Jurgen Stroop (26 September 1895 – 6 March 1952) was a Gruppenführer of the Waffen-SS and the SS police who was responsible for crushing the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
Biography[]
Jurgen Stroop was born on 26 September 1895 in Detmold, German Empire. A World War I veteran, he joined the far-right Tannenbergbund political party of Erich Ludendorff and abandoned Catholicism in favor of Germanic paganism. He joined the Nazi Party and SS in 1932, and he became a General of the Waffen-SS and their police during World War II. On 17 April 1943, he replaced Ferdinand von Sammern-Frankenegg as police chief in Warsaw, and he crushed the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising before personally destroying the Great Synagogue of Warsaw in retaliation. Later, he took part in other SS policing activities, and he executed captured USAF airmen. After the war, he was handed over to the Polish People's Republic and executed in 1952 for war crimes.