Karl Bömelburg (28 October 1885 – 26 December 1947) was an SS-'' Sturmbannführer'' (major) and head of the

Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, 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 F ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. He notably had authority over section IV J, charged with the deportation of the Jews, for which Alois Brunner (sent in 1943 by Heinrich Müller) was responsible. His aliases included Charles Bois, Mollemburg, and Bennelburger.

Life

Before the war

During his youth, he spent five years in Paris, in which he learned to speak nearly perfect French. He returned to Germany, was married and began working in his parents' bakery in Berlin. In 1931, Bömelburg became a member of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazi Party), joining the SA then the SS. In 1933 he joined the Gestapo, in which he became a commissary directing the Kripo in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

. In 1938 he joined the staff of Joachim von Ribbentrop in Paris. At the start of November, he was put in charge of enquiries into the murder of Ernst vom Rath. When this affair was quickly resolved, he became attached to the German ambassador in Paris, setting up an unofficial Gestapo centre in Paris. He worked in

Lyon Lyon (Franco-Provençal: ''Liyon'') is a city in France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of the French Alps, southeast of Paris, north of Marseille, southwest of Geneva, Switzerland, north ...

and Saint-Étienne, making use of his French language ability. In January 1939, he was expelled by Antoine Mondanel, the inspector general of the judicial police, for helping extreme-right French organisations and fifth-columnists. He moved to

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

, becoming police counsellor to the Gestapo and the head of its anti- Maquis section. After the Germans' uncontested invasion of Czechoslavakia on 15 March 1939, for a time they encouraged Jews to leave the country while opposing the emigration of "political" refugees. Bömelburg provided documents that enabled Trevor Chadwick and Beatrice Wellington of the British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia to evacuate hundreds of both political and Jewish refugees, including 669 mostly Jewish children, from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia just prior to the beginning of World War II.

Paris

On 14 June 1940, during the German invasion of France, Bömelburg returned to France in colonel Helmut Knochen's Kommando SD and acted as ''Kommandeur der Sicherheitspolizei'' (''KdS'', Commander of Security Police). In August he was promoted to lieutenant colonel in the SS and had Heinrich Müller name him his personal representative and the head of the

(section IV of the BdS covering France), with the title of criminal director. His activities during the time he spent in Paris passed from repression and interrogations to the frequent use of torture in the courts by his subordinates such as Ernst Misselwitz, but also fashionable soirées and little gifts offered by Henri Lafont, derived from the black market or from war loot. One of Bömelburg's wishes was to have a poultry farm, and Henri Lafont obliged by giving him a farm near Giverny staffed by his own men. His offices were situated at 11 rue des Saussaies (1940–1942), then 84 Avenue Foch, and his adjutants included '' Sturmbannführer'' Josef Kieffer. In 1941 he succeeded Rudy de Mérode at 43, avenue Victor-Hugo in Neuilly, in a ''Gasthaus'' (a house reserved for "forced" guests), which came to be called villa Boemelburg. He personally recruited agents, with the initial B or Boe. In summer 1941 he made a trip to the unoccupied zone to reactivate pre-war agents, and in the autumn he supervised the inquiry into Paul Collette, who had tried to assassinate Pierre Laval and Marcel Déat. During that year, he also headed up the Red Orchestra Kommando and enacted Operation Funkspiel against the workers' Soviets. In autumn 1942 he put ''Aktion Donar'' into effect, and in June 1943 he was the last German senior officer to see Jean Moulin alive. Moulin had been arrested on 21 June at Caluire, and then spent two weeks (25 June to 8 July) at villa Boemelburg, before dying on his train journey to Berlin. In November 1943, Bömelburg reached the age limit and was replaced by an officer surnamed Stindt. Bömelburg was transferred to Vichy, where he represented Carl Oberg, and then in June 1944 replaced SS captain Hugo Geissler (killed in an ambush near Murat) as head of the Gestapo in the southern zone of France. On 28 August that year he ensured Marshal

Philippe Pétain Henri Philippe Bénoni Omer Joseph Pétain (; 24 April 1856 – 23 July 1951), better known as Marshal Pétain (, ), was a French marshal who commanded the French Army in World War I and later became the head of the Collaboration with Nazi Ger ...

's safe journey to Sigmaringen, as security-chief, and then on 29 April 1945 authorised Pétain's departure for Switzerland.

Postwar

In May 1945, after the German surrender, Bömelburg and his Gestapo chief in Berlin, Heinrich Müller, disappeared and were never recaptured. Bömelburg doctored the papers of a sergeant Bergman, killed in the bombardment, and adopted his identity. He was hired as a gardener near Munich, then promoted to librarian, and also directed a group of active Nazis fleeing to Francoist Spain. At Saint-Sylvestre, in 1946, he slipped on ice, broke his skull and died. Later his son, Ralf, engraved his name on the family tombstone.Source : Jean Lartéguy and Bob Maloubier He was condemned to death ''

in absentia ''In Absentia'' is the seventh studio album by British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, first released on 24 September 2002. The album marked several changes for the band, with it being the first with new drummer Gavin Harrison and the f ...

'' on 2 March 1950 by a military tribunal meeting in Lyon, and the Czechoslovak authorities were also seeking him for trial for war crimes.

Bibliography

*Jacques Delarue, ''Histoire de la

'' Ed. Fayard, 1962. *Jean Paul Cointet, ''Sigmaringen'' Ed. Perrin, 2003, . *Cyril Eder, ''Les Comtesses de la

'' Ed. Grasset, 2007, . *Patrice Miannay, ''Dictionnaire des agents doubles dans la Résistance'', le cherche midi, 2005, . *Jean Lartéguy and Bob Maloubier, ''Triple jeu, l'espion Déricourt'', Robert Laffont, 1992. * Monika Siedentopf, ''Parachutées en terre ennemie'', Perrin, 2008. See p. 97.

Notes