Theodor Adrian von Renteln Theodor Adrian von Renteln (15 September 1897 – 1946 (disputed)) was an activist and politician in

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

. During World War II, he was General Commissioner of ''

Generalbezirk Litauen Generalbezirk Litauen ( lt, Lietuvos generalinė sritis, ) was one of the four administrative subdivisions of ''Reichskommissariat Ostland'', the 1941-1945 civilian occupation regime established by Nazi Germany for the administration of the three ...

'' and was involved in perpetrating

the Holocaust in Lithuania The Holocaust in Lithuania resulted in the near total destruction of Lithuanian (Litvaks) and Polish Jews, living in '' Generalbezirk Litauen'' of '' Reichskommissariat Ostland'' within the Nazi-controlled Lithuanian SSR. Out of approximately 2 ...

. Of

Baltic German Baltic Germans (german: Deutsch-Balten or , later ) were ethnic German inhabitants of the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, in what today are Estonia and Latvia. Since their coerced resettlement in 1939, Baltic Germans have markedly declined ...

origin, von Renteln studied law and economics in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...

and

Rostock Rostock (), officially the Hanseatic and University City of Rostock (german: link=no, Hanse- und Universitätsstadt Rostock), is the largest city in the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and lies in the Mecklenburgian part of the state ...

, but became a journalist. In 1928, he joined the

NSDAP 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 ...

and the following year, he became the founder and head of the

National Socialist Schoolchildren's League The National Socialist Schoolchildren's League (Nationalsozialistischer Schülerbund), known under the acronyms NSS and more rarely NSSB, was a Nazi Party organisation for primary school pupils providing a student council and child protection syst ...

(NSS). In 1931, he was appointed the head of the

Hitler Youth The Hitler Youth (german: Hitlerjugend , often abbreviated as HJ, ) was the youth organisation of the Nazi Party in Germany. Its origins date back to 1922 and it received the name ("Hitler Youth, League of German Worker Youth") in July 1926. ...

, but he gave up leadership of the two organizations upon his election to the Reichstag in 1932. In 1932–1933 he led the Combat League of the Commercial Middle Class ('' NS-Kampfbund für den Gewerblichen Mittelstand''), an organisation allegedly "Deflecting Jewish Atrocity and Boycott-Mongering", participating in the boycott of Jewish businesses and other forms of persecution. In June 1933, he was appointed President of the National Socialist Council of Industry and Trade (''Nationalsozialistische Handwerks-, Handels-, und Gewerbeorganisation'' or NS-HAGO), holding this position until 1935, when this organisation was merged with the

German Labor Front The German Labour Front (german: Deutsche Arbeitsfront, ; DAF) was the labour organisation under the Nazi Party which replaced the various independent trade unions in Germany during Adolf Hitler's rise to power. History As early as March 1933, ...

(DAF). Von Renteln became a staff leader of the German Labor Front. In 1940, he was appointed the Reich Leader of the Trade and Artisanship Section of the NSDAP (''Hauptamtsleiter Handel und Handwerk in der Reichsleitung der NSDAP''). He was also the head of the Supreme Court of the Reich Labor Front. In July 1941, he was appointed the ''Generalkommissar'' of ''

'' (roughly modern

Lithuania Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...

), where he took harsh measures against the Jewish population. On 26 August 1941 he ordered that all telephones and lines were to be stripped, postal service be cut off, and bridges to the Kaunas (Kovno) Ghetto be surrounded with barbed wire fences to prevent people from jumping off. This order also forbade the Jews of the Kovno ghetto to use doors, window frames, or houses for fuel. In 1943, he was implicated in the clearing of the Vilna Ghetto, deporting 20,000 Jews to

concentration In chemistry, concentration is the abundance of a constituent divided by the total volume of a mixture. Several types of mathematical description can be distinguished: '' mass concentration'', '' molar concentration'', ''number concentration'', ...

death camp Nazi Germany used six extermination camps (german: Vernichtungslager), also called death camps (), or killing centers (), in Central Europe during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million peoplemostly Jewsin the Holocaust. The v ...

s, as well as in plundering. According to some accounts, after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, he was captured by the Russians, tried, and hanged for war crimes in 1946. According to other sources, after the war he lived under a false identity in South America and died there.http://www.annaberger-annalen.de/jahrbuch/1997/Annaberg%20Nr.5%20Kap2.pdf His death has never been fully confirmed.

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Renteln, Adrian Von 1897 births 1946 deaths Baltic-German people Executed German people Holocaust perpetrators in Lithuania German untitled nobility Kovno Ghetto Members of the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic Members of the Reichstag of Nazi Germany Nazi Party politicians Nazis convicted of war crimes Nazis executed by the Soviet Union by hanging People executed for war crimes People from Dzau District Russian and Soviet-German people Vilna Ghetto