Dieter Wisliceny

Dieter Wisliceny
SS-Obersturmführer Dieter Wisliceny (2nd from right) with police and SS officers in Preßburg (Bratislava)
Birth name	Dietrich Wisliceny
Birth date	13 January 1911
Place of birth	Estate Regulowken near Mosdzehnen, Kreis Angerburg, Province of East Prussia, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire
Death date	4 May 1948 (aged 37)
Place of death	Bratislava, Czechoslovakia
Allegiance	National Socialist Germany
Service/branch	Sturmabteilung Schutzstaffel
Years of service	1931–1945
Rank	SS-Hauptsturmführer
Service number	NSDAP #672,774 #107,216
Battles/wars	World War II
Awards	War Merit Cross

Dietrich "Dieter" Wisliceny (1911–1948) was a German sergeant of the SA and officer the SS, finally SS-Hauptsturmführer in World War II.

Life

SS-RuSHA application for marriage

After graduating from Gymnasium (evangelische Oberrealschule in Breslau), Wisliceny began studying theology in 1930 at the University of Breslau, but dropped out after one semester. In order to secure the family's livelihood, he took up an unskilled job at a construction company in the Breslau area, but also worked as a journalist. In between there were always long periods of unemployment.

His wish was to study medicine or history. When his father died in 1928, the family, which included three children, was in an extremely difficult financial situation. In order to be able to study at all, a family friend offered financial support, but this was tied to the expectation of studying Protestant theology.

On 1 October 1931, Wisliceny became a member of the NSDAP and of a formation of the SA. In 1934, he switched from the SA to the SS and became a member of the SD. From 1934 to 1937, he worked in Berlin (RSHA), initially as a consultant for “Masonic issues” in the SD main office and from April 1937 to November 1937 he headed the SD’s “Jewish Department” there.

He then worked for the SD in Danzig until 1940. At a suggestion from Adolf Eichmann, whom he knew well, he went to Bratislava with a German delegation in September 1940 as a representative of the “Eichmann Department” in Office IV B 4 at the Reich Security Main Office, where he worked as a “specialist and advisor in Jewish affairs” for the Slovakian government.

On 6 February 1943, Wisliceny was transferred to Greece together with Alois Brunner, where he headed the “Special Command for Jewish Affairs” in Salonika. In the fall and winter of 1943, Wisliceny headed a “Jewish department” for the commander of the Sicherheitspolizei and the SD in Athens, which also included Alfred Slawik.

On the day of the German occupation of Hungary, 19 March 1944, Wisliceny arrived in Budapest as a member of the “Eichmann Command”. On 12 May 1945, Wisliceny was arrested near Lake Altaussee in Allied-occupied Austria. During the Nuremberg trials he was an important witness for the prosecution.

Promotions and memberships (selection)

• SS-Untersturmführer: 20. April 1937
• SS-Obersturmführer: 1938/39
• SS-Hauptsturmführer: 1940
  • Representative of the Reich Main Security Office (Referat IV B 4: „Judenangelegenheiten“ [Jewish affairs])

Memberships

• NSDAP: 1 October 1931
• SA: 1 September 1931 to 14 July 1934
  • SA-Truppführer in the SA-Stabswache „Hermann Göring“ (Staff / Headquarters Guard): 1 October 1933 to 30 June 1934
• SS: 15 July 1934
  • Member of the SD
  • Member of the “Eichmann Special Operations Command”

Nuremberg

Wisliceny, like Wilhelm Höttl, alleged during the Nuremberg show trials that Adolf Eichmann had stated to him that several millions of Jews had been killed during the war. Unlike Höttl, who claimed that Eichmann had stated six million Jews killed, Wisliceny claimed that Eichmann had stated four to five million Jews killed. Eichmann later rejected having made either statement. The revisionist Germar Rudolf has written:

"Both Höttl and Wisliceny were originally held in the defendants’ wing of the Nuremberg prison because of their involvement in the mass deportation of Jews to Auschwitz. Their statements, however, allowed them to be moved to the witnesses’ wing – a life-saving switch in many cases. [...] On the basis of his pliability on behalf of the victors, Höttl, who was as deeply involved in the deportation of the Jews as Wisliceny, succeeded in ending up not as a defendant at Nuremberg, but rather as a privileged witness (Irving 1996, pp. 236f.; cf. Höttl 1997, pp. 83, 360-387). Wisliceny was convinced to cooperate with the Allies by threats that he would otherwise be extradited to communist eastern Europe. This caused Wisliceny to turn against his co-prisoners and even to offer to turn in hiding comrades. As an additional reward, the Allies promised him security for his family against possible revenge attacks by betrayed comrades (Servatius 1961, p. 64).

While the Allies kept their promise to free Höttl for his services, they were not so cooperative with regards to Wisliceny. Despite his cooperation he was later extradited to communist Czechoslovakia anyway, where he was eventually sentenced to death and hanged (Arendt 1990, p. 257). Also worth mentioning are the circumstances, under which Höttl and Wisliceny as well as many other witnesses made their incriminating statements about Eichmann: They all thought that Eichmann, who had gone underground, was dead, and they hoped to exonerate themselves or to buy the benevolence of the Allies at the expense of Eichmann (ibid., pp. 331, 339). Only during the later Eichmann trial in Jerusalem it turned out that all these witnesses had unjustly transmogrified the assumed dead Eichmann to the main responsible individual of the “final solution” in order to exonerate themselves (ibid., pp. 339ff.)."

Death

After the Nuremberg show trials, Wisliceny was extradited to Czechoslovakia in 1946, where he was tried, found guilty of alleged war crimes, sentenced to death on 27 February 1948, and executed in Bratislava on 4 May 1948.

Family

Dieter was born in 1911 as the son of the lord of the manor (Rittergut Regulowken) Major of the Reserves Erich Wisliceny (d. 1928, other sources state March 1930) and his wife Wally, née Paul, in East Prussia. In 1919, after losing the estate, the family moved to Silesia. He was the older brother of war hero SS-Obersturmbannführer Günther Wisliceny. Dieter Wisliceny was engaged with Magdalena Cseh (b. 15 April 1915 in Preßburg) and applied in late 1944 for marriage with the SS Main Race and Settlement Office (SS-RuSHA), but it is unknown whether he actually married.

Awards and decorations (excerpt)

• Honour Chevron for the Old Guard (Ehrenwinkel für Alte Kämpfer)
• Honour Sword of the Reichsführers-SS
• Danzig Cross, 2nd Class (Danziger Kreuz, II. Klasse)
• NSDAP Long Service Award Dienstauszeichnung der NSDAP in Bronze (10 years)
• SS Long Service Award (SS-Dienstauszeichnung), 3rd Grade (8 years) in 1942
• War Merit Cross (1939), 2nd Class with Swords

See also

Holocaust demographics

External links

• Wilhelm Höttl and the Elusive ‘Six Million’
• Genocide at Nuremberg
• Testimony by Dieter Wisliceny before the IMT in Nuremberg on 3 January 1946

References

Note that besides the external sources listed here, an alleged Holocaust confessor/witness may be extensively discussed in the external sources listed in the articles on the particular Holocaust camps and/or other Holocaust phenomena the individual is associated with.