28 Facts About Theodor Eicke

Theodor Eicke was both a senior SS functionary and a Waffen-SS divisional commander in Nazi Germany.

Theodor Eicke was a key figure in the development of Nazi concentration camps.

Theodor Eicke continued to expand and develop the concentration camp system as the first Concentration Camps Inspector.

In 1939, Theodor Eicke became commander of the SS Division Totenkopf of the Waffen-SS, leading the division during the Second World War on the Western and Eastern fronts.

Theodor Eicke was killed on 26 February 1943, when his plane was shot down during the Third Battle of Kharkov.

Theodor Eicke was born on 17 October 1892, in Hampont near Chateau-Salins, then in the German Reichsland of Elsass-Lothringen, the youngest of 11 children of a lower middle-class family.

Theodor Eicke's father was a station master described as a German patriot.

Theodor Eicke was an underachiever in school, dropping out at the age of 17 before graduation.

Theodor Eicke served as a clerk, an assistant paymaster, and a front-line infantryman, and for his bravery during the war was awarded the Iron Cross Second Class.

Late in 1914, Theodor Eicke's commander had approved his request to temporarily return home on leave to marry Bertha Schwebel of Ilmenau on 26 December 1914, with whom he had two children: a daughter, Irma, on 5 April 1916 and a son, Hermann, on 4 May 1920.

Theodor Eicke began studying at a technical school in Ilmenau, but was forced to drop out shortly due to a lack of funds.

From 1920, Theodor Eicke pursued a career as a police officer working for two different departments, initially as an informant and later as a regular policeman.

Theodor Eicke found work in 1923 at IG Farben in Ludwigshafen and remained there as a "security officer" until 1932.

Theodor Eicke left the SA by August 1930 to join the Schutzstaffel as member number 2,921, where he quickly rose in rank after recruiting new members and building up the SS organization in the Bavarian Palatinate.

In 1931, Theodor Eicke was promoted to the rank of SS-Standartenfuhrer by Heinrich Himmler, the Reichsfuhrer of the SS.

However, due to protection received from the Bavarian Minister of Justice Franz Gurtner, a Nazi sympathizer who would later serve as minister of justice under Adolf Hitler, Theodor Eicke was able to avoid his sentence and flee to Italy on orders from Heinrich Himmler.

In March 1933, less than three months after Hitler's rise to power, Theodor Eicke returned to Germany.

In June 1933, after the mental asylum's director informed Himmler that Theodor Eicke was not "mentally unbalanced," Himmler arranged his release, paid his family 200 Reich marks as a gift, reinstated him into the SS, and promoted him to SS-Oberfuhrer.

Theodor Eicke requested a permanent unit and Himmler granted the request, forming the SS-Wachverbande.

Theodor Eicke was promoted on 30 January 1934 to SS-Brigadefuhrer, and began to extensively reorganize the Dachau camp from its original configuration under Wackerle.

Theodor Eicke fired half of the 120 guards who had been billeted at Dachau when he arrived, and devised a system that was used as a model for future camps throughout Germany.

Theodor Eicke established new guarding provisions, which included rigid discipline, total obedience to orders, and tightening disciplinary and punishment regulations for detainees.

Uniforms were issued for prisoners and guards alike, and it was Theodor Eicke who introduced the infamous blue and white striped pyjamas that came to symbolize the Nazi concentration camps across Europe.

Sometime in August 1938, Theodor Eicke's entire supporting staff was moved to Oranienburg where the Inspektion office would remain until 1945.

Theodor Eicke was given command of a new division, the SS Division Totenkopf, which was formed from concentration camp guards of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Standarten of the SS-Totenkopfverbande, and soldiers from the SS Heimwehr Danzig.

Theodor Eicke was killed on 26 February 1943, during the opening stages of the Third Battle of Kharkov, when his Fieseler Fi 156 Storch reconnaissance aircraft was shot down between the villages of Artil'ne and Mykolaivka, 105 kilometers south of Kharkov near Lozova by Red Army anti-aircraft artillery.

Theodor Eicke was first buried at a German military cemetery near the village of Oddykhne in the Kharkiv Oblast, Ukraine.

Theodor Eicke's body remained in Ukraine, where it was likely bulldozed by Soviet forces, since it was customary for them to destroy German graves.