Siegfried Kasche

Siegfried Kasche (June 18, 1903 – June 7, 1947) was an SA Obergruppenführer and ambassador of the Third Reich to the allied Independent State of Croatia during the Second World War. He was tried for "complicity in deportations and murders" by a Yugoslav court and was executed in June 1947. [ [http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/WCC/warcrimgau.htm Noteworthy War Criminals Second World War. Gauleiters. UNWCC ] ]

Kasche was born in Strausberg in Brandenburg, Germany on June 18, 1903. After attending cadet school in Potsdam and the Lichterfelde military academy, he spent 1919-1920 in the Freikorps in Berlin and the Baltic states. He joined the Sturmabteilung in 1925 and the Nazi party in 1926. From 1928 to 1931 Kasche was deputy Gauleiter in Ostmark, and in September 1930 was elected to the Reichstag. From April 1941 until the end of the war in May 1945, he was the Reich's Minister Plenipotentiary in Zagreb.

War crimes

During World War II, many Serbs were deported from Croatia—some to Serbia and others to Germany. The order to deport Serbs did not originate with the Croatian government. According to the Nuremberg Tribunal, a conference was held in the German Legation presided over by Siegfried Kasche, "at which it was decided forcibly to evacuate the Slovenes to Croatia and Serbia and the Serbs from Croatia into Serbia. This decision results from a telegram from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Number 389, dated 31 May 1941". [Secretariat of the Tribunal, Trial of the Major War Criminals, Nuremberg: International Military Tribunal: 1947: Vol. I, p. 433; See http://www.mcadams-croatia.net/wp_on_a_artukovic.htm.]

He reported to Berlin on April 18, 1944 that "Croatia is one of the countries in which the Jewish problem has been solved". [ [http://www.porges.net/JewishHistoryOfYugoslavia.html ] at www.porges.net]

After the war, Kasche was returned to Yugoslavia by the Allies. He was tried by the Supreme Court of the Socialist Republic of Croatia in May 1947, convicted, and executed by hanging on June 7, 1947. [ [http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/WarCrime11.html Collaborators Trial ] ]

References

Further reading

* Ernst Klee: "Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich." (The Encyclopedia of People of the Third Reich) Revised edition, Frankfurt am Main, 2003, ISBN 3-10-039309-0, p 299