Eggert Reeder
Encyclopedia
SS
-Gruppenführer
Eggert Reeder (22 July 1894, Poppenbüll
– 22 November 1959, Wuppertal
) was a German jurist
, civil servant, and district President of several regions. Reeder served as civilian administrator of Wehrmacht
occupied Belgium and northern France when Nazi Germany
occupied those countries during World War II
.
. At the cessastion of activities, he joined the University of Halle-Wittenberg
in Halle
, where he studied law and political science.
During this period he joined the Corps Palaiomarchia and also volunteered for the local Freikorps
under Major-General Georg Ludwig Rudolf Maercker (1865–1924). In this role, Reeder became involved from February 1919 onwards in the brutal suppression of the strikes and riots in Halle, which occurred as a result of the November Revolution, and resulted in the abdication of the monarchy in the early days of the Weimar Republic
.
After further study at the University of Kiel
, from 1921 he was appointed a court clerk, and in 1922 a government clerk in the District government of Schleswig
. From 1924 to 1929 he was an assessor in the Prussian district of Lennep, and then Cologne
.
, two months later he was appointed district president of the government of Aachen
. On 9 July 1936 Reeder was appointed governor of Cologne. In 1938, the Belgian King Leopold III (1901–1983) appointed Reeder Grand Cross of the Order of Leopold.
At the outbreak of World War II
, he joined the Schutzstaffel (SS)
on 31 August 1939 as a Brigadefuhrer
, and given the additional govenorship of Düsseldorf
. Eggert became key in the planning of the invasion of Belgium during the Phoney War.
invaded Luxembourg, the Netherlands
, and Belgium under the operational plan Fall Gelb (Case Yellow).
Once the Wehrmacht had fully occuiped Belgium, Adolf Hitler
chose not to install a civilian government (such as he had done in the Netherlands), but instead installed a military government headed by Alexander von Falkenhausen
of the Wehrmacht. This intensified friction and disagreement between native-Belgian right-wing factions, including Verdinaso
and Rexism
, forcing them to fully collaborate
with the occupying forces in order to gain influence. Hitler and SS
-leader Heinrich Himmler
made profit from the situation, and increased competition between various native-Belgian groups by founding some more extreme collaborationist organisations, including the 6th SS Volunteer Sturmbrigade Langemarck
and DeVlag
, the German-Flemish Workers Community. After Ward Hermans
and René Lagrou
left the Flemish National Union (VNV)
to form the Algemeene-SS Vlaanderen
, their leader Staf de Clercq
immediately choose to collaborate as well, despite pre-war statements to the contrary.
Reeder was appointed head of the administrative staff of the Military Governor of Belgium and northern France under von Falkenhausen, in charge of all economic and political issues, and liasing with the occupation Government in charge. As a result, Reeder's his first official business in Düsseldorf was to appoint his Vice President William Burandt as his interim-successor, but retained his position in Cologne.
Robert de Foy
, who had been allowed to stay in place, to hand over pre-war lists of Aliens he had been asked to prepare by King Leopold III, and to then use his forces to round them up. This included Flemish nationalists, communists and non-Belgian citizens, most of them Jewish refugees from Germany and Poland
.
These people were exported to France on so-called "phantom trains" the records for which were destroyed, but it is known that at least 3,000 were arrested under the plot in Antwerp alone. A phantom train on which Joris van Severen
, leader of the pro-Belgian Fascist party was among 79 people deported is well recorded, as 21 people were killed by French soldiers on 20th may 1940 at Abbeville
.
Of the people deported on "phantom trains," most including the Belgian Jews were released by the Wehrmacht, the only Jews released by the Nazi German Army. 3,537 Jews holding German and Austrian passports were kept imprisoned at location, and were transported to Auschwitz-Berkinau
for processing.
, before being transported to Berlin
. Questioned and held for a few weeks, he was released and told to make his way back to Belgium. In the mean time, SS-Chief Reinhard Heydrich
communicated directly to Reeder that de Foy was to remain in position and untouched.
