Hermann Fegelein (30 October 1906 – 28 April 1945) was a high-ranking German Waffen-SS commander who held the rank of SS Gruppenfuhrer during World War II. He was the brother-in-law of Eva Braun, having married her sister Gretl.
Biography[]
Hermann Fegelein was born in Ansbach, Bavaria, German Empire on 30 October 1906, and he joined a cavalry regiment of the Reichswehr in 1925 before transferring to the SS on 10 April 1933. He became the leader of an SS equestrian group, and he prepared Germany for the equestrian events of the 1936 Berlin Olympics; Fegelein himself was eliminated in the qualifying rounds for the German equestrian team. In September 1939, after the invasion of Poland, he became the commander of an SS horse regiment in Warsaw, and he fought in Belgium and France in 1940 as a Waffen-SS officer. On 15 December 1940, he was awarded the Iron Cross, and he was given command of Waffen-SS units in preparation for Operation Barbarossa. During the war with the Soviet Union, his men killed 17,000 Belarusian civilians during a punitive operation in the Pripyat Swamps of the Byelorussian SSR. He later came to command the 8th SS Cavalry Division Florian Geyer, taking part in operations against Soviet partisans and the Red Army.
Rise and fall from grace[]
Fegelein after being shot
After being wounded in September 1943, Fegelein became SS leader Heinrich Himmler's liaison officer, and he married Eva Braun's sister Gretl on 3 June 1944 while serving on Himmler's staff. During the closing months of the war, he was on duty at the Fuhrerbunker, but he feared for his life as the Soviets closed in. He abandoned his post rather than join a "suicide pact", while Himmler went to the Allied Powers with the intent of negotiating a peace treaty. Hitler sent Peter Hogl to track Fegelein down, and Hogl found an intoxicated Fegelein in his apartment room with a topless woman. They took Fegelein outside, where Hogl used an MP40 submachine gun to kill Fegelein as Fegelein said "Heil Hitler" one last time.