33 Facts About Rudolf Lange

Rudolf Lange was a German SS-Standartenfuhrer and police official during the Nazi era.

Rudolf Lange participated in the January 1942 Wannsee Conference, at which the genocidal Final Solution to the Jewish Question was planned, and was largely responsible for implementing the murder of Latvia's Jewish population during the Holocaust.

Rudolf Lange died at the Battle of Poznan in the closing months of the Second World War in Europe.

Rudolf Lange's father was a railway construction supervisor and the family were evangelical Protestants.

Rudolf Lange completed his dissertation on the "instruction right of the employer" and received a doctor of law degree in December 1933 just after joining the Sturmabteilung on 14 November of that year.

Rudolf Lange completed his legal training at the Gestapo office of Halle in 1935, and passed the second state law examination on 18 August 1936.

In September 1936, Rudolf Lange was hired as a probationary employee by the Gestapo office in Berlin.

Rudolf Lange adopted the SS ideology wholeheartedly and left the evangelical Protestant church in 1937.

In May 1938, just after the Anschluss with Austria, Rudolf Lange was transferred to the new Gestapo office in Vienna to supervise the takeover of the Austrian police system.

Rudolf Lange was commissioned an Untersturmfuhrer on 6 July 1938 and, later the same year, he was promoted to Sturmfuhrer.

Rudolf Lange was involved in the persecution of Viennese Jews, including the brutal attacks, arrests and looting of property that occurred during the Kristallnacht pogrom of November 1938.

In June 1939, Rudolf Lange was transferred to Stuttgart as the deputy head of the Gestapo regional headquarters.

Rudolf Lange's career continued to advance in the new RSHA organization.

On 17 September 1940, Rudolf Lange was assigned as the deputy head of the Gestapo in Berlin under Walter Blume.

On 5 June 1941, Rudolf Lange was ordered to Pretzsch and the command staff of Einsatzgruppe A, headed by now SS-Brigadefuhrer und Generalmajor der Polizei Stahlecker.

Rudolf Lange was a Teilkommando leader in Einsatzkommando 2, or EK2.

Rudolf Lange was one of the few people aware of the Fuhrerbefehl or "fundamental orders" for the so-called "Jewish problem" in Latvia.

Rudolf Lange was in charge of Department IV of the SD.

Nevertheless, Rudolf Lange is widely recognized as one of the primary perpetrators of the Holocaust in Latvia.

Rudolf Lange appears to have ordered that all the SD officers should personally participate in the killings.

In November 1941 Rudolf Lange was involved in the planning and carrying out the murder of 24,000 Latvian Jews from the Riga ghetto which occurred on 30 November and 8 December 1941.

In May 1942, Rudolf Lange issued orders to SS-Obersturmfuhrer Gunter Tabbert to kill the surviving Jews in the Daugavpils ghetto.

Rudolf Lange remained the commander of the SiPo and SD in Latvia until January 1945.

Rudolf Lange was invited to the Wannsee Conference in January 1942 by SS-Obergruppenfuhrer Heydrich, the conference organizer.

The minutes of the meeting specifically noted that Rudolf Lange was there as the representative of the commander of SiPo and SD forces in the Reichskommissariat Ostland, who at the time was SS-Brigadefuhrer Franz Walter Stahlecker.

Rudolf Lange chose Lange because Riga was the main deportation destination, and because Lange's doctorate and legal acumen made him seem more intellectual than the other two men.

Toward the end of January 1945, Rudolf Lange was appointed Commander of the SiPo and the SD of Reichsgau Wartheland.

Rudolf Lange was wounded during the Battle of Poznan and the siege of the city by Soviet forces, and he was promoted to SS-Standartenfuhrer on 30 January 1945.

Rudolf Lange was said to have been a favourite student of Reinhard Heydrich and Heinrich Himmler.

Joseph Berman, a survivor of one of the concentration camps administered by Rudolf Lange, described him as follows:.

Rudolf Lange hated Jews so much that he could not look at them; one never wanted to pass him either in the motor pool or anywhere else.

Rudolf Lange made himself one of the most feared officials among those responsible for the Riga ghetto.

Rudolf Lange personally shot a young man, Werner Koppel, who he felt was not opening a railway car door fast enough.