Hans Günther (22 August 1910 – 5 May 1945) was an SS-''

Sturmbannführer __NOTOC__ ''Sturmbannführer'' (; ) was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank equivalent to major that was used in several Nazi organizations, such as the SA, SS, and the NSFK. The rank originated from German shock troop units of the First World War ...

'' who was the head of the "Central Office for Jewish Emigration in Prague" during

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 vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. He was in charge of the deportation of Czech Jews to death camps during 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; ...

. He was killed by Czech partisans in 1945.

Career

Günther worked as an accountant until 1931. He joined the '' Sturmabteilung'' (SA) in November 1928, rising quickly to become SA leader in March 1929. From April 1931 he was a member of the ''Freiwilligen Arbeitsdienstes'' volunteer service, which he headed from 1932 to 1933. From September 1935 Günther was employed by 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 ...

as a detective in Erfurt, where he became responsible with his brother

Rolf Günther Rolf Günther (8 January 1913 – August 1945) was a German functionary who served in the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) as an ''Sturmbannführer'' and who acted as deputy to Adolf Eichmann. He first joined the '' Sturmabteilung'' (SA) in 1929 and became ...

for issues related to the so-called "Jewish question". After 1937 Günther and his brother joined the "Central Office for Jewish Emigration in Vienna". While his brother Rolf later worked under Adolf Eichmann in the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) as deputy director of the "Jewish Department", Hans was promoted in July 1939 to head of the "Central Office for Jewish Emigration" in Prague (later renamed the "Central Office for the Settlement of the Jewish Question"). He remained in the post until early May 1945. His role was to organise the "final solution" in Prague, and was given instructions concerning the true meaning of this by Eichmann and

Reinhard Heydrich Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich ( ; ; 7 March 1904 – 4 June 1942) was a high-ranking German SS and police official during the Nazi era and a principal architect of the Holocaust. He was chief of the Reich Security Main Office (inclu ...

. His responsibilities were the maintenance of anti-Jewish regulations in the

Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia The Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia; cs, Protektorát Čechy a Morava; its territory was called by the Nazis ("the rest of Czechia"). was a partially annexed territory of Nazi Germany established on 16 March 1939 following the German oc ...

, as well as deportations of Czech Jews to the ghetto in

Theresienstadt Theresienstadt Ghetto was established by the SS during World War II in the fortress town of Terezín, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia ( German-occupied Czechoslovakia). Theresienstadt served as a waystation to the extermination ca ...

and from there to the extermination camps. The prisoners in the camp called him the "smiling executioner".Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich: Wer war was vor und nach 1945. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2005.

Theresienstadt film

In order to counter Allied propaganda about the concentration camps Günther commissioned a film, "

", about the "Jewish area of settlement", portraying an idealised image of well-fed and housed Jews. The film was made during the late summer of 1944 and completed in March 1945.

Kurt Gerron Kurt Gerron (11 May 1897 – 28 October 1944) was a German Jewish actor and film director. He and his wife, Olga were murdered in the Holocaust. Life Born Kurt Gerson into a well-off merchant family in Berlin, he studied medicine before being ca ...

, a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

actor/director, made the film in return for a promise that he and his family would live. Shortly after he finished shooting the film, however, both he and his family were "evacuated" to Auschwitz where they were gassed upon arrival. The film was intended for foreign audiences, but as it was completed shortly before the collapse of Nazi Germany, it was only seen by a few representatives of foreign organizations. Günther also set up a museum of Jewish artefacts in Prague containing items from destroyed synagogues.Jan Björn Potthast: Das jüdische Zentralmuseum der SS in Prag – Gegenerforschung und Völkermord im Nationalsozialismus. Campus-Verlag, München 2002

Death

In May 1945, when the Prague uprising broke out, Günther, travelling with a heavily armed motorcade, was stopped at a roadblock near Beroun by Czech partisans. He was arrested and disarmed. According to the partisans, he attempted to grab a weapon from a guard and was mortally wounded in the ensuing struggle when he was injured by a hand-grenade; he later died from his injuries. The Czech authorities later accepted this account of his death, which was given to the German judicial authorities.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gunther, Hans 1910 births 1945 deaths SS-Sturmbannführer Holocaust perpetrators in Bohemia and Moravia Theresienstadt concentration camp personnel Deaths by hand grenade Gestapo personnel Sturmabteilung personnel Waffen-SS personnel killed in action