From this point forward, a relationship of tension existed between de Foy and the Nazi occupying forces in Belgium. Although co-operative with them, de Foy had both his department and powers cut from this point forward, and it was not until after the Allied invasion of France and the oncoming collapse of Nazi control that the status-quo was disrupted. Arriving in Brussels on 14 August 1940, De Foy resumed his duties, but the State Security Service had been abolished, and the activities of his residual department were now limited to the policing of Aliens.
On October 1, 1943, de Foy succeeded Gaston Schuind as Secretary General of the Department of Justice, after he reached an agreement with Reeder that the autonomy of the Belgian justice system was guaranteed. At the same time, the Wehrmacht took over the policing of aliens in Belgium, which after this time greatly escalated. This was in part aided that from July to September 1944, Reeder was appointed Deputy of the new Imperial Commissioner for the occupied Belgium and northern areas of France, the former Cologne and Aachen Gauleiter Josef Grohé
(1902–1987).
, to try to apply the rules of the Hague Convention
against in their region, often against the wishes and instructions of their Wehrmacht and SS superiors. In part they were aided by an on-going conflict between Himmler and Heydrich, which locally manifested itself as to who had what control over the still in place Belgian Police.
Reeder was directly responsible for the destruction of "Jewish influence" in the Belgian economy. But to ensure that the all the Belgian people co-operated in the German occupation, Reeder negotiated an agreement to allow native Belgian Jews to remain in Belgium. Part of this was the non-enforcement of the Reich Main Security Office order for all Jews to be marked by wearing a yellow Star of David
at all times, until Helmut Knochen
's conference in Paris on 14 March 1942.
While implementation of economic policy led to mass unemployment of Belgian Jewish workers, especially in the diamond
business, Reeder's efforts preserved existing national administrative structures and business relations within Belgium and northern France during the German occupation. 2,250 of these unemployed Belgian Jews were sent to forced labour camps in Northern France (still under Reeder's control), in order to build the Atlantic Wall
for Organisation Todt
.
The one attempt at the mass deportation of Belgian Jews, attempted on 3 September 1943, proved a failure. After Wehrmacht raids, hundreds of Antwerp Jews were taken in furniture vans from their homes to Mechelen transit camp
. Soon afterwards, Reeder ordered their release at the direct instance of Queen Elizabeth of Bavaria and Cardinal
Jozef-Ernest van Roey
, and the attempt was not repeated. It was hence reported as "impossible" by local SS units charged with meeting Final Solution targets to find enough stateless and foreign Jews to fill another Auschwitz transport after 20 September 1943, though 1,800 Jews of various privileged categories were taken in 1944 to camps including Theresienstadt and Bergen-Belsen
.
This meant that although 43,000 Jews left Belgium under the Final Solution up until the end of occupation in 1945, many of these in the early months of occupation, this approximated to the number of non-Belgian Jews who had been resident in Belgium before the war, according to lists complied by de Foy. Post war, historians estimated that only 6% of Belgian Jews were arrested and sent to camps in the east; 13,000 of the non-Belgian Jews transported from the territory died.
on 9 November 1943. With both the build up of the US Army in England from 1944, and the advancement of the Soviet Red Army in the east, the Nazi occupation in the west became more focused on the final solution
. After the Allied Forces invasion of Normandy
in June, the Nazis relieved de Foy of his position, in part driven by the rumours that he was "London's man," having made contact according to post-War records with the Belgian Resistance
via both Walter van der Ganshof Meersch and William Ugeux.
After Robert Jan Verbelen
was made head of the De Vlag Veiligheidscorps, a Nazi SS security force in Belgium, and a failed attempt to execute De Foy by firing squad, he was placed in jail. As the Allies entered Belgium, De Foy was released and went into hiding. Reeder was taken prisoner on 18 April 1945 and held in Belgium until the summer of 1947.
