19 Facts About Fritz Katzmann

Fritz Katzmann, known as Friedrich Katzmann, was a German SS and Police Leader during the Nazi era.

Fritz Katzmann perpetrated genocide in the cities of Kattowitz, Radom, Lemberg, Danzig, and across the Nazi occupied District of Galicia in the General Government during the Holocaust in Poland, making him a major figure during the Holocaust there.

Fritz Katzmann personally directed the slaughter of between 55,000 and 65,000 Jews of Lemberg between 1941 and 1942, followed by mass deportations to death camps including Janowska.

In 1943, Fritz Katzmann wrote a top-secret report summarizing Operation Reinhard in Galicia.

The Fritz Katzmann Report is considered one of the most important pieces of evidence of the extermination process.

Fritz Katzmann managed to escape prosecution after the war, living under a false identity.

Fritz Katzmann joined the Nazi Party in September 1928 and transferred from the SA to the SS on 1 July 1930.

Fritz Katzmann became an SS-Sturmbannfuhrer on 20 April 1933, and was promoted to SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer on 30 January 1934.

Fritz Katzmann participated in the murders of the Night of the Long Knives and was promoted to SS-Standartenfuhrer on 17 August 1934.

Fritz Katzmann would be promoted to SS-Oberfuhrer on 9 November 1938 and hold this command until 1 January 1942.

Fritz Katzmann was promoted to SS-Brigadefuhrer on 21 June 1941, and remained in command in Radom until 8 August 1941 when he was succeeded by SS-Brigadefuhrer Carl Oberg.

Fritz Katzmann set up a kindergarten for ghetto children with cocoa and milk and secretly murdered them all in one outing.

Fritz Katzmann organized transports to Belzec extermination camp as soon as the gassing operations started.

Fritz Katzmann was promoted to SS-Gruppenfuhrer and Generalleutnant of Police on 30 January 1943 and by midyear had produced a death toll of 143,000 more people in his district.

On 30 June 1943, Fritz Katzmann delivered his leatherbound Fritz Katzmann Report to SS-Obergruppenfuhrer Friedrich-Wilhelm Kruger, the Higher SS and Police Leader Ost in occupied Krakow.

Fritz Katzmann remained in Lemberg until 20 April 1943, when he was transferred to Danzig to become the HSSPF "Weichsel" comprising Danzig-West Prussia, holding this command until the end of the war.

Fritz Katzmann brought Central and Eastern European collaborators auxiliaries with him.

On 1 July 1944, Fritz Katzmann was made a Generalleutnant of the Waffen-SS and tasked with the final liquidation of the Stutthof camp with all of its sub-camps, ahead of the Red Army advance.

Fritz Katzmann revealed his identity to a hospital priest chaplain shortly before his death on 19 September 1957.