Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- List of tables
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Glossary
- Introduction
- 1 ‘I went to school with quite a number of Jewish co-religionists and never knew hatred for Jews’: childhood, youth and early adulthood, 1905–1932
- 2 ‘In terms of his character he is irreproachable in every respect’: Nazi Party membership and career in the SS Security Service, 1932–1939
- 3 ‘Pity that the scoundrel didn't perish’: brother's imprisonment and career stagnation, 1939–1941
- 4 ‘So, we've finished off the first Jews’: SS-Einsatzkommando 9 and deployment in the East, June–July 1941
- 5 ‘In Vileyka, the Jews had to be liquidated in their entirety’: genocide of Belarusian Jewry, July–October 1941
- 6 ‘Was it thinkable that I, a jurist and a soldier, would do such a thing?’: suspension from the Reich Security Main Office and reinstatement until the war's end, 1941–1945
- 7 ‘My son, who has not yet returned home from the war’: post-war submergence and reintegration into West German society, 1945–1959
- 8 ‘A trial of this magnitude has never previously taken place before a German court’: arrest and trial, February 1959–June 1962
- 9 ‘A limited, lower middle class, status-and-promotion seeking philistine’: imprisonment and early release, 1962–1975
- 10 ‘A chess game of egos’: Wundkanal and aftermath, 1975–1990
- Concluding thoughts
- Notes
- Sources and literature cited
- Index
3 - ‘Pity that the scoundrel didn't perish’: brother's imprisonment and career stagnation, 1939–1941
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 April 2016
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- List of tables
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Glossary
- Introduction
- 1 ‘I went to school with quite a number of Jewish co-religionists and never knew hatred for Jews’: childhood, youth and early adulthood, 1905–1932
- 2 ‘In terms of his character he is irreproachable in every respect’: Nazi Party membership and career in the SS Security Service, 1932–1939
- 3 ‘Pity that the scoundrel didn't perish’: brother's imprisonment and career stagnation, 1939–1941
- 4 ‘So, we've finished off the first Jews’: SS-Einsatzkommando 9 and deployment in the East, June–July 1941
- 5 ‘In Vileyka, the Jews had to be liquidated in their entirety’: genocide of Belarusian Jewry, July–October 1941
- 6 ‘Was it thinkable that I, a jurist and a soldier, would do such a thing?’: suspension from the Reich Security Main Office and reinstatement until the war's end, 1941–1945
- 7 ‘My son, who has not yet returned home from the war’: post-war submergence and reintegration into West German society, 1945–1959
- 8 ‘A trial of this magnitude has never previously taken place before a German court’: arrest and trial, February 1959–June 1962
- 9 ‘A limited, lower middle class, status-and-promotion seeking philistine’: imprisonment and early release, 1962–1975
- 10 ‘A chess game of egos’: Wundkanal and aftermath, 1975–1990
- Concluding thoughts
- Notes
- Sources and literature cited
- Index
Summary
In spite of Heydrich's aforementioned clear rebuke of September 1939 to the effect that the SD's foreign intelligence reports required improvement, Filbert had enjoyed a rapid rise through the SD and the ranks of the SS during the period 1935–1939. After becoming a full-time employee of Jost's Office III (Counterintelligence) in the SD Main Office on 1 March 1935, he had been promoted to the first SS officer rank, namely Untersturmführer (equivalent to second lieutenant), on 1 July 1936 (see Figures 8, 9 and 10). Exactly one month later, he had been appointed head of Main Department 22 (Enemy Intelligence Services) within the SD Main Office. Further promotions followed on 30 January 1937 to Obersturmführer (lieutenant) and on 12 September 1937 to Hauptsturmführer (captain). On 1 March 1938, his superior in Office III, SS-Oberführer Rudolf Fumy, had given Filbert the following appraisal:
SS-Hauptsturmführer Dr Filbert heads Main Department III 22 with considerable prudence and vigour. Under his leadership, Main Department III 22 has been expanded in an exemplary fashion. His knowledge and achievements are far above the average.
In view of the position as Main Department head and the exemplary achievements, it is proposed that he be promoted to SS-Sturmbannführer.
Filbert's promotion to Sturmbannführer (major) followed eleven days later. On 30 January 1939 he was promoted again to Obersturmbannführer (lieutenant colonel). With the creation of the RSHA in October 1939, Filbert had been appointed both deputy head of Office VI (SD Overseas), and head of the subordinated Group A, General Tasks. It was at this point, in autumn 1939, that his SS career stagnated. Although it would be more than six years before the Nazi regime collapsed, Filbert would remain at the rank of Obersturmbannführer (see Table 1). The reasons for this sudden halt to his rapid ascent are to be sought less in his professional performance and more in his family circumstances, as we will see.
The years 1937–1939 in particular also saw notable developments in Filbert's personal life. On 15 May 1937 he married Käthe Ilse Frieda Bernicke, born on 4 April 1910 in Groß Rhüden in Lower Saxony (see Figures 11 and 12). The couple's first son, Dieter, was born a year later in Berlin on 21 May 1938. On 27 February 1940, Käthe Filbert would give birth to their second son, Günter.
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- Information
- The Making of an SS KillerThe Life of Colonel Alfred Filbert, 1905–1990, pp. 30 - 42Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2016