(1909–1991). Reeder and Alexander von Falkenhausen were tried for their role in the deportation of more than 30,000 Jews from Belgium, but not for their deaths in Auschwitz. Both were found guilty on 9 July 1951 and sentenced to 12 years hard labour in Germany. On return to West Germany
, on 30 July 1951 they were pardoned by Chancellor Konrad Adenauer
(1876–1967), and Reeder subsequently retired at his own request. It was Reeder's efforts to preserve existing national administrative structures and business relations within Belgium and northern France during the German occupation, and the delayed and incomplete efforts to inflect the Final Solution
on Belgian Jews that spared Reeder and gained him enough credit to earn a pardon.
Schutzstaffel
The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...
-Gruppenführer
Gruppenführer
Gruppenführer was an early paramilitary rank of the Nazi Party, first created in 1925 as a senior rank of the SA.-SS rank:...
Eggert Reeder (22 July 1894, Poppenbüll
Poppenbüll
Poppenbüll is a municipality in the district of Nordfriesland, in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany....
– 22 November 1959, Wuppertal
Wuppertal
Wuppertal is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located in and around the Wupper river valley, and is situated east of the city of Düsseldorf and south of the Ruhr area. With a population of approximately 350,000, it is the largest city in the Bergisches Land...
) was a German jurist
Jurist
A jurist or jurisconsult is a professional who studies, develops, applies, or otherwise deals with the law. The term is widely used in American English, but in the United Kingdom and many Commonwealth countries it has only historical and specialist usage...
, civil servant, and district President of several regions. Reeder served as civilian administrator of Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
occupied Belgium and northern France when Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
occupied those countries during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
Early life
Joining the Imperial German Army straight from school, he served on various fronts during World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. At the cessastion of activities, he joined the University of Halle-Wittenberg
University of Halle-Wittenberg
The Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg , also referred to as MLU, is a public, research-oriented university in the cities of Halle and Wittenberg within Saxony-Anhalt, Germany...
in Halle
Halle, Saxony-Anhalt
Halle is the largest city in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. It is also called Halle an der Saale in order to distinguish it from the town of Halle in North Rhine-Westphalia...
, where he studied law and political science.
During this period he joined the Corps Palaiomarchia and also volunteered for the local Freikorps
Freikorps
Freikorps are German volunteer military or paramilitary units. The term was originally applied to voluntary armies formed in German lands from the middle of the 18th century onwards. Between World War I and World War II the term was also used for the paramilitary organizations that arose during...
under Major-General Georg Ludwig Rudolf Maercker (1865–1924). In this role, Reeder became involved from February 1919 onwards in the brutal suppression of the strikes and riots in Halle, which occurred as a result of the November Revolution, and resulted in the abdication of the monarchy in the early days of the Weimar Republic
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...
.
After further study at the University of Kiel
University of Kiel
The University of Kiel is a university in the city of Kiel, Germany. It was founded in 1665 as the Academia Holsatorum Chiloniensis by Christian Albert, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp and has approximately 23,000 students today...
, from 1921 he was appointed a court clerk, and in 1922 a government clerk in the District government of Schleswig
Schleswig
Schleswig or South Jutland is a region covering the area about 60 km north and 70 km south of the border between Germany and Denmark; the territory has been divided between the two countries since 1920, with Northern Schleswig in Denmark and Southern Schleswig in Germany...
. From 1924 to 1929 he was an assessor in the Prussian district of Lennep, and then Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
.
NSDAP
Reeder joined the NSDAP on 1 May 1933. Appointed district govenor of FlensburgFlensburg
Flensburg is an independent town in the north of the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. Flensburg is the centre of the region of Southern Schleswig...
, two months later he was appointed district president of the government of Aachen
Aachen
Aachen has historically been a spa town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Aachen was a favoured residence of Charlemagne, and the place of coronation of the Kings of Germany. Geographically, Aachen is the westernmost town of Germany, located along its borders with Belgium and the Netherlands, ...
