13 Facts About Wilhelm Rediess

Friedrich Wilhelm Rediess was the SS and police leader during the German occupation of Norway during the Second World War.

Wilhelm Rediess was the commander of all SS troops stationed in occupied Norway and assumed command from 22 June 1940 to his death by suicide.

Wilhelm Rediess then worked as an electrician until he lost his job in the Great Depression.

In May 1925, Wilhelm Rediess joined the SA and in December was approved for membership in the Nazi Party.

Wilhelm Rediess led a Dusseldorf SA company in 1927 and was transferred to the SS with his unit in 1930.

Promotion swiftly followed for Wilhelm Rediess, who achieved the rank of Gruppenfuhrer in 1935.

Wilhelm Rediess served as a deputy in the Reichstag from 1933 until his death in May 1945.

At the onset of the Second World War, Wilhelm Rediess was responsible for implementing German racial laws in Prussia.

Wilhelm Rediess oversaw the deportation of Jews from East Prussia and was then given the task of eradicating 1,558 Jewish deportees who were deemed mentally ill.

Wilhelm Rediess borrowed "gas vans" and personnel from other SS units and offered a bounty of ten Reichsmark for each Jew killed.

In March 1941, citing reports of large numbers of Norwegian women being impregnated by German soldiers, Wilhelm Rediess implemented the German Lebensborn program in Norway.

Wilhelm Rediess committed suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot wound upon the collapse of the Third Reich in Norway on 8 May 1945.

Wilhelm Rediess's remains were destroyed on the same day that Terboven killed himself by detonating fifty kilograms of dynamite in a bunker on the Skaugum compound.