Greifelt, Ulrich Heinrich Emil Richard.

Greifelt, Ulrich Heinrich Emil Richard, born 08-12-1896 in Berlin, the son of a pharmacist. Ulrich joined the German army in 1914, age 17 and fought in the First World War. After the war, Greifelt retired from the army with the rank of Oberleutnant. Subsequently, he was a member of the Freikorps.

In the aftermath of World War I and during the German Revolution of 1918–19, Freikorps, under command of Franz Xavier Ritter von Epp consisting partially of World War I veterans, were raised as paramilitary militias. They were ostensibly mustered to fight on behalf of the government against the German communists attempting to overthrow the Weimar Republic. However, many Freikorps also largely despised the Republic and were involved in assassinations of its supporters, later aiding the Nazis in their rise to power.

During the Weimar Republic, Greifelt worked as an economist at a Berlin joint-stock company until he was laid off in 1932 due to the difficult economic situation in Germany. The Weimar Republic,officially known as the German Reich, was a historical period of Germany from 09-11-1918 to 23-03-1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is also referred to, and unofficially proclaimed itself, as the German Republic.

After the Machtergreifung, Hitler’s rise to power, Greifelt joined the Nazi Party in April 1933 (member no. 1,667,407) and the SS in June 1933 (member no. 72,909). As of August 1933, Greifelt was a speaker on the Persönlicher Stab Reichsführer-SS. From early March to mid-June 1934, Greifelt was business leader for the chief of staff of SS-Oberabschnitts Mitte/Elbe, and then by mid-January 1935, chief of staff of SS-Oberabschnitt Rhein/Rhein-Westmark/Westmark. GHreifelt then headed the Central Registry of the SS-Hauptamt. Leaders of the Hauptamt were Curt Wittje (1934-1935),  he was last seen in a Moscow prison and shot dead on 06-03-1947, in the Soviet Union after a trial before a Soviet military tribunal for war crimes at the Lichtenburg concentration camp, further SS Obergruppenführer August Heißmeyer (1935-1939) After his release, Heissmeyer went to live in Schwäbisch Hall and became the director of the West German Coca-Cola bottling plant. He died on 16-01-1979, five days after his 82nd birthday. and SS Obergruppenführer Berger, Gottlob Christian,”the Duke of Swabian” (1939-1945).

After the beginning of World War II, Greifelt was appointed Chief of Staff of RKFDV (Reichskommissar für die Festigung deutschen Volkstums; Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Nationhood) in October 1939. He was instrumental in the “planning and implementation of population relocation in the context of Generalplan Ost”. In the SS, Greifelt rose quickly through the ranks, reaching SS Gruppenführer (Major General) by 1941. He ultimately reached the rank of SS-Obergruppenführer und General der Polizei on 30-01-1944.

In February 1942, whilst serving on Heinrich Himmler‘s staff, Greifelt wrote a directive for dealing with children. He claimed that the Polish government had been responsible for seizing ethnic German children and placing them in orphanages and it was the duty of the Nazis to reclaim these children. He continued that those who “looked” German should be taken from orphanages, taken for examination at the SS-Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt before undergoing extensive psychological study. Those that were found to be of desirable racial stock were to be sent to German boarding schools and subsequently made available for adoption by the families of SS members, with their Polish origin to be concealed from any prospective parents.

Death and burial ground of Greifelt, Ulrich Heinrich Emil Richard.

After World War II, Greifelt was arrested in May 1945. Greifelt was sentenced to life imprisonment at the RuSHA trial on 10-03-1948.  On the far right is Greifeld. From left: Gottlov Berger, Konrad Meyer-Hetting, Max Thomas, Kurt Knoblauch and Otto von Oelhafen .

GHreifelt had been found guilty as the person mainly responsible for the expulsion of people from Slovenia, Alsace, Lorraine and Luxembourg. Greifelt argued in his defence that he had the welfare of the people whom he expelled at heart and wanted to help them to find “the consolidation of their existence and thereby of their Germanism.” His claims were rejected however and he was sentenced under recently passed genocide legislation. Greifelt died while serving his sentence at Landsberg Prison on 06-02-1949, age 52. Almost certain Greifelt is buried at the Waldfriedhof Landsberg Prison cemetery.

Landsberg Prison is best known as the prison where Adolf Hitler was held in 1924, after the failed Beer Hall Putsch in Munich, and where he dictated his memoirs Mein Kampf to Rudolf Hess.

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