. On 9 July 1936 Reeder was appointed governor of Cologne. In 1938, the Belgian King Leopold III (1901–1983) appointed Reeder Grand Cross of the Order of Leopold.
At the outbreak of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, he joined the Schutzstaffel (SS)
Schutzstaffel
The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...
on 31 August 1939 as a Brigadefuhrer
Brigadeführer
SS-Brigadeführer was an SS rank that was used in Nazi Germany between the years of 1932 and 1945. Brigadeführer was also an SA rank....
, and given the additional govenorship of Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...
. Eggert became key in the planning of the invasion of Belgium during the Phoney War.
Administrator of Belgium
On 10 May 1940, the WehrmachtWehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
invaded Luxembourg, the Netherlands
Battle of the Netherlands
The Battle of the Netherlands was part of Case Yellow , the German invasion of the Low Countries and France during World War II. The battle lasted from 10 May 1940 until 14 May 1940 when the main Dutch forces surrendered...
, and Belgium under the operational plan Fall Gelb (Case Yellow).
Once the Wehrmacht had fully occuiped Belgium, Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
chose not to install a civilian government (such as he had done in the Netherlands), but instead installed a military government headed by Alexander von Falkenhausen
Alexander von Falkenhausen
Alexander Ernst Alfred Hermann Freiherr von Falkenhausen was a German general. He was the head of the military government of Belgium from 1940–44 during its occupation by Germany in World War II....
of the Wehrmacht. This intensified friction and disagreement between native-Belgian right-wing factions, including Verdinaso
Verdinaso
The Verdinaso was an authoritarian and fascist-inspired political party in Belgium and the Netherlands during the 1930s...
and Rexism
Rexism
Rexism was a fascist political movement in the first half of the 20th century in Belgium.It was the ideology of the Rexist Party , officially called Rex, founded in 1930 by Léon Degrelle, a Walloon...
, forcing them to fully collaborate
Collaboration
Collaboration is working together to achieve a goal. It is a recursive process where two or more people or organizations work together to realize shared goals, — for example, an intriguing endeavor that is creative in nature—by sharing...
with the occupying forces in order to gain influence. Hitler and SS
Schutzstaffel
The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...
-leader Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943, Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo...
made profit from the situation, and increased competition between various native-Belgian groups by founding some more extreme collaborationist organisations, including the 6th SS Volunteer Sturmbrigade Langemarck
6th SS Volunteer Sturmbrigade Langemarck
The 27th SS Volunteer Division Langemarck was a German Waffen-SS volunteer division comprising volunteers of Flemish background. It saw action on the Eastern Front during World War II....
and DeVlag
Devlag
Deutsch-Vlämische Arbeitsgemeinschaft , better known as DeVlag, was a pro-Nazi organization active in Flanders during the German occupation of Belgium...
, the German-Flemish Workers Community. After Ward Hermans
Ward Hermans
Cornelius Eduardus Hermans was a Belgian Flemish nationalist politician and writer....
and René Lagrou
René Lagrou
René Lagrou was a Flemish-Belgian politician and collaborator with Nazi Germany. Originating in West Flanders, Lagrou worked as a lawyer in Antwerp....
left the Flemish National Union (VNV)
Flemish National Union
The Flemish National Union was a Nationalist Flemish political party in Belgium, founded by Staf de Clercq on October 8, 1933. De Clercq became known as den Leider .-Creation:...
to form the Algemeene-SS Vlaanderen
Algemeene-SS Vlaanderen
The Algemeene-SS Vlaanderen , later Germaansche SS in Vlaanderen was the Flemish branch of the Germanic SS during the Nazi occupation of Belgium.-History:...
, their leader Staf de Clercq
Staf De Clercq
Staf De Clercq was a Flemish nationalist collaborator, co-founder and leader of the Flemish nationalist Vlaamsch Nationaal Verbond .-Biography:...
immediately choose to collaborate as well, despite pre-war statements to the contrary.
