18. Facing inevitable capture, Secret Police Chief Walther Bierkamp took his own life to avoid judicial punishment
Walther Bierkamp (b. 1901) was a Generalmajor of Police within the Nazi Security Police (SD) and SS-Brigadeführer. Joining the Nazi Party in 1932, and the SS in 1939, Bierkamp swiftly garnered a reputation for ruthless efficiency and was employed by the German secret police throughout Europe. Serving first as Head of the Criminal Police department in Hamburg from February 1937 to February 1941, Bierkamp later occupied positions as Chief of the Security Police and Security Service in Düsseldorf, Chief of the Security Police in Paris, and Higher SS and Police Leader in Belgium and Northern France.
Between June 1942 and June 1943 Bierkamp commanded the SS paramilitary death squad Einsatzgruppe D, responsible for the mass killing of Jews throughout the territory of the Soviet Union. Among several known incidents Einsatzgruppe D shot 500 Jews from Krasnodar across two days in August 1942, and the total death toll of the squadron is estimated to be around 10,000.
Appointed Chief of Police of Kraków, Poland, Bierkamp was responsible for the ethnic cleansing of the region via nearby Auschwitz concentration camp. During the German retreat from Eastern Europe, in July 1944 Bierkamp ordered the evacuation of useful prisoners for forced industrial labor but also the execution by any means necessary of those unable to be transported back to Germany. Relocating repeatedly in the final weeks of the war, Bierkamp finally committed suicide in Scharbeutz on May 15 1945.