Emil Haussmann, Einsatzkommando 12 of Einsatzgruppe D.

31-03-2018

gestapo

Emil Haussmann, born 11 October 1910 in Ravensburg was a German SS functionary during the Nazi era. He was part of Einsatzkommando 12 of Einsatzgruppe D, which perpetrated the Holocaust in occupied Ukraine. Haussmann was charged with crimes against humanity in 1947 in the Einsatzgruppen Trial. He committed suicide while in prison. 

Einsatzgruppe “task forces” or “deployment groups” were Schutzstaffel (SS) paramilitary death squads of Nazi Germany that were responsible for mass killings, primarily by shooting, during World War II (1939–45). The Einsatzgruppen were involved in the murder of much of the intelligentsia and cultural elite of Poland, and had an integral role in the implementation of the so-called Final solution to the Jewish question, Die Endlösung der Judenfrage in territories conquered by Nazi Germany. Almost all of the people they killed were civilians,  beginning with the intelligentsia and swiftly progressing to Soviet political commissars, Jews, and Gypsies as well as actual or alleged partisans throughout Eastern Europe.

Emil Haussmann was the son of an accountant in Ravensburg. Haussmann joined the NSDAP  in January 1930] – three years before the Machtergreifung – at the age of 19. He was a grade school teacher. In 1937, he became a full-time employee of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) , and took over the SD-Oberabschnitt Southwest, based in the Judenreferat in Stuttgart.

During the Invasion of Poland, Haussmann was part of Einsatzgruppe VI, under command of SS-Obersturmbannführer Gerhard Flesch . There he was the “right hand man” for SS Standartenführer Albert Rapp . Commanding this Einsatzgruppe was Erich Naumann , who later became a co-defendant of Haussmann. After the end of hostilities, Haussmann remained with Rapp in Poland; Rapp led the Umwandererzentralstelle in Posen. This office coordinated the expulsion of Poles, Ukrainians and Jews in Reichsgau Wartheland, Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia, East Upper Silesia and Aktion Zamość.

Haussmann took part in Einsatzkommando 12, under command of SS Obersturmbannführer Gustav Adolf Nosske  during the invasion of the Soviet Union. In 1947 he was one of 24 defendants at the Einsatzgruppen Trial. On 29 July 1947, he received the indictment along with his co-defendants: (1) crimes against humanity, (2) war crimes, and (3) membership in a criminal organization . Two days later, before the arraignment, Haussmann committed suicide in his cell on 31 July 1947, age, 46, and was removed from the process. Thus, he was the only defendant at the Einsatzgruppen trial who escaped a sentence.

After World War II, in 1946, Gerhard Flesch was tried and sentenced, for the many cases of torture and murder, to execution by firing squad. The sentence was carried out at midnight at Kristiansten festning on 28 February 1948, age 38. Right before the order was given to fire, Gerhard Flesch shouted loudly “Heil Hitler”. SS Obersturmbannführer Gustav Adolf Nosske Nosske was arrested by the Allies and brought to trial at the Einsatzgruppen Trial in 1948 at Nuremberg. He was the only accused who did not seek clemency from General Lucius D. Clay  in the American sector of occupation. On 10 April 1948 Nosske was sentenced to life imprisonment for war crimes. In 1951 his sentence was commuted to ten years in prison. Upon returning to civilian life he became a coach in Württemberg. On 26 March 1965 he testified as a witness at the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials. Nosske died in 1990, age 87. The further life of Albert Rapp is unknown.