Reeder was appointed head of the administrative staff of the Military Governor of Belgium and northern France under von Falkenhausen, in charge of all economic and political issues, and liasing with the occupation Government in charge. As a result, Reeder's his first official business in Düsseldorf was to appoint his Vice President William Burandt as his interim-successor, but retained his position in Cologne.
Phantom trains
Reeder ordered the head of the Belgian State Security ServiceBelgian State Security Service
The Belgian State Security Service, known in Dutch as Veiligheid van de Staat, or Staatsveiligheid , and in French as Sûreté de l'État , is a Belgian intelligence agency...
Robert de Foy
Robert de Foy
Robert Herman Alfred de Foy was a Belgian magistrate, and head of the Belgian State Security Service, before and after the Second World War.-Personal life:...
, who had been allowed to stay in place, to hand over pre-war lists of Aliens he had been asked to prepare by King Leopold III, and to then use his forces to round them up. This included Flemish nationalists, communists and non-Belgian citizens, most of them Jewish refugees from Germany and Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
.
These people were exported to France on so-called "phantom trains" the records for which were destroyed, but it is known that at least 3,000 were arrested under the plot in Antwerp alone. A phantom train on which Joris van Severen
Joris Van Severen
Joris Van Severen was a Belgian nationalist politician, ideologist and leader of the national-solidarist Verdinaso.-Early years:...
, leader of the pro-Belgian Fascist party was among 79 people deported is well recorded, as 21 people were killed by French soldiers on 20th may 1940 at Abbeville
Abbeville
Abbeville is a commune in the Somme department in Picardie in northern France.-Location:Abbeville is located on the Somme River, from its modern mouth in the English Channel, and northwest of Amiens...
.
Of the people deported on "phantom trains," most including the Belgian Jews were released by the Wehrmacht, the only Jews released by the Nazi German Army. 3,537 Jews holding German and Austrian passports were kept imprisoned at location, and were transported to Auschwitz-Berkinau
Auschwitz concentration camp
Concentration camp Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II...
for processing.
Relationship with Robert de Foy
On their return to Belgium in July 1940, the Flemish-Nationalists complained to Reeder, who had De Foy arrested for the deportations. Instead of being sent to prison, De Foy was transported to Germany, initially held in a hotel in MünsterMünster
Münster is an independent city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also capital of the local government region Münsterland...
, before being transported to Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
. Questioned and held for a few weeks, he was released and told to make his way back to Belgium. In the mean time, SS-Chief Reinhard Heydrich
Reinhard Heydrich
Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich , also known as The Hangman, was a high-ranking German Nazi official.He was SS-Obergruppenführer and General der Polizei, chief of the Reich Main Security Office and Stellvertretender Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia...
communicated directly to Reeder that de Foy was to remain in position and untouched.
From this point forward, a relationship of tension existed between de Foy and the Nazi occupying forces in Belgium. Although co-operative with them, de Foy had both his department and powers cut from this point forward, and it was not until after the Allied invasion of France and the oncoming collapse of Nazi control that the status-quo was disrupted. Arriving in Brussels on 14 August 1940, De Foy resumed his duties, but the State Security Service had been abolished, and the activities of his residual department were now limited to the policing of Aliens.
On October 1, 1943, de Foy succeeded Gaston Schuind as Secretary General of the Department of Justice, after he reached an agreement with Reeder that the autonomy of the Belgian justice system was guaranteed. At the same time, the Wehrmacht took over the policing of aliens in Belgium, which after this time greatly escalated. This was in part aided that from July to September 1944, Reeder was appointed Deputy of the new Imperial Commissioner for the occupied Belgium and northern areas of France, the former Cologne and Aachen Gauleiter Josef Grohé
Josef Grohé
Josef Grohé , German Nazi Party official, was born in Gemünden im Hunsrück as the son of a shopkeeper. He finished secondary school in 1919 and worked as a clerk in the hardware industry. He joined the Nazi Party in 1922, and was co-founder of the Nazi organization in Cologne and founder of its...
(1902–1987).
