World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseHorst Böhme was born in Colmnitz, Klingenberg in the Sachsen (Saxony) region of Germany. After some years with various paramilitary Freikorps organizations, he joined the Nazi Party and its Schutzstaffel (SS) organization in 1930. In 1935, he joined the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), working in its Berlin, Germany office. On 13 or 14 Mar 1938, he murdered the German diplomat in Vienna, Austria, Wilhelm Freiherr von Ketteler, by drowning, on the orders of his superior Reinhard Heydrich. He held the rank of SS-Obersturmbannführer und Oberstleutnant der Polizei as Germany began annexing her neighbors. In the spring of 1939, he was made the chief of the Security Police for the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia in occupied Czechoslovakia. In this role, he was responsible for the closure of cultural and education institutions, the arrest of students and educators, and the deportation of Jews. In 1942, after the assassination of Heydrich, SS-Standartenführer Böhme coordinated the brutal retaliatory actions against the Czech people, including the destruction of Lidice. In Sep 1942, he was transferred to Bucharest, Romania. Between Jan and Aug 1943, as the commanding officer of Einsatzgruppe B, he was directly responsible for the murder of large numbers of civilians in the Soviet Union. Between Sep 1943 and Mar 1944, he commanded Einsatzgruppe C, again committing atrocities against civilians. In Aug 1944, he returned to Einsatzgruppe B. In Nov 1944, he was promoted to the rank of SS-Oberführer. In the final months of the war, he was in charge of the Security Police and the SD in Ostpreußen (East Prussia), Germany. He was last seen in Königsberg, Germany in Apr 1945, and was not seen again after the Soviet capture of the city. After the war, he was listed as a wanted war criminal. The District Court of Kiel of Germany declared him dead in Aug 1954, dating his death date as 10 Apr 1945.

Photographs

Horst Böhme Timeline