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Arthur Nebe

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Arthur Nebe (13 November 1894, Berlin – 21 March 1945) was a Gruppenführer in the Schutzstaffel (SS). Other positions included Berlin Police Commissioner in the 1920s, an early member of both the Sturmabteilung and President of Interpol (1942-1943).

Early life

Born in Berlin in 1894, the son of an elementary school teacher, Nebe volunteered for military service in the 17th Pioneer Battalion during World War I, where he was wounded twice by gas.

Career

After the end of the war Nebe joined the Kriminalpolizei, or Kripo for short (literally, "Criminal Police", a similar organization to the United Kingdom's Criminal Investigation Department) and attained the rank of Police Commissioner in 1924. Nebe joined the Nazi party on July 1 1931; he became the Nazis' liaison in the Berlin criminal police, with links to the SS group led by Kurt Daluege, who in April 1933 recommended him as Chief Executive of the State Police.

In October 1933 Nebe was ordered by Rudolf Diels, the then head of the Gestapo, to arrange the liquidation of Hitler's rival Gregor Strasser. This began the process of turning Nebe against the Nazis. When the Kripo was absorbed into the Security Police (Sicherheitsdienst) Nebe became an SS Gruppenführer. His aversion to Reinhard Heydrich and Himmler grew even though he continued to regularly lunch with them.

In 1933 he came to know Hans Bernd Gisevius, then an official in the Berlin Police Headquarters and Gisevius introduced him to Hans Oster.

In 1936, Nebe was appointed head of the Kriminalpolizei (Kripo), which would later become the Criminal Police of Department V in the RSHA (Reichssicherheitshauptamt).

In 1937 a Criminal Police Department was created for the entire Reich and along with the Gestapo became one of the two main components of the SD. Nebe was left at the head of it under Heydrich.

In 1938, Nebe joined forces with future fellow conspirator Dr. Carl Sack (Judge Advocate-General of the Wehrmacht) to spoil Himmler's plot against General Werner von Fritsch. That same year, Hans Oster recruited Nebe into the conspiracy for the September 1938 coup attempt, a plot to overthrow Hitler if he went to war with Czechoslovakia over the Sudetenland. Nebe supplied the conspirators with information regarding SS strength, logistics, and safehouses throughout the Berlin area.

World War II

In 1941, just prior to Operation Barbarossa, Heinrich Himmler selected Nebe to command Einsatzgruppe B behind Army Group Center in the east. Foreseeing the crimes in which he would be involved, he tried to escape it by asking for a move to the International Police Commission but is said to have been persuaded by Ludwig Beck and Hans Oster to accept the appointment, which would place him in a position where he could give them information on what was happening inside the SS and the Gestapo. He worked with Henning von Tresckow and Fabian von Schlabrendorff to reduce the atrocities committed but there is no doubt that he was involved in a good many, Nebe himself claiming that his own task force was responsible for more than 45,000 killings.

He returned from Russia convinced that the war would end with the military defeat of Germany.

In late 1942 after the Wannsee Conference, Nebe informed his fellow conspirators of Himmler's plans for the so-called Final Solution.

In March 1944, after the 'Great Escape' from Stalag Luft III POW camp, Nebe was ordered by Heinrich Müller, head of the Gestapo (Amt IV, or Department 4, of the RSHA), to choose 50 of the 73 captured prisoners to be executed. It is reputed that this selection caused Nebe distress.

July 20 plot

He was involved in various plots including the July 20, 1944, bomb plot against German dictator Adolf Hitler; as part of the plot, Nebe was to lead a team of 12 policemen to kill Himmler but the signal never reached him. After the failure of the assassination attempt he went into hiding on an island in the Wannsee but was later arrested after a rejected mistress betrayed him. Nebe was sentenced to death by the Volksgerichtshof (People's Court) and according to official records, was executed in Berlin at Ploetzensee Prison on March 21 1945, reportedly by hanging from piano wire, as that was the punishment ordered by Hitler - who wanted the July 20 conspirators to be "hanged like cattle" .

In fiction

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