24 Facts About Martin Sandberger

Martin Sandberger was a German SS functionary during the Nazi era and a convicted Holocaust perpetrator.

Martin Sandberger commanded Sonderkommando 1a of Einsatzgruppe A, as well as the Sicherheitspolizei and SD at the time of Nazi German occupation of Estonia during World War II.

Martin Sandberger was responsible for the arrest of Jews in Italy, and their deportation to Auschwitz concentration camp.

Martin Sandberger was the second-highest official of the Einsatzgruppe A to be tried and convicted.

Martin Sandberger was the last-surviving defendant from the Nuremberg Military Tribunals.

Martin Sandberger was born in Charlottenburg, Berlin as a son of a director of IG Farben.

Martin Sandberger studied law at the Universities of Munchen, Koln, Freiburg and Tubingen.

From 1932 - 1933 Martin Sandberger was a Nazi student activist and student leader in Tubingen.

Martin Sandberger began a career with the SD and by 1938 he had risen to the rank of SS Sturmbannfuhrer.

Martin Sandberger worked as an assistant judge in the Interior Administration of Wurttemberg and became a government councillor in 1937.

In June 1941 Sandberger was appointed chief of Sonderkommando 1a of Einsatzgruppe A During the first two weeks of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, which began on 22 June 1941, Sandberger traveled with Franz Walter Stahlecker, the commander of Einsatzgruppe A Sandberger was involved since March 1941 in the distribution of a business plan for the RSHA and a director of the curriculum organization of the schools.

Martin Sandberger received his knowledge of the Fuhrer order from Bruno Streckenbach, an official with Department IV of the Reich Security Main Office.

In early July 1941, Martin Sandberger was sent to Estonia on the orders of Stahlecker.

On 10 September 1941, Martin Sandberger promulgated a general order for the internment of Jews which resulted in the internment of 450 Jews in a concentration camp at Pskov, Russia.

In January 1944 Martin Sandberger became head of the Department A in the Reich Security Main Office Amt.

Martin Sandberger kept the domestic and foreign accounts and financial records of the organization.

Similarly, Martin Sandberger claimed he had arrested the Jews sent to Pskov to protect them, hoping that during the internment the Fuhrer order might be revoked or meliorated and he was not in general responsible for their execution at the Pskov detention camp.

Martin Sandberger said he was responsible for "only a fraction" of the killings.

Martin Sandberger claimed the execution of the Jews at Pskov happened in his absence and without his knowledge.

Martin Sandberger was denied parole, but the board unanimously voted for his life sentence and that of the other three to be commuted to time served.

The commutations became official on 6 May 1958, and Martin Sandberger was released three days later.

Until 1972, Martin Sandberger was repeatedly called as a witness in Nazi war crimes trials, such as in 1958 in the trial against the "Einsatzkommando Tilsit", the so-called Einsatzgruppen trial, in Ulm.

The reason was that Martin Sandberger had already been convicted in 1948 in the trial before the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg.

Martin Sandberger died on 30 March 2010, at the age of 98.