Günther Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Pancke (1 May 1899 – 17 August 1973) was a German SS functionary during the

Nazi era Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictat ...

who served as

Higher SS and Police Leader The title of SS and Police Leader (') designated a senior Nazi Party official who commanded various components of the SS and the German uniformed police ('' Ordnungspolizei''), before and during World War II in the German Reich proper and in the ...

Denmark Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...

History

Pancke was born in Gnesen (Gniezno),

Province of Posen The Province of Posen (; ) was a Provinces of Prussia, province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1848 to 1920, occupying most of the historical Greater Poland. The province was established following the Greater Poland Uprising (1848), Poznań Uprisi ...

German Empire The German Empire (),; ; World Book, Inc. ''The World Book dictionary, Volume 1''. World Book, Inc., 2003. p. 572. States that Deutsches Reich translates as "German Realm" and was a former official name of Germany. also referred to as Imperia ...

(today part of

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

). He served during the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

as frontline officer with the rank of Leutnant. Between 1920 and 1927 he stayed in

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

. He joined the

Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor ...

on 1 August 1930, and the SS on 1 June 1931. Pancke was appointed as Verbindungsoffizier between the Führerhauptquartier and the SS-Totenkopfverbänden and Einsatzgruppen des SD in 1939. After that he served as Höherer SS- und Polizeiführer "Mitte". From October 1943 until the end of the war he was appointed as the SS- und Polizeiführer " Dänemark" and was promoted to ''Obergruppenführer'' und General der Polizei on 20 April 1944, and General der

Waffen-SS The (; ) was the military branch, combat branch of the Nazi Party's paramilitary ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) organisation. Its formations included men from Nazi Germany, along with Waffen-SS foreign volunteers and conscripts, volunteers and conscr ...

on 21 March 1945. During his role in Denmark, he became incensed by the refusal of the Danish police to combat resistance forces or to protect factories from sabotage. He ordered the entire national police force, amounting to approximately 10,000 officers, to be arrested and sent to the

Buchenwald Buchenwald (; 'beech forest') was a German Nazi concentration camp established on Ettersberg hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within the Altreich (Old Reich) territori ...

concentration camp. Approximately 1,700 were arrested, with the balance eluding capture.Stephanie A. Lewis and Barbara C. Mallen
''The Heel of the Conqueror''
p. 107. Time Life series on The Third Reich (Henry Woodhead, Ed.), 1991. In 1948, Pancke was found guilty of war crimes by a Danish court and sentenced to 20 years in prison. However, he was released early in 1953. Pancke died on 17 August 1973 in Hamburg.

References

Sources and external links

Interrogation of Pancke, Günther, in pdf format in Nuremberg.pdf
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pancke, Gunther 1899 births 1973 deaths People from Gniezno People from the Province of Posen Prussian Army personnel German Army personnel of World War I Nazis convicted of war crimes SS and police leaders German people imprisoned abroad Prisoners and detainees of Denmark German police officers convicted of crimes Waffen-SS personnel SS-Obergruppenführer 20th-century Freikorps personnel