Rudolf Querner (10 June 1893 – 27 May 1945) was a German SS functionary during the Nazi era. He served as the Higher SS and Police Leader in Austria and Germany and was responsible for the evacuations and death marches from concentration camps at the end of the war. Arrested by the Allied authorities, he committed suicide in prison.

Early life

Querner, the son of a manor owner, was born in Lehnsdorf near

Kamenz Kamenz () or Kamjenc ( Sorbian) is a town (''Große Kreisstadt'') in the district of Bautzen in Saxony, Germany. Until 2008 it was the administrative seat of Kamenz District. The town is known as the birthplace of the philosopher and poet Gotthol ...

. He served as an officer in the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fig ...

and finished the war as a prisoner of the French. He was married in 1919 following his release and had four children during the course of the marriage. The same year he also enrolled in the police.Ernst Klee: ''Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich'', Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 475.

SS career

Querner joined the

Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...

in 1933 with the membership number of 2,385,386. From 1936-37 he served as Generalmajor of the

Ordnungspolizei The ''Ordnungspolizei'' (), abbreviated ''Orpo'', meaning "Order Police", were the uniformed police force in Nazi Germany from 1936 to 1945. The Orpo organisation was absorbed into the Nazi monopoly on power after regional police jurisdictio ...

and from September 1939 was the inspector of commanders in

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; nds, label=Hamburg German, Low Saxon, Hamborg ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (german: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg; nds, label=Low Saxon, Friee un Hansestadt Hamborg),. is the List of cities in Germany by popul ...

. He joined the SS in 1938 as member number 308,240. He also served as Ordnungspolizei commander in

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

in 1939 and from 1940-41 as inspector general of county constabulary. From 1 May 1941 to at the end of January 1943 Querner was SS and Police Leader (HSSPF) Nordsee in

Military district Military districts (also called military regions) are formations of a state's armed forces (often of the Army) which are responsible for a certain area of territory. They are often more responsible for administrative than operational matters, and ...

X, based in Hamburg. Working closely with

Gauleiter A ''Gauleiter'' () was a regional leader of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) who served as the head of a '' Gau'' or ''Reichsgau''. ''Gauleiter'' was the third-highest rank in the Nazi political leadership, subordinate only to ''Reichsleiter'' and to th ...

Karl Kaufmann Karl Kaufmann (10 October 1900 – 4 December 1969) was a German politician who served as a Nazi Party ''Gauleiter'' from 1925 to 1945 and as the ''Reichsstatthalter'' (Reich Governor) of Hamburg from 1933 to 1945. Early life Kaufmann was the ...

Querners had responsibility over all police matters and was also involved in the

deportation Deportation is the expulsion of a person or group of people from a place or country. The term ''expulsion'' is often used as a synonym for deportation, though expulsion is more often used in the context of international law, while deportation ...

of the

Portuguese Jewish community in Hamburg From about 1590 on, there had been a Portuguese Jewish community in Hamburg, whose ''qehilla'' (קהילה "congregation") existed until its compulsory merger with the Ashkenazi congregation in July 1939. The first Sephardic settlers were Portugu ...

, which began at the end of October 1941. Whilst based in Hamburg Querner ordered large quantities of Zyklon-B from Tesch & Stabenow pest control company. From January 1943 to October 1944 he was HSSPF for district XVII, based at

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

. On 21 June 1943 he was promoted to SS-Obergruppenführer and on 1 July 1944 to General of the Waffen-SS. Following the

20 July plot On 20 July 1944, Claus von Stauffenberg and other conspirators attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Führer of Nazi Germany, inside his Wolf's Lair field headquarters near Rastenburg, East Prussia, now Kętrzyn, in present-day Poland. Th ...

Querner's district undertook harsh measures against any possible revolution, although Querner had delegated authority in this instance to his subordinate Heinrich Kodré. He resumed his career as HSSPF in district XI, based in

Braunschweig Braunschweig () or Brunswick ( , from Low German ''Brunswiek'' , Braunschweig dialect: ''Bronswiek'') is a city in Lower Saxony, Germany, north of the Harz Mountains at the farthest navigable point of the river Oker, which connects it to the ...

, from October 1944 to 8 May 1945. Here he was largely responsible for the evacuation of the concentration and POW camps in the district.Linde Apel, Hamburger Behörde für Kultur, Sport, Medien, in Zusammenarbeit with the Forschungsstelle für Zeitgeschichte in Hamburg und der KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme (ed.): ''In den Tod geschickt - Die Deportationen von Juden, Roma und Sinti aus Hamburg, 1940 bis 1945'', Metropol Verlag, Hamburg 2009 - DVD zur Ausstellung, ''Die Täter'', p. 6

Arrest and suicide

Arrested at the end of the war, Querner committed suicide at

Magdeburg Magdeburg (; nds, label= Low Saxon, Meideborg ) is the capital and second-largest city of the German state Saxony-Anhalt. The city is situated at the Elbe river. Otto I, the first Holy Roman Emperor and founder of the Archdiocese of Mag ...

in captivity.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Querner, Rudolf 1893 births 1945 suicides 1945 deaths German Army personnel of World War I Holocaust perpetrators in Germany SS and Police Leaders Nazis who committed suicide in prison custody German prisoners of war in World War I World War I prisoners of war held by France Nazis who committed suicide in Germany Waffen-SS personnel SS-Obergruppenführer Police of Nazi Germany German prisoners of war in World War II