Final solution
Throughout his period of administration, Reeder had co-operated with both von Falkenhausen and later Grohé, together with the administrator of France Dr Werner BestWerner Best
Dr. Werner Best was a German Nazi, jurist, police chief, SS-Obergruppenführer and Nazi Party leader from Darmstadt, Hesse. He studied law and in 1927 obtained his doctorate degree at Heidelberg...
, to try to apply the rules of the Hague Convention
Hague Convention
The Hague Convention may refer to:* Hague Conventions , among the first formal statements of the laws of war and war crimes in international law...
against in their region, often against the wishes and instructions of their Wehrmacht and SS superiors. In part they were aided by an on-going conflict between Himmler and Heydrich, which locally manifested itself as to who had what control over the still in place Belgian Police.
Reeder was directly responsible for the destruction of "Jewish influence" in the Belgian economy. But to ensure that the all the Belgian people co-operated in the German occupation, Reeder negotiated an agreement to allow native Belgian Jews to remain in Belgium. Part of this was the non-enforcement of the Reich Main Security Office order for all Jews to be marked by wearing a yellow Star of David
Star of David
The Star of David, known in Hebrew as the Shield of David or Magen David is a generally recognized symbol of Jewish identity and Judaism.Its shape is that of a hexagram, the compound of two equilateral triangles...
at all times, until Helmut Knochen
Helmut Knochen
Helmut Knochen was the senior commander of the Sicherheitspolizei and Sicherheitsdienst in Paris during the Nazi occupation of France during the World War II.- Early life :...
's conference in Paris on 14 March 1942.
While implementation of economic policy led to mass unemployment of Belgian Jewish workers, especially in the diamond
Diamond
In mineralogy, diamond is an allotrope of carbon, where the carbon atoms are arranged in a variation of the face-centered cubic crystal structure called a diamond lattice. Diamond is less stable than graphite, but the conversion rate from diamond to graphite is negligible at ambient conditions...
business, Reeder's efforts preserved existing national administrative structures and business relations within Belgium and northern France during the German occupation. 2,250 of these unemployed Belgian Jews were sent to forced labour camps in Northern France (still under Reeder's control), in order to build the Atlantic Wall
Atlantic Wall
The Atlantic Wall was an extensive system of coastal fortifications built by Nazi Germany between 1942 and 1944 along the western coast of Europe as a defense against an anticipated Allied invasion of the mainland continent from Great Britain.-History:On March 23, 1942 Führer Directive Number 40...
for Organisation Todt
Organisation Todt
The Todt Organisation, was a Third Reich civil and military engineering group in Germany named after its founder, Fritz Todt, an engineer and senior Nazi figure...
.
The one attempt at the mass deportation of Belgian Jews, attempted on 3 September 1943, proved a failure. After Wehrmacht raids, hundreds of Antwerp Jews were taken in furniture vans from their homes to Mechelen transit camp
Mechelen transit camp
The Mechelen transit camp, or officially SS-Sammellager Mecheln in German, was a detention and deportation camp established in the Dossin, the oldest casern at Mechelen, by the Nazi German occupier of Belgium...
. Soon afterwards, Reeder ordered their release at the direct instance of Queen Elizabeth of Bavaria and Cardinal
Cardinal (Catholicism)
A cardinal is a senior ecclesiastical official, usually an ordained bishop, and ecclesiastical prince of the Catholic Church. They are collectively known as the College of Cardinals, which as a body elects a new pope. The duties of the cardinals include attending the meetings of the College and...
Jozef-Ernest van Roey
Jozef-Ernest van Roey
Jozef-Ernest van Roey was a Belgian Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Mechelen from 1926 until his death, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1927.-Biography:...
, and the attempt was not repeated. It was hence reported as "impossible" by local SS units charged with meeting Final Solution targets to find enough stateless and foreign Jews to fill another Auschwitz transport after 20 September 1943, though 1,800 Jews of various privileged categories were taken in 1944 to camps including Theresienstadt and Bergen-Belsen
Bergen-Belsen
Bergen-Belsen may refer to:* Stalag XI-C Bergen-Belsen , a German World War II prisoner-of-war camp* Bergen-Belsen concentration camp , on the site of the prisoner-of-war camp...
.
This meant that although 43,000 Jews left Belgium under the Final Solution up until the end of occupation in 1945, many of these in the early months of occupation, this approximated to the number of non-Belgian Jews who had been resident in Belgium before the war, according to lists complied by de Foy. Post war, historians estimated that only 6% of Belgian Jews were arrested and sent to camps in the east; 13,000 of the non-Belgian Jews transported from the territory died.
1944 - 1945
Eggert was promoted SS-GruppenführerGruppenführer
Gruppenführer was an early paramilitary rank of the Nazi Party, first created in 1925 as a senior rank of the SA.-SS rank:...
on 9 November 1943. With both the build up of the US Army in England from 1944, and the advancement of the Soviet Red Army in the east, the Nazi occupation in the west became more focused on the final solution
Final Solution
The Final Solution was Nazi Germany's plan and execution of the systematic genocide of European Jews during World War II, resulting in the most deadly phase of the Holocaust...
. After the Allied Forces invasion of Normandy
Normandy
Normandy is a geographical region corresponding to the former Duchy of Normandy. It is in France.The continental territory covers 30,627 km² and forms the preponderant part of Normandy and roughly 5% of the territory of France. It is divided for administrative purposes into two régions:...
in June, the Nazis relieved de Foy of his position, in part driven by the rumours that he was "London's man," having made contact according to post-War records with the Belgian Resistance
Belgian resistance
Belgian resistance during World War II to the occupation of Belgium by Nazi Germany took different forms. "The Belgian Resistance" was the common name for the Netwerk van de weerstand - Réseau de Résistance or Resistance Network , a group of partisans fighting the Nazis...
via both Walter van der Ganshof Meersch and William Ugeux.
After Robert Jan Verbelen
Robert Jan Verbelen
Robert Jan Verbelen was a Belgian Nazi collaborator. After the liberation of Belgium in the Second World War, Verbelen fled through Germany to Austria, where for eight years he worked for the Counter Intelligence Corps of the US Army, while he already was convicted as war criminal in Belgium...
was made head of the De Vlag Veiligheidscorps, a Nazi SS security force in Belgium, and a failed attempt to execute De Foy by firing squad, he was placed in jail. As the Allies entered Belgium, De Foy was released and went into hiding. Reeder was taken prisoner on 18 April 1945 and held in Belgium until the summer of 1947.
Post WW2
Captured in Belgium in 1945, Reeder was placed on trial in Belgium from 9 March 1951 and defended by lawyer Ernst AchenbachErnst Achenbach
Ernst Achenbach was a German lawyer and politician of the Nazi Party, and after World War II, the Free Democratic Party.-Life and work:...
(1909–1991). Reeder and Alexander von Falkenhausen were tried for their role in the deportation of more than 30,000 Jews from Belgium, but not for their deaths in Auschwitz. Both were found guilty on 9 July 1951 and sentenced to 12 years hard labour in Germany. On return to West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
, on 30 July 1951 they were pardoned by Chancellor Konrad Adenauer
Konrad Adenauer
Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer was a German statesman. He was the chancellor of the West Germany from 1949 to 1963. He is widely recognised as a person who led his country from the ruins of World War II to a powerful and prosperous nation that had forged close relations with old enemies France,...
(1876–1967), and Reeder subsequently retired at his own request. It was Reeder's efforts to preserve existing national administrative structures and business relations within Belgium and northern France during the German occupation, and the delayed and incomplete efforts to inflect the Final Solution
Final Solution
The Final Solution was Nazi Germany's plan and execution of the systematic genocide of European Jews during World War II, resulting in the most deadly phase of the Holocaust...
on Belgian Jews that spared Reeder and gained him enough credit to earn a pardon.