Bruno Kittel (born 1922 in

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

– disappeared 1945) was an Austrian

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

functionary in the German SS and Holocaust perpetrator who oversaw the liquidation of the

Vilna Ghetto The Vilna Ghetto was a World War II Jewish ghetto established and operated by Nazi Germany in the city of Vilnius in the modern country of Lithuania, at the time part of the Nazi-administered Reichskommissariat Ostland. During the approximat ...

in September 1943. Kittel became known for his cynical cruelty. He disappeared after the war.

Early life

Kittel graduated from a theater school. He was an actor and a singer. He played

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of Single-reed instrument, single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed (mouthpi ...

and piano; on Sundays he played for Vilnius Radio.

SS career

Kittel joined the SS and reached the rank of ''

Oberscharführer __NOTOC__ ''Oberscharführer'' (, ) was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank that existed between 1932 and 1945. ''Oberscharführer'' was first used as a rank of the ''Sturmabteilung'' (SA) and was created due to an expansion of the enlisted positions ...

''. Before the appointment to

Vilnius Vilnius ( , ; see also other names) is the capital and largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the municipality of Vilnius). The population of Vilnius's functional urb ...

, he worked at the Commissariat-General for Jewish Affairs in France and Riga. Kittel was transferred to Vilnius in occupied Lituania in June 1943. Effectively, he replaced

Martin Weiss Martin Weiss may refer to: * Martin Weiss (diplomat) (born 1962), Austrian diplomat and Ambassador of Austria to the United States * Martin Weiss (Nazi official) (1903–1984), commander of Vilna Ghetto and the ''Ypatingasis būrys'' mass murder k ...

and Franz Murer. Kittel supervised the massacre of Jews in Kena and Bezdonys on 8–9 July: while Kittel addressed the Jews gathered inside a large building and promised them better food and security for good work, Lithuanian collaborators cordoned off the building and, once the speech was over, they set the building on fire and shot anyone who tried to escape. About 240 Jews were killed in Kena and 300–350 in Bezdonys. In Bezdonys, he offered a cigarette to a Jewish barber who had just given him a shave and asked him if he needed a light. The barber replied yes and Kittel gave him the light by shooting him. That was the signal to start the massacre. When Yitzhak Wittenberg, a leader of the

Fareynikte Partizaner Organizatsye The Fareynikte Partizaner Organizatsye ( yi, ; "United Partisan Organization"; referred to as FPO by its Yiddish initials) was a Jewish resistance organization based in the Vilna Ghetto that organized armed resistance against the Nazis during ...

(FPO), escaped from the custody of the

Jewish ghetto police The Jewish Ghetto Police or Jewish Police Service (german: Jüdische Ghetto-Polizei or ''Jüdischer Ordnungsdienst''), also called the Jewish Police by Jews, were auxiliary police units organized within the Nazi ghettos by local '' Judenrat' ...

, Kittel issued an ultimatum stating that if Wittenberg did not surrender, the whole ghetto would be liquidated. Wittenberg turned himself in and was found dead (possibly due to a suicide by cyanide) on July 16. On 24 July, a group of 21 FPO members, the so-called Leon Group, left the ghetto to go wood cutting in a nearby labour camp in Naujoji Vilnia (they were trying to escape the ghetto). Nine men were killed in a German ambush. The Germans retaliated by executing 32 relatives of the nine men on 27 July and liquidating the labor camp on 28 July. Kittel further announced that

collective punishment Collective punishment is a punishment or sanction imposed on a group for acts allegedly perpetrated by a member of that group, which could be an ethnic or political group, or just the family, friends and neighbors of the perpetrator. Because ind ...

s would be imposed in order to prevent such escapes: The Germans would execute the family members and even the neighbors of anyone who escaped. The order to liquidate the ghetto was given by Rudolf Neugebauer, the commander of ''

Einsatzkommando 3 During World War II, the Nazi German ' were a sub-group of the ' (mobile killing squads) – up to 3,000 men total – usually composed of 500–1,000 functionaries of the SS and Gestapo, whose mission was to exterminate Jews, Polish intellect ...

''. Kittel supervised the liquidation of the ghetto on 23–24 September 1943. The remaining Jews were transported to the

Klooga concentration camp Klooga concentration camp was a Nazi forced labor subcamp of the Vaivara concentration camp complex established in September 1943 in Harju County, during World War II, in German-occupied Estonia near the village of Klooga. The Vaivara camp comple ...

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

(about 2,000 men), the

Kaiserwald concentration camp Kaiserwald (Ķeizarmežs) was a Nazi concentration camp near the Riga suburb of Mežaparks in modern-day Latvia. Kaiserwald was built in March 1943, during the period that the German army occupied Latvia. The first inmates of the camp were ...

in Latvia (about 1,400–1,700 young women), and the others were transported to extermination camps, mainly Auschwitz (about 5,000–7,000 people who were unfit for work). During the liquidation of the ghetto, Kittel ordered that a piano be brought to a yard. He continued to play it with his left hand while he shot a Jewish boy who begged for mercy with his right hand. After the liquidation of the Vilna Ghetto, Kittel visited the remaining labor camps and terrorized their inmates. On 15 October, he inspected

Kailis forced labor camp Kailis forced labor camp (''kailis'' is Lithuanian for ''fur'') was a Nazi labor camp for Jews in Vilnius (pre-war Second Polish Republic, post-war Lithuanian SSR) during World War II. It was based on a pre-war fur and leather factory and mostly ...

and deported 30 Jews for execution in Ponary. In late 1943, Germans arrested a couple that escaped from the HKP 562 forced labor camp. Kittel organized a public hanging of the couple and their daughter, but the noose tore. He then personally shot the man and the woman; another Gestapo man shot the child. In December, Kittel demanded the location of Salk Dessler, deputy of Jacob Gens who escaped the ghetto. Dessler was betrayed by a former Jewish policeman and arrested with about 30 other Jews; most of them were executed. After the liquidation of the Vilnius Ghetto, Kittel was posted to the newly formed Kovno concentration camp in the reorganized

Kovno Ghetto The Kovno Ghetto was a ghetto established by Nazi Germany to hold the Lithuanian Jews of Kaunas during the Holocaust. At its peak, the Ghetto held 29,000 people, most of whom were later sent to concentration and extermination camps, or were sho ...

as a liaison between the ''SS'' commander in the ghetto and the Gestapo in the city of Kaunas. On 27 March 1944, Kittel participated in the ''Kinderaktion'' in the ghetto, a roundup of about 1,700 children and the elderly who were subsequently murdered. During that ''Aktion'', Kittel interrogated Jewish policemen on their assistance to

Jewish partisans Jewish partisans were fighters in irregular military groups participating in the Jewish resistance movement against Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II. A number of Jewish partisan groups operated across Nazi-occupied Euro ...

and selected 33 of them for execution at the Ninth Fort.

References

{{Portal bar, Austria, World War II, biography 1922 births Year of death unknown Holocaust perpetrators in Lithuania Vilna Ghetto SS-Obersturmführer Austrian Nazis