ABSTRACT
Bach-Zelewski, Erich (1899–1972) General of the Higher SS and Police Leader Corps, responsible for anti-partisan warfare on the eastern front during World War II, Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski was born on 1 March 1899 in Lauen-burg, Pomerania. A professional soldier from a Junker military family, handsome and typically East Prussian in manner, Bach-Zelewski served in World War I, then in the Freikorps and as a Reichswehr officer during the 1920s. In 1930 he joined the NSDAP and a year later he was made an SS-Untersturmführer. From 1932 until 1944 he was a member of the Reichstag, representing the Breslau electoral district. After 1934 he commanded SS and Gestapo units in East Prussia and Pomerania. In 1939 Bach-Zelewski was promoted to the position of SS General and two years later became a General of the Waffen – SS assigned to the Central Army Group on the Russian front until the end of 1942. In this period Bach-Zelewski was responsible for many atrocities in which he took a personal part. On 31 October 1941, after 35,000 persons had been executed in Riga, he proudly wrote : ‘There is not a Jew left in Estonia.’ He also participated actively in massacres of Jews at Minsk and Mogilev in White Russia.
