Brandt, Rudolf Emil Hermann.

Brandt, Rudolf Emil Hermann, born on 02-06-1909, in Frankfurt an der Oder, the son of a railway worker, and raised in modest circumstances in the town Frankfurt an der Oder, was a SS officer and civil servant. Brandt was Personal Administrative Officer to the Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler.  Brandt was a member of the student’s Stenography (shorthand) club at the Realgymnasium, and in 1927, at the age of 18, won a competition with a transcription speed of 360 syllables per minute. He attended the University of Berlin and the University of Jena  (1928–1932), simultaneously working from 1928 to 1930 as a court reporter at the Provisional National Economic Council. Brandt would continue to practice stenography in the evenings with his colleague and former Frankfurt schoolmate Gerhard Herrgesell, the stenographer to Germany’s Supreme Headquarters Staff,. Brandt was awarded a Law Degree from the University of Jena in July 1933. He joined the Nazi party  in January 1932, Nr NSDAP 1 331 536 and the SS in October 1933 Nr SS 129 771. By February 1934, Brandt and his skills in transcription were noticed by Himmler, who had him transferred to his staff. In 1936, Brandt was named Leiter des Persönlichen Stabes RFSS, and in 1937 Persönlicher Referent des RFSS, a position he held until May 1945. In this position Brandt handled Himmler’s entire correspondence with the exception of matters pertaining to the Waffen SS  or the Police. Brandt would begin work at seven in the morning, no matter what time he had gone to bed the night before. Three or four hours of sleep were sufficient for him. As soon as Himmler had risen in the morning and washed, Brandt would go to him loaded with papers and files and while Himmler shaved he would read him the most important items of the morning’s mail. This was done with the greatest seriousness. The charge against Brandl was conspiracy to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity and membership in a criminal organization, the SS. He was found guilty, as he had been responsible for the administration and coordination of the experiments at the camps. SS Hauptsturmfùhrer, Josef Mengele “The Angle of Death”  infamous for performing human experiments on camp inmates in Auschwitz, including children, for which Mengele was called the “Angel of Death”.

    

From 1938, Rudolf Brandt was Ministerial Councilor and Head of the Minister’s Office in the Reich Ministry of the Interior. Brandt was a member of the entourage which accompanied Himmler into hiding, leaving Flensburg on 10-05-1945, with the vague goal of attempting to reach Bavaria. He became separated from Himmler and surrendered along with most of the party to  British troops on May 21. Himmler was captured, though not identified on May 22, along with his Waffen SS aides, Werner Grothmann, Grothmann here with Heinrich Himmler  after 16 years of imprisonment, he was tried as a war criminal, but after a couple of months Grothmann was declared innocent. He worked as a  businessman until his death on 26-02-2002, old age 86, the other aid was Heinz Macher . Heinz Macher died old age 81 on 21-12-2001 in Schenefeld. Brandt watched from inside the wire at the Westertimke detention camp when Himmler was brought in with his aides on 23-05-1945. It was then that Himmler identified himself to the camp commandant. Himmler committed suicide later that evening as when he bit down on the cyanide ampule about to be discovered by the British Psysician.  Rudolf Brandt directly behind Himmler during a visit to the Mauthausen concentration camp.

Death and burial ground of Brandt, Rudolf Emil Hermann.

   

Brandt was hanged on 02-06-1948, on his 39th birthday, in Landsberg. Rudolf Brandt is buried on the Spottinger prison cemetery in Landsberg, next to the also hanged war criminals, Sonderkommando 4 A of Einsatzgruppe C,Paul Blobel, Hitler’s personal physician Karl Brandt, age 44,   SS Gruppenführer, Gauleiter from Meckelen and SS Obergruppenführer,  Karl Hildebrandt, SS Hauptscharfführer, head of the Crematoria of Auschwitz, Otto Moll, Waffen SS, Brigadeführer, Kommandant of Einsatzgruppe B, Erich Naumann, the organiser of the Euthanasia Programme, Action T4, where the Nazi state systematically murdered disabled German people. Victor Brack, SS Obergruppenführer and Chief des SS Wirtschaftsamt, Oswald Pohl and Reichsgeschäftsführer, Wolfram Sievers.

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