Franz Walter Stahlecker (10 October 1900 – 23 March 1942) was a Generalmajor der Polizei of Nazi Germany and the commander of the Einsatzgruppe A death squad during World War II. Stahlecker was a well-known anti-Semite, having been involved with fascist groups since the end of World War I, and he was responsible for executing thousands of Jews, communists, gypsies, and other "undesirables" in the Baltics during Operation Barbarossa. He was killed in an ambush by Soviet partisans in 1942.
Biography[]
Franz Walter Stahlecker was born on 10 October 1900 in Sternenfels, Baden-Wurttemberg, German Empire. Stahlecker was a member of the German Nationalist Protection and Defiance Federation, an anti-Jewish federation which existed after World War I, and he became a lawyer in 1927. On 1 May 1932, he became the 3,219,015th member of the Nazi Party, and he became the 73,041st member of the Schutzstaffel paramilitary group. In 1934, he became the regional head of the Gestapo secret police in Wurttemberg, and he was then sent to take command of the police in Breslau in 1937.
Stahlecker collaborated with Adolf Eichmann for the establishment of the Lublin Reservation, land between the cities of Lublin and Nisko in Poland which would be used to resettle Jews, following the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany. On 6 February 1941, he became the commander of Einsatzgruppe A, following Army Group North through the Batlics during World War II and hunting down and annihilating Jews, gypsies, communists, and other "undesirables". At the end of November 1941, he became the chief of all Gestapo forces in the Baltics, and he was killed in an ambush by Soviet partisans near Gatchina, Leningrad Oblast in northwestern Russia.