Ulrich Greifelt

Ulrich Greifelt
SS-Brigadeführer Ulrich Greifelt with Gauleiter Franz Hofer
Birth name	Ulrich Heinrich Emil Richard Greifelt
Birth date	8 December 1896(1896-12-08)
Place of birth	Berlin, Province of Brandenburg, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire
Death date	6 February 1949 (aged 52)
Place of death	Landsberg Prison, Landsberg am Lech, Bavaria, Allied-occupied Germany
Allegiance	German Empire Weimar Republic National Socialist Germany
Service/branch	Imperial German Army Freikorps Preliminary Reichswehr Allgemeine SS
Years of service	1914–1945
Rank	SS-Obergruppenführer and General of the Police
Service number	NSDAP #1,667,407 #72,909
Battles/wars	World War I World War II
Awards	Iron Cross War Merit Cross (1939)
Relations	∞ 4 May 1921 Anni Marie Kühn (b. 22 September 1899 in Berlin)

Ulrich Heinrich Emil Richard Greifelt (8 December 1896 – 6 February 1949) was a German officer of the Imperial German Army, the Freikorps and the SS, finally SS-Obergruppenführer and General of the Police during World War II.

Life

SS-DAL from 1 December 1937

Left to right: Joachim Peiper, Werner Lorenz, Karl Wolff, Ulrich Greifelt (background), Heinrich Himmler, and Ferdinand Schörner

Ulrich Greifelt, Gauleiter Fritz Bracht and Rudolf Creutz

Greifelt with his wife during a vacation

Gottlob Berger (left) Rudolf Creutz, Kurt Knoblauch (back turned) and Ulrich Greifelt (right)

Greifelt was born in Berlin in 1896, the son of a pharmacist. After achieving his Abitur, he joined the German Army in August 1914 and fought in the First World War with the Infanterie-Regiment "von Stülpnagel" (5. Brandenburgisches) Nr. 48. After being wounded, he applied for the Fliegertruppe and received training as an aviation observer at the main Flight Observer School (Flieger-Beobachter-Schule) in Königsberg in September and October 1916. He then served with the Flieger-Ersatz-Abteilung 3 (FEA 3) in Gotha, then with the Flieger-Abteilung (Artillerie) 249.

From December 1917 to April 1918, he served as adjutant of the Group Command of Aviation/VII. Army Corps, then as adjutant of Aviation District Jekaterinoslaw (Armeeflugpark 2) and finally 2nd adjutant of the Flieger-Ersatz-Abteilung 4 (FEA 4). When the war ended, he was appointed orderly officer of the Governorate of Livonia in Riga under Adolf "Ulf" Konstantin Jakob Freiherr Pilar von Pilchau. From 5 February to September 1919, he served with the German Protection Division (Deutsche Schutzdivision) formed to suppress the Spartacus terror in Berlin. He retired from military service with the Preliminary Reichswehr on 31 March 1920.

Greifelt worked as an economist and authorized signatory (Prokurist) at the Berlin-based Gebrüder Israel stock corporation until bankruptcy in 1932. He joined the NSDAP on 1 April 1933 and the SS on 6 July 1933, where he was employed as an adjutant of the staff of Reichsführer-SS in Berlin until 1 March 1934 when he was appointed staff leader (Stabsführer) of the SS-Oberabschnitt “Elbe. He then served as staff leader of the SS-Oberabschnitt “Rhein” from 15 June 1934 to 1 May 1935. On 25 May 1935, another source states 12 June 1935, he was appointed head of the Central Chancellery, also known as the Central Registry, of the SS-Hauptamt. On 24 February 1937, he returned to the personal staff of Reichsführer-SS and served with the economic department for the Four Year Plan. As such, he developed the idea of ​​resettling ethnic German groups and integrating them into the German labor market. At the request of the Reich Labor Ministry, he became an assessor in the Reich Honor Court as a representative of the SS.

In 1939, SS-Oberführer Greifelt, as head of the Control Center for Immigration and Remigration (Leitstelle für Ein- und Rückwanderung, initiated in June 1939), was commissioned to organize the resettlement of 30,000 South Tyroleans after the South Tyrol Option Agreement between Mussolini and Hitler. In total, about 85% of the South Tyrolean population decided to resettle in the Reich and thus to become German citizens: this included 166,488 South Tyroleans and 16,572 eligible voters in the provinces of Belluno, Trento, Vicenza and Udine.

WWII

After the start of the Second World War, Greifelt was appointed head of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of German Nationality (RKF/RKFDV) in October 1939, his deputy was Rudolf Creutz. Greifelt played a key role in the "planning and implementation of the population transfer within the framework of the General Plan East". In 1940, he was, among other things, a member of the supervisory board of the German Resettlement Trust Company (Deutsche Umsiedlungs-Treuhand GmbH, founded on 3 November 1939).

StHA/RKF

In June 1941, the RKFDV was reorganized. It was converted into an SS main office, which meant an upgrade, and was from then on called the "Main Staff Office of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of German Nationality" (Stabshauptamt des Reichskommissars für die Festigung des deutschen Volkstums; StHA/RKF). Following the model of other SS main offices, its organizational structure changed accordingly:

Office Group A, headed by Rudolf Johann Friedrich Creutz

Office Z - Central Office (personnel issues, central registry), headed by Dr. jur. Günther Stier

Office I - Resettlement and Nationality

Office II - Labor Deployment

Office Group B

Office III - Economy

Office IV - Agriculture

Office V - Financial Administration, headed by Otto Schwarzenberger

Office Group C

Office VI - Planning and Land

Office VII - Buildings

Office VIII - Central Land Office

The main task of this office – which worked closely with the Repatriation Office for Ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle), commonly known as "VoMi", the RuSHA and the Well of Life Society (Lebensborn) – was the "re-Germanization" of German ethnic groups that had "merged into the foreign ethnic environment" despite their German origins. But Slavic ethnic groups that were considered good candidates for "Germanization" were also included in this main office. In February 1942, Greifelt wrote a directive for dealing with the ethnic German children that the Polish government had been responsible for seizing and placing them in orphanages. He wanted to reintegrate them into German families if they were psychologically suitable. As of March 1944, the Stabshauptamt started with evacuations of ethnic Germans from the enemy-threatened areas in the east.

Tyrol and Nuremberg

Shortly before the end of the war in 1945, according to US sources, Greifelt first fled to the farthest reaches of the Ötztal in Tyrol (Alpine fortress) and set up his headquarters in a hotel there. He was arrested on 7 May 1945 in Roppen by the Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) and was accused in the Nuremberg show trials. His trial was from 10 October 1947 to 10 March 1948. Greifelt argued in his defence that he had the welfare of the people whom he resettled at heart and wanted to help them to find "the consolidation of their existence and thereby of their Germanism." Nevertheless, he was sentenced to life imprisonment by the victor's court. The general, who was actually in perfect health, as the recorded medical examinations prove, died in Landsberg prison under unknown circumstances.

Promotions

German Army

• August 1914 Fahnenjunker (Officer Candidate)
• September 1914 Fahnenjunker-Unteroffizier (Officer Candidate with Corporal/NCO/Junior Sergeant rank)
• March 1915 Fähnrich (Officer Cadet)
• 14 May 1915 Leutnant (2nd Lieutenant) with Patent from 10 August 1914
• 18 December 1922 Charakter als Oberleutnant a. D. (Honorary 1st Lieutenant, retired) with permission to wear the regimental uniform

SS

• 6 July 1933 SS-Untersturmführer
• 31 July 1933 SS-Obersturmführer
• 9 November 1933 SS-Hauptsturmführer
• 30 January 1934 SS-Sturmbannführer
• 1 June 1935 SS-Obersturmbannführer
• 30 January 1936 SS-Standartenführer
• 20 April 1937 SS-Oberführer
• 9 November 1939 SS-Brigadeführer
• 1 August 1941 SS-Gruppenführer
• 15 August 1942 Generalleutnant der Polizei (Lieutenant General of the Police)
• 30 January 1944 SS-Obergruppenführer und General der Polizei

Awards and decorations

• Iron Cross (1914), 2nd and 1st Class
• Observer Badge (Abzeichen für Beobachtungsoffiziere aus Flugzeugen)
• Wound Badge (1918) in Black
• Honour Cross of the World War 1914/1918 with Swords
• SS-Zivilabzeichen (No. 23,550)
• SS-Ehrenring
• SS-Ehrendegen
• Julleuchter der SS on 16 December 1935
• Deutsche Olympia-Ehrenzeichen, 2nd Class on 23 December 1936
• Ostmark Medal
• Sudetenland Medal with the Prague Castle Bar on 19 December 1939
• Decoration of Honour for German Public Welfare (Ehrenzeichen für deutsche Volkspflege), II. Grade
• SS Long Service Award (SS-Dienstauszeichnung), 3rd Grade for 8 years
• NSDAP Long Service Award in Bronze (10 years)
• War Merit Cross (1939), 2nd and 1st Class with Swords
  • 1st Class on 20 April 1942

Further (excerpt)

As documents confiscated by the Americans show, he also received a "high Hungarian order". This could possibly be the Order of the Holy Crown of Hungary (Orden der Heiligen Krone Ungarns).

Gallery (POW)

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External links

• TRIAL OF ULRICH GREIFELT AND OTHERS (Archive)