through 1940. Later he was promoted to the rank of SS-''

Hauptsturmführer __NOTOC__ (, ; short: ''Hstuf'') was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank that was used in several Nazi organizations such as the SS, NSKK and the NSFK. The rank of ''Hauptsturmführer'' was a mid-level commander and had equivalent seniority to a ...

'' and served in the SS-''

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 ...

'' (SD; Security Service) in Libya and Tunisia between 1942–1943, under

Walter Rauff Walter (Walther) Rauff (19 June 1906 – 14 May 1984) was a mid-ranking SS commander in Nazi Germany. From January 1938, he was an aide of Reinhard Heydrich firstly in the Security Service (''Sicherheitsdienst'' or ''SD''), later in the Reich Sec ...

. Between 1943–1945, Saevecke was head 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 ...

and the Italian fascist police in

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

. During his time he was responsible for the deportation of at least 700 Italian Jews to extermination camps. After the war, in 1962, while a ''Kriminalrat'' at ''Sicherungsgruppe'' Bonn, he led a police raid on the

Spiegel scandal The ''Spiegel'' affair of 1962 (german: link=no, Spiegel-Affäre) was a political scandal in West Germany. It stemmed from the publication of an article in '' Der Spiegel,'' West Germany's weekly political magazine, about the nation's defense ...

. From 1947 on he worked for the CIA. The responsibility for his case was moved from American to British side and back and he was never accused of anything. A group of historians therefore concluded, he was under protection of American intelligence service by then (T. Naftali: The CIA and Eichmann’s Associates. 2005, p. 356). Protected through his connections in post-war Germany, Saevecke was sentenced in absentia in

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese language, Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital ...

in 1999 to life imprisonment for his involvement in the execution of hostages in Milan in August 1944 but never extradited to Italy. Saevecke died on 16 December 2000.

References

External links

Saevecke's CIA file
Freikorps SS-Hauptsturmführer Gestapo personnel Reich Security Main Office personnel Einsatzgruppen personnel Holocaust perpetrators in Tunisia Holocaust perpetrators in Poland Holocaust perpetrators in Italy People of the Central Intelligence Agency 1911 births 2000 deaths Germans convicted of war crimes committed in Italy during World War II {{Germany-bio-stub

Biography

Further reading

References

External links