Arpad Jakob Valentin Wigand (13 January 1906 – 26 July 1983) was a Nazi German war criminal with the rank of SS-Oberführer who served as the '' SS'' and Police Leader in

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 ...

(SS-und Polizeiführer (SSPF) from 4 August 1941 until 23 April 1943 during the

occupation of Poland Occupation commonly refers to: *Occupation (human activity), or job, one's role in society, often a regular activity performed for payment *Occupation (protest), political demonstration by holding public or symbolic spaces *Military occupation, th ...

in World War II. As an aide to Erich von dem Bach Zelewski he first suggested the site of the former Austrian and later Polish artillery barracks in the Zasole suburb of Oswiecim for a concentration camp in January 1940. This site would evolve into the

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 ...

which went on to become a major site of the Nazi "

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 ...

to the Jewish question" resulting in the death of up to 1,000,000 Jews.

Trial and conviction

After the war, he found himself in British captivity who later extradited him to Poland. In 1950, Wigand was sentenced by the District Court in Warsaw for

crimes against humanity Crimes against humanity are widespread or systemic acts committed by or on behalf of a ''de facto'' authority, usually a state, that grossly violate human rights. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity do not have to take place within the ...

to 15 years imprisonment, but was released in 1956 and deported to West Germany. In 1961, he was arrested by the West German judiciary and charged with participating in the murder of at least 2,300 Jews in Warsaw. Wigand was convicted of ordering police to shoot Jews found outside of the Warsaw ghetto in which they were forced to live. The court said it could not ascertain the exact number of Jews killed because of his order, but at least 100 died between August 1941 and the spring of 1942 when Wigand was police chief. This time Wigand was sentenced to 12 years and 6 months in prison. The court rejected the defenses contention that the order was designed to halt the spread of typhus by preventing carriers from leaving the ghetto. It called that defense 'monstrous.'

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wigand, Arpad 1906 births 1983 deaths SS-Oberführer SS and Police Leaders Einsatzgruppen personnel Waffen-SS personnel Holocaust perpetrators in Poland People convicted of crimes against humanity