Published on Encyclopédie des violences de masse (http://ww
w.sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance)
Dannecker, Theodor
From summer 1940 to summer 1942, SS-Obersturmführer Theo Dannecker directed the Jewish
Affairs Department of the small Gestapo team being set up in occupied France, under the control of
the Military Command. He was a personal acquaintance of Adolf Eichmann, and in spite of his youth,
he was probably one of the most experienced men in the team responsible for the fate of the Jews
and the “Final Solution.” Dannecker had no qualifications and was working for a textile merchant
when he joined the Nazi party and the SS in 1932. He became a permanent member of the party as
early as 1934, before joining the SD headquarters in Berlin three years later. He entered the Jewish
Affairs Department and was put in charge of the sub-department for “assimilated Jews.” The
conference presentations he gave before party cadres, along with some of his co-workers,
demonstrated his knowledge of this field. He then verified it “on the ground” by participating in the
creation of a Central Office for Jewish emigration in Vienna, in 1938. After the German invasion of
Poland, Dannecker was sent to set up the Nisko “reservation” for Jews, near Lublin. In the spring of
1940, he was sent to Prague to set up a system mirroring that established in Vienna. His familiarity
with “assimilated Jews,” who made up the majority of the Jewish population in France, decided
Eichmann to select Dannecker as director of the Department in summer 1940. Though he was in
direct contact with his mentor Eichmann, he was actually placed under the authority of [Helmut
Knochen->72], a man he had met previously in Berlin. From then on, Dannecker’s extremism and
activism put him in a situation of constant confrontation with Knochen’s broader, realistic policy,
which went beyond the Jewish question and was more focused on the situation in occupied France,
as well as on the necessary collaboration with the French authorities. Thus, these tensions over the
management of the “Final Solution” and the setting of its pace led to the departure of Dannecker as
early as July 1942. He pursued his career in Sofia, deporting the Bulgarian Jews. But as Serge
Klarsfeld demonstrated, no other could probably have launched the “Final Solution” as efficiently in
occupied France. Dannecker remained “the real architect of anti-Jewish infrastructure in France.” (S.
Klarsfeld, 1983-2001: 42)
Pour en savoir plus
Page 1 of 1
Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)