General of the Higher SS and Police Leader Corps, responsible for anti-partisan warfare

on the Eastern Front during World War Two.

Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski was born on 1 March 1899 in Lauenburg, Pomerania. A professional soldier from a Junker military family, handsome and typically East Prussian in manner, he served in World War One, then in the Freikorps and as a Reichswehr officer.  In 1924 he transferred to the border guards' units (Grenzschutz), where he remained until 1930.

After quitting the Grenzschutz he joined the German Nazi Party (I.D. card No. 489101) in 1930 and became a member of the SS in 1931. He gained rapid promotion and by the end of 1933 had reached the rank of SS-Brigadeführer.

From 1932 until 1944 he was a member of the Reichstag, representing the Breslau electoral district, and after 1934 he commanded SS and Gestapo units in East Prussia and Pomerania. It was at this point he began using his mother's maiden name "Bach", in order to sound more Germanic.

In 1939 Bach-Zelewski was promoted to the position of SS General and two years later he became a General of the Waffen-SS assigned to the Central Army Group on the Russian front until the end of 1942.

In this period Bach-Zelewski was responsible for many atrocities in which he took a personal part. On 31 October 1941 after 35,000 people had been executed in Riga, he proudly wrote: “There is not a Jew left in Estonia.”

He also participated actively in massacres of Jews in Minsk and Mogilev in White Russia, his headquarters was based in Mogilev. Himmler visited Minsk on the 15 August 1941 and witnessed an execution of Jews.

Von dem Bach-Zelewski claims to have lectured Himmler after the Minsk executions, telling him that the firing squad were now ruined for life, that they were destined to become either nervous wrecks or ruffians.  After the speech Himmler, Nebe, von dem Bach and Wolff inspected an insane asylum at Novinki.

Himmler ordered Nebe to end the suffering of these people as soon as possible, yet at the same time Himmler asked Nebe “to turn over in his mind” to various other killing methods more humane than shooting. Nebe asked permission to try out dynamite on the mentally ill people.

Von dem Bach and Wolff protested that the sick people were not guinea pigs, but Himmler decided in favour of the attempt. Much later Nebe confided to von dem Bach that the dynamite had been tried on the inmates with woeful results.

Read  more here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/einsatz/bach-zelweski.html

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team
www.HolocaustResearchProject.org