Bruno Kittel (born 1922 in

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

– disappeared 1945) was an Austrian

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

functionary in the German SS and Holocaust perpetrator who oversaw the liquidation of the Vilna Ghetto 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 woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to p ...

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 ( , ) is the capital of and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city in Lithuania and the List of cities in the Baltic states by population, most-populous city in the Baltic states. The city's estimated January 2025 population w ...

, he worked at the

Commissariat-General for Jewish Affairs The Commissariat-General for Jewish Affairs (; C.G.Q.J.) was a special administration established in March 1941 by the collaborationist Vichy government of France in order to introduce anti-Jewish legislation. History While anti-Jewish legisl ...

in France and

Riga Riga ( ) is the capital, Primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Latvia, largest city of Latvia. Home to 591,882 inhabitants (as of 2025), the city accounts for a third of Latvia's total population. The population of Riga Planni ...

. Kittel was transferred to Vilnius in occupied Lituania in June 1943. Effectively, he replaced Martin Weiss and Franz Murer. Kittel supervised the massacre of Jews in Kena and

Bezdonys Bezdonys is a town in Lithuania, located to the north of Vilnius, within the Vilnius district municipality. It is best known for the 1908 Bezdany raid, one of the most daring and successful train robberies in history. Bohdan Urbankowski, ''Józe ...

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 (FPO), escaped from the custody of the Jewish ghetto police, 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 or whole community for acts allegedly perpetrated by a member or some members of that group or area, which could be an ethnic or political group, or just the family, friends a ...

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

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

(about 2,000 men), the Kaiserwald concentration camp in

Latvia Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to t ...

(about 1,400–1,700 young women), and the others were transported to extermination camps, mainly

Auschwitz Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It consisted of Auschw ...

(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 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 as a liaison between the ''SS'' commander in the ghetto and the Gestapo in the city of

Kaunas Kaunas (; ) is the second-largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius, the fourth largest List of cities in the Baltic states by population, city in the Baltic States and an important centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaun ...

. 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 under Nazi rule, Jewish resistance movement against Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, its collaborators during W ...

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

References

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