On
this date, February 26, 1943, one of Hitler’s most evil henchmen, Theodor Eicke
was killed in action. I will post information about this SS-Obergruppenführer
from Wikipedia and other links.
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| Eicke as a SS-Obergruppenführer with Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross |
Born
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17 October 1892
Hudingen (Hampont), Alsace-Lorraine, German Empire |
Died
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26 February 1943
(aged 50)
near Kharkov, Ukraine, Soviet Union (present-day Kharkov, Ukraine) |
Allegiance
|
|
Service/branch
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Schutzstaffel
SS-Totenkopfverbände Waffen-SS |
Years of service
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1909–1943
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Rank
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SS-Obergruppenführer and General der Waffen-SS
|
Service number
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NSDAP #114,901
SS #2,921 |
Commands held
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3rd. SS-Division Totenkopf
|
Battles/wars
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World War I
World War II |
Awards
|
Ritterkreuz des Eisernes Kreuz mit Eichenlaub
|
Spouse(s)
|
Bertha Schwebel (m. 1914)
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Theodor Eicke (17 October 1892 – 26
February 1943) was an SS-Obergruppenführer
(German General), commander of the SS-Division (mot) Totenkopf
of the Waffen-SS
and one of the key figures in the establishment of concentration camps in Nazi
Germany. His Nazi Party number was 114,901 and his SS number was 2,921.
Together with SS-Obersturmbannführer
Michael Lippert, Eicke executed SA Chief Ernst Röhm following the Night of the Long
Knives purge.
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| Theodor Eicke |
Early
Life — World War I
Eicke,
the son of a station master, was born in Hudingen (Hampont),
near Château-Salins (then in the German province of Elsass-Lothringen)
into a lower-middle-class family. The youngest of 11 children, he did not do
well in school and dropped out at the age of 17 before graduation. He joined
the 23rd Bavarian
Infantry Regiment as a volunteer; later on, in World War I,
he took the office of paymaster for the 3rd — and, from 1916 on, the 22nd
Bavarian Infantry Regiment. He won the Iron Cross, Second Class in 1914 for
bravery.
Eicke
resigned from his position of army paymaster in 1919. He began studying in his
wife's hometown of Ilmenau. However, he dropped out of school again in 1920
intending to pursue a police career. He initially worked as an informer and
later as a regular policeman. His career in the police came to an end because
of his fervent hatred for the Weimar Republic and his repeated participation in
violent political demonstrations. He finally managed to find work in 1923 at IG Farben.
Nazi
activist
Eicke's
views on the Weimar Republic mirrored those of the Nazi Party,
which he joined, along with Ernst
Röhm's SA on 1 December 1928. He left the SA in August 1930
for the SS, where he quickly rose in rank
after recruiting new members and building up the SS organization in the
Bavarian palatinate. In 1931, Eicke was promoted to the
rank of SS-Standartenführer (colonel) by Reichsführer-SS
Heinrich Himmler.
His
political activities caught the attention of his employer and in early 1932 he
was laid off by IG Farben. At the same time, he was caught preparing bomb
attacks on political enemies in Bavaria for which he received a two-year prison sentence in
July 1932. However, due to protection received from Franz
Gürtner, who would later serve as minister of justice under Adolf
Hitler, he was able to flee to Italy on orders from Heinrich Himmler.
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|
Insignia of
the 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf
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Rise
in the SS
In
March 1933, less than three months after Hitler's rise to
power, Eicke returned to Germany. Eicke had political quarrels with Gauleiter Joseph Bürckel, who had him arrested and
detained for several months in a mental asylum. Also during the same month,
Himmler set up the first official concentration
camp at Dachau. Hitler had stated
that he did not want it to be just another prison or detention camp. In June
1933, Himmler obtained the release of Eicke from the asylum and promoted him to
an SS-Oberführer. On
26 June 1933, Himmler appointed him commandant of Dachau after complaints and
criminal proceedings against former commandant SS-Sturmbannführer Hilmar Wäckerle following the murder of
several detainees under the "guise of punishment". Eicke requested a
permanent unit and Himmler granted the request; the SS-Wachverbände
(Guard Unit) was formed.
Promoted
on 30 January 1934 to SS-Brigadeführer (equivalent to Major-general in the Waffen-SS), Eicke as
commander of Dachau reorganized the camp. Eicke devised a system that was used
as a model for future camps throughout Germany. He established new guarding provisions, which included rigid
discipline, total obedience to orders, and tightening disciplinary and punishment regulations for
detainees. Uniforms were issued for prisoners and guards alike; the guards' uniforms
had a special death's head insignia on their collar.
Eicke detested weakness and instructed his men that any SS man with a soft
heart should "...retire at once to a monastery". Eicke's anti-semitism and anti-bolshevism as well as his insistence on
unconditional obedience towards him, the SS and Hitler made an impression on
Himmler. In May 1934, Eicke claimed the title of Concentration Camps Inspector
for himself.
In
early 1934, Hitler and other Nazi leaders became concerned that Ernst Röhm, chief of the SA, was planning a coup d'état. Hitler
decided on 21 June that Röhm and the SA leadership had to be eliminated. The
purge of the SA leadership and other enemies of the state began on 30 June in
an action which became known as the Night of the
Long Knives. Eicke along with hand-chosen members of the Dachau
concentration camp guards assisted Sepp Dietrich's Leibstandarte
SS Adolf Hitler to arrest and imprison SA commanders. After Röhm
was arrested, Hitler gave him the choice to commit suicide or be shot. When
Röhm refused to kill himself, he was shot dead by Eicke (together with his
adjutant, Michael Lippert)
on 1 July 1934. Shortly thereafter, Himmler officially named Eicke chief of the
Inspektion
der Konzentrationslager (Concentration Camps Inspectorate or
CCI) and promoted him to the rank of SS-Gruppenführer in command of the SS-Wachverbände. As a result of the
Night of the Long Knives, the remaining SA-run camps were taken over by the SS.
In
his role as the Concentration Camps Inspector, Eicke began a large
reorganisation of the camps in 1935. The smaller camps were dismantled. Dachau
concentration camp remained, then Sachsenhausen
concentration camp opened in summer 1936, Buchenwald in summer 1937 and Ravensbrück (near Lichtenburg)
in May 1939. There were other new camps in Austria, such as Mauthausen-Gusen
concentration camp, opened in 1938. All SS camps' regulations, both
for guards and prisoners, followed the Dachau camp model.
Further,
in 1935, Dachau became the training center for the concentration camps service.
On 29 March 1936, the concentration camp guards and administration units were
officially designated as the SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV). Eicke's
reorganizations and the introduction of forced labour made the camps one of the
SS's most powerful tools; this earned him the enmity of Reinhard Heydrich, who had already unsuccessfully attempted to
take control of the Dachau concentration camp in his position as chief of the SD.
Eicke prevailed with support from Himmler.
Totenkopf
Division
At
the beginning of World War II, the success of the Totenkopf's sister
formations the SS-Infanterie-Regiment (mot) Leibstandarte
SS Adolf Hitler and the three Standarten of the SS-Verfügungstruppe led to Hitler
approving Himmler's recommendation for the creation of three Waffen-SS
divisions in October 1939.
SS-Division Totenkopf was formed from
concentration camp guards of the 1st (Oberbayern), 2nd (Brandenburg)
and 3rd (Thüringen) Standarten (regiments) of the SS-Totenkopfverbände,
and soldiers from the SS-Heimwehr Danzig. Eicke was given command of the
division.
After
Eicke was reassigned to combat duty, Richard Glücks
his deputy, was appointed the new CCI chief by Himmler. Later in early 1942,
the CCI became Amt D (Office D) of the SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt
(SS Main Economic and Administrative Department or SS-WVHA). Richard Glücks was
appointed the head of Amt D and answered to Oswald Pohl
the chief of the SS-WVHA. Pohl assured Eicke that the command structure he had
introduced would not fall to the jurisdiction of the Gestapo
and SD. The CCI and later Amt D were subordinate to the SD and Gestapo
only in regards to who was admitted to the camps and who was released. However,
what happened inside the camps was under the command of Amt D.
The
Totenkopf
Division went on to become one of the most effective German fighting formations
on the Eastern Front, often serving as "Hitler's firemen", rushed to
the scene of Soviet breakthroughs. During the course of the war, Eicke and his
division became known for brutality and several war crimes,
including the murder of 97 British POWs in Le Paradis in 1940, the murder of captured
Soviet soldiers and the plundering and pillaging of several Soviet villages.
The Totenkopf continued to show ferocity, during the advance in 1941 as
well as the summer offensive in 1942, the conquest of Kharkov, the
defense of the Demyansk Pocket, the defense of Warsaw, and Budapest in 1945.
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Theodor
Eicke and SS Division Totenkopf on the Eastern Front in 1941.
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Death
Eicke
was killed on 26 February 1943, several months after being promoted to SS-Obergruppenführer
(equivalent to general in the Waffen-SS). While
performing a battlefield reconnaissance during the opening stages of the Third Battle of
Kharkov, his Fieseler Fi 156
Storch aircraft was shot down by Soviet troops 1 kilometre southwest of Artelnoje
(near Lozovaya). An assault group from the
division recovered the bodies of Eicke, the pilot and SS-Hauptsturmführer
Friedrich from enemy territory.
Eicke
was portrayed in the Axis press as a hero, and soon after his death one of the Totenkopf's
infantry regiments received the cuff-title Theodor Eicke. Eicke was
originally buried at a German military cemetery near Orelka, Russia. Later,
Himmler ordered Eicke's remains disinterred and reburied at the Hegewald
German military cemetery in Zhitomir. In 1944, the
Germans were pushed back and forced to retreat yet again. Eicke's corpse was
left where it had been re-buried.
Personal life
Eicke
married Bertha Schwebel on 26 December 1914. They had two children, Irma (born
5 April 1916) and Hermann (born 4 May 1920, killed in action as Leutnant of the
Heer on 2 December 1941).
Summary
of his military career
Dates
of rank
- SS-Mann: 29 July 1930
- SS-Truppführer: August 1930
- SS-Sturmführer: 11 November 1930
- SS-Sturmbannführer: 30 January 1931
- SS-Standartenführer: 11 November 1931
- SS-Oberführer: 26 October 1932
- SS-Brigadeführer: 30 January 1934
- SS-Gruppenführer: 11 July 1934 und Generaleutnant der Waffen-SS: September 1941
- SS-Obergruppenführer und General der Waffen-SS: 20 April 1942
Notable
decorations
- Honour Cross of the World War 1914/1918 (1934)
- Golden Party Badge (1940)
- SS Honor Ring
- SS Honor Sword
- Iron Cross (1914) 2nd and 1st Class
- Clasp to the Iron Cross (1939)
- 2nd Class (26 May 1940)
- 1st Class (31 May 1940)
- Eastern Front Medal (1942)
- Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves
- Knight's Cross on 26 December 1941 as SS-Gruppenführer and Generalleutnant of the Waffen-SS and commander of SS-Division "Totenkopf"
- 88th Oak Leaves on 20 April 1942 as SS-Obergruppenführer and General of the Waffen-SS and commander of SS-"Totenkopf" Division
- Wound Badge in Silver
- Bavarian Military Merit Cross 2nd Class (?)[Note 1]
- War Merit Cross, Second Class (Brunswick)
- Mentioned in the Wehrmachtbericht on 21 October 1942
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