Johann Baptist Albin Rauter ( Klagenfurt , Austria , 4 of February of 1895 - Scheveningen , Netherlands , 24 of March of 1949 ) was a senior commander of the SS and the Police in the Netherlands during the period 1940-1945. Rauter reported directly to Heinrich Himmler and Arthur Seyss-Inquart . After World War II , he was convicted of crimes against humanity and executed by a firing squad.
Youth and career
Rauter graduated as a bachelor in 1912 , and began studies as an engineer at the Technical University of Graz . At the outbreak of World War I , Rauter volunteered for the Austro-Hungarian Army . He served in a Mountain Assault Detachment or Gebirgsschützenregiment where he was discharged in 1919 having reached the rank of Lieutenant ( Oberleutnant ). Rauter took part in the Freedom Front Kärnter ( Kärntner Freiheitskampf ) in 1919, and from May to July 1921 , he fought in the Free Body “Oberland” (Freikorps Oberland) in Oberschlesien .
Rauter met Adolf Hitler in 1929 and joined the Nazi Party in Austria . His clandestine activities forced him to leave Austria, escaping to Germany in 1933 , where he joined the Austrian Department of the NSDAP . There he joined the SA, and was active in planning illegal activities in his native country. In 1935 , he left the SA to join the SS . Until 1940 , he was the Leader of the Southeast Department of the SS in Breslau .
Actions in occupied Holland
In May 1940 , he was appointed Generalkommissar für das Sicherheitswesen (Commissioner for the security forces) and Höhere SS-und Polizeiführer (High Chief of the SS and Police Chief) for the Netherlands . In his position as SS Police Commander and SS High Command in Holland , Rauter was responsible for the deportation of 110,000 Dutch Jews to the Nazi concentration camps , from which only 6,000 survived, in addition to bloody repression of the Dutch Resistance. He was responsible for the deportation of 300,000 Dutch to Germany as slaves for forced labor. He ordered the bloody interruption of the “February Strike”, which occurred on 26 of February of 1941 , this strike was interrupted by declaring a state of emergency and summary executions.
During the allied assault on Arnhem in Operation Market Garden , Rauter commanded the Kampfgruppe Rauter during operations in the Veluwe area and near the bridges over the IJssel River. The Kampfgruppe Rauter consisted of the union of the Landstorm Nederland , Wachbataillon Nordwest and the regiment of the Ordnungspolizei . After the assault on Arnhem, which had been won by the Germans, Rauter was given the command of the Maas Front as General of the Waffen SS .
In March 1945 , he was severely wounded by an attack by the Dutch Resistance at the site known as Woeste Hoeve in the Veluwe . In retaliation, the Germans executed hundreds of political prisoners on the site of the attack, 50 more in the concentration camp of Amersfoort and 40 in the city of The Hague and Rotterdam . The attack had not been planned; The resistance simply wanted to steal a truckload of meat. Instead of the truck, Rauter’s BMW car was stopped by elements of the resistance dressed in German uniforms. However, Rauter had drafted a directive by which German patrols could not stop German military vehicles, so the guerrillas fired on the vehicle killing all occupants, but Rauter pretended to be dead and survived. He was found by a German Military Patrol and transferred to a Hospital where he remained until his arrest by the British Military Police at the end of the hostilities.
After the war
Rauter was given by the British Government of the Netherlands , after the war and taken to a Special Court in The Hague , which sentenced him to death. This sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court of the Netherlands, the December of January of 1949 . A film filmed during his trial shows Rauter denying his guilt in War Crimes . Hanns Albin Rauter was executed by means of a firing squad near Scheveningen , 24 of March of 1949 . Its place of burial is a state secret.