Ferdinand von Sammern-Frankenegg

Ferdinand von Sammern-Frankenegg, 1938

SS-Brigadeführer Ferdinand von Sammern-Frankenegg (March 17, 1897 – September 20, 1944) was the Nazi German commander and the SS and Police Leader of the Warsaw area in German occupied Poland from 1941 until 1943 during World War II. He was in charge of the Großaktion Warschau, the single most deadly operation against the Jews in the course of the Holocaust in occupied Poland, which entailed sending about 254,000 – 265,000 men, women and children, aboard overcrowded Holocaust trains to the extermination camp in Treblinka.^[1] The liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto between July 23 and September 21, 1942 was disguised as a "resettlement action" in order to trick the victims into cooperating. It was a major part of the murderous campaign codenamed Operation Reinhard in the Final Solution.^[2] Von Sammern-Frankenegg remained in Warsaw until his first offensive operation in the suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising on April 19, 1943, but he was unsuccessful.^[3]

After the failed offensive, von Sammern-Frankenegg was replaced by Jürgen Stroop,^[4] and court-martialed by Heinrich Himmler on April 24, 1943 for his alleged ineptitude; which, for the SS, meant only one thing: guilty of "defending Jews".^[5] He was subsequently transferred to Croatia where in September 1944 he was killed in a Yugoslav partisan ambush near the town of Klašnić.

Awards

Common Army Signum Laudis with Swords Karl Troop Cross Wound Medal Third Reich SS-Ehrenring Sword of Honour of the Reichsführer-SS Julleuchter SS-Ehrendolch Goldenes Reichssportabzeichen Iron Cross (1939) 1st Class (posthumously) Independent State of Croatia Order of the Crown of King Zvonimir 1st Class with Stars and Oak Leaves Große Silberne Tapferkeitsmedaille Vergoldetes Verwundetenabzeichen

Sammern-Frankenegg's SS Ranks[6] Date Rank March 1933 SS-Sturmführer April 1935 SS-Untersturmführer November 1936 SS-Obersturmführer April 1937 SS-Hauptsturmführer November 1937 SS-Sturmbannführer March 1938 SS-Standartenführer January 1941 SS-Oberführer July 1944 SS-Brigadeführer

Notes

1. Holocaust Encyclopedia (10 June 2013). "Treblinka: Chronology" (Internet Archive). United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Archived from the original on 5 June 2012. Retrieved 21 October 2014. "Deportations."
2. Arad, Yitzhak (1999). Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: The Operation Reinhard Death Camps (Google Books preview). Indiana University Press. pp. 152–153. ISBN 978-0-253-21305-1.
3. David J Landau (2000), Caged — A story of Jewish Resistance, Pan Macmillan Australia, ISBN 0-7329-1063-3.
4. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising by Marek Edelman. Interpress Publishers, pp. 17–39 (undated).
5. Ferdinand von Sammern-Frankenegg at the Jewish Virtual Library.
6. Joseph Wulf: Das Dritte Reich und seine Vollstrecker. Die Liquidation von 500.000 Juden im Ghetto Warschau. Arani, Berlin 1961, p. 240

References

• "Warsaw Ghetto Uprising" by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum