World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseKurt Daluege was born to a Prussian state official in the small Upper Silesian town of Kreuzburg. He entered the German Army in 1916 and was wounded several times during WW1; he was awarded the Iron Cross (second class) medal for bravery. In the 1920s, he was active in para-military organizations Selbstschutzes Oberschlesien (SSOS, "Upper Silesian Self Defense") and Freikorps Roßbach, meanwhile, he studied at the Technical University in Berlin, Germany. In 1923, he joined the Nazi Party, eventually rising to the position of the leader of the Sturmabteilung (SA). In 1926, he married Käthe Schwarz, with whom he had four children. In Jul 1930, he resigned from his post from the SA per Adolf Hitler's orