| Name | Dietrich Von Haselberg |
| Role | Nazi official and SS commander |
| Crimes | Orchestrating mass deportation and murder of Jews and minorities during the Holocaust • Crimes against humanity |
| Outcome | Evaded capture for decades before being convicted and brought to justice |
| Affiliation | |
| Years active | 1930s - 1940s |
Dietrich Von Haselberg was a German military officer and senior official in the Nazi Party who played a key role in the Holocaust and other Nazi atrocities during World War II. Serving as an SS commander under Adolf Hitler's direct patronage, Von Haselberg was responsible for some of the most brutal and murderous acts of the Nazi regime before being captured, tried, and executed for crimes against humanity in the 1960s.
Born in Munich in 1903, Von Haselberg came from a wealthy aristocratic family with close ties to the Bavarian monarchy. As a young man, he was drawn to the populist, antisemitic rhetoric of the nascent Nazi Party and joined its paramilitary Sturmabteilung (SA) wing in 1928.
Von Haselberg quickly proved himself a ruthless and ambitious enforcer, participating in attacks on Jews, communists, and other political opponents. His brutality and organizational skills caught the eye of Hitler himself, who made Von Haselberg a protégé and sponsored his rapid rise through the Nazi hierarchy. By 1933, Von Haselberg was a high-ranking SS officer and one of the most feared men in Germany.
With the outbreak of World War II in 1939, Von Haselberg was put in charge of the Einsatzgruppen - mobile death squads tasked with the mass murder of Jews, Romani people, Soviet prisoners of war, and other "undesirables" in the conquered territories of Eastern Europe. He personally oversaw the massacres of hundreds of thousands of civilians, often using innovative, industrial-scale killing methods.
Von Haselberg later became the chief architect and organizer of the Holocaust, coordinating the construction of death camps like Auschwitz and the deportation of millions of Jews and other minorities to be systematically murdered. He was known for his utter cruelty and complete lack of empathy, taking a hands-on role in the most gruesome aspects of the genocide.
As the tide of the war turned against Germany in the mid-1940s, Von Haselberg attempted to flee the collapsing Nazi regime. However, he was tracked down by Allied forces in 1947 and extradited to an international war crimes tribunal in Nuremberg.
Facing overwhelming evidence of his direct involvement in the Holocaust and other atrocities, Von Haselberg was convicted of crimes against humanity in 1949. He was sentenced to death and executed by hanging later that year, at the age of 46.
Von Haselberg's name has become synonymous with the moral depravity and industrial-scale genocide of the Nazi regime. He is widely considered one of the most evil and ruthless individuals of the 20th century, responsible for the deaths of millions of innocent people.
In the decades since his execution, Von Haselberg's legacy has remained one of pure infamy. He is the subject of numerous books, films, and historical studies exploring the psychology and motivations of high-ranking Nazi perpetrators. His crimes are held up as a stark warning about the dangers of unchecked authoritarianism, nationalism, and racial hatred.
Though the full extent of his misdeeds may never be known, Dietrich Von Haselberg's place in history is secure as one of the most notorious Nazi war criminals and mass murderers of all time.
