Gerhard Klopfer (18 February 1905 – 29 January 1987) was a senior official of 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 ...

and assistant to

Martin Bormann Martin Ludwig Bormann (17 June 1900 – 2 May 1945) was a German Nazi Party official and head of the Nazi Party Chancellery. He gained immense power by using his position as Adolf Hitler's private secretary to control the flow of information ...

in the Office of the (Nazi)

Party Chancellery The Party Chancellery (german: Parteikanzlei), was the name of the head office for the German Nazi Party (NSDAP), designated as such on 12 May 1941. The office existed previously as the Staff of the Deputy Führer (''Stab des Stellvertreters des ...

. Klopfer was born in Schreibersdorf,

Silesia Silesia (, also , ) is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Silesia, Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is approximately , and the population is estimated at around 8,000,000. S ...

(now in

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

), in 1905. He studied law and economics and in 1931 became a judge in

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in ...

, Germany. When the

Nazis came to power Adolf Hitler's rise to power began in the newly established Weimar Republic in September 1919 when Hitler joined the '' Deutsche Arbeiterpartei'' (DAP; German Workers' Party). He rose to a place of prominence in the early years of the party. Be ...

in 1933, he joined the

and the SA (

Sturmabteilung The (; SA; literally "Storm Detachment") was the original paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party. It played a significant role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s. Its primary purposes were providing protection for Nazi ralli ...

) along with the

Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one orga ...

(Secret State Police) the following year. In 1935, he became a member of

Rudolf Hess Rudolf Walter Richard Hess (Heß in German; 26 April 1894 – 17 August 1987) was a German politician and a leading member of the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. Appointed Deputy Führer to Adolf Hitler in 1933, Hess held that position unt ...

's staff and the SS (

Schutzstaffel The ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS; also stylized as ''ᛋᛋ'' with Armanen runes; ; "Protection Squadron") was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany, and later throughout German-occupied Europe ...

) with the honorary

SS rank The uniforms and insignia of the ''Schutzstaffel'' served to distinguish the Nazi paramilitary ranks of the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) between 1925 and 1945 from the ranks of the '' Wehrmacht'' (the regular German armed forces from 1935), the German ...

Oberführer __NOTOC__ ''Oberführer'' (short: ''Oberf'', , ) was an early paramilitary rank of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) dating back to 1921. An ''Oberführer'' was typically a NSDAP member in charge of a group of paramilitary units in a particular geographic ...

(Senior Colonel). In 1938, he became responsible for the seizing of Jewish businesses, for questions about mixed marriages between Gentile and Jewish Germans, and general questions about occupation of foreign states. As State Secretary of the Parteikanzlei (Party Chancellery), Klopfer represented

, who was head of the Parteikanzlei, at the Wannsee Conference on 20 January 1942 in which the details of the " Final Solution of the Jewish Question" were formalised, policies that culminated in the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

. Along with Helmuth Friedrichs, Klopfer was the highest-ranking bureaucrat behind Bormann in the Chancellery. This position gave him extensive power of patronage within the Nazi Party as Martin Bormann often left appointments to party positions to Klopfer and Friedrichs. In this position he was also responsible as signatory for the concept of final call to arms of the underaged and elders in the age range of 16 – 60 years "Volkssturm" in the final stage of the war. In 1944, he was promoted to SS-''

Gruppenführer __NOTOC__ ''Gruppenführer'' (, ) was an early paramilitary rank of the Nazi Party (NSDAP), first created in 1925 as a senior rank of the SA. Since then, the term ''Gruppenführer'' is also used for leaders of groups/teams of the police, fire d ...

''. As the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian language, Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist R ...

closed in on

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 ...

in 1945, Klopfer fled the city. He was captured and imprisoned and was charged with war crimes but was released because it was deemed he did not have enough influence within the Nazi regime to have affected the Holocaust. He became a tax advisor in the city of

Ulm Ulm () is a city in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Danube on the border with Bavaria. The city, which has an estimated population of more than 126,000 (2018), forms an urban district of its own (german: link=no, ...

(

Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg (; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million inhabitants across a ...

) in 1952 and retrieved his Admission to the Bar in 1956 in order to practice as a lawyer. He was the last surviving attendee of the Wannsee Conference, dying in 1987. When he died in 1987, his family published a death notice that celebrated “a fulfilled life that was to the benefit of all those who came under his sphere of influence.” Klopfer was portrayed by

Ian McNeice Ian McNeice (born 2 October 1950) is an English film and television actor. He found fame portraying government agent Harcourt in the 1985 television series '' Edge of Darkness'', and went on to feature in popular films such as ''The Englishma ...

in the BBC/ HBO made-for-cable film ''

Conspiracy A conspiracy, also known as a plot, is a secret plan or agreement between persons (called conspirers or conspirators) for an unlawful or harmful purpose, such as murder or treason, especially with political motivation, while keeping their agr ...

'' in 2001.

References

1905 births 1987 deaths Nazi Party officials People from the Province of Silesia Holocaust perpetrators Sturmabteilung personnel Gestapo personnel SS-Gruppenführer Nazi Party politicians {{World-War-II-bio-stub