Otto Rasch


SS-Brigadeführer Emil Otto Rasch was a high-ranking Nazi official in the occupied Eastern territories, commanding Einsatzgruppe C until October 1941. After World War II, Rasch was indicted for war crimes, but the case was discontinued for medical reasons in 1948. He died in 1948 while in custody.

Biography

Rasch was born in Friedrichsruh, Northern Germany. As a young man, Rasch fought in the First World War as a naval lieutenant. Following Germany's defeat, Rasch studied philosophy, law, political science, and received doctorates in law and political economy. With 2 university doctorates, Rasch was known as "Dr Dr Rasch", in accordance with German academic tradition. In 1931, Rasch became a private sector lawyer, with a practise based in Dresden. In 1933, Rasch became mayor of Radeberg, followed shortly in 1935 by becoming lord mayor of Wittenberg.
Rasch joined the NSDAP on 1 October 1931, and joined the SA in 1933 and the SS on 10 March 1933. Beginning in 1936, Rasch was employed full-time by the Sicherheitsdienst. On 1 October 1937, as commissioner, Rasch assumed leadership of the State Police in Frankfurt am Main. In March 1938, again as commissioner, Rasch became director of security for Upper Austria. In June 1938, Rasch was assigned various responsibilities within the RSHA and was appointed chief of the Security Police and SD in Prague.
In November 1939, as inspector of the SiPo and SD, Rasch was transferred to Königsberg. Rasch suggested and oversaw the liquidation of Polish political prisoners who had been arrested by the Einsatzgruppen. Rasch himself checked which prisoners were to be killed. Though the killings took place in forests, in an attempt at causing panic, news of the executions was still known. With the approval of Reinhard Heydrich, Rasch organised and founded the Soldau concentration camp in the winter of 1939/40 as a Durchgangslager, or transit camp, for deportations to the General Government, and where Polish intelligentsia could be secretly executed.

Einsatzgruppe

In June 1941, shortly before the invasion of the Soviet Union, Rasch took command of Einsatzgruppe C. In this capacity, he perpetrated extermination actions against Jews. Rasch, along with General Kurt Eberhard and Paul Blobel, organised the Babi Yar massacre, which saw the murder of over 33,000 Jews.
According to the post-war affidavit of Erwin Schulz, commander of Einsatzkommando 5 :
Rasch made sure that all Einsatzgruppen personnel, including the commanding officers, personally shot Jews, so that all members were culpable.
In August 1941, Hitler is alleged to have given a Führerbefehl for the extermination of entire populations in the Eastern territories. The commando leaders subordinate to Rasch met with him to discuss this order. Paul Blobel later testified that Rasch basically quoted what had been stated by Friedrich Jeckeln, that "the measures against the Jewish population had to be sharper and that he disapproved of the manner in which they had been carried out until now because it was too mild". In other words, the order was to shoot more Jews. Erwin Schulz confirmed this:
Rasch was discharged from his position in October 1941, and at the beginning of 1942, he became the director of Continental Oil, Inc. in Berlin.
Rasch was indicted at the Einsatzgruppen trial at the end of September 1947 but the case against Rasch was discontinued on 5 February 1948 because he had Parkinson's disease and associated dementia. Otto Rasch died later that year on 1 November in Wehrstedt, Lower Saxony.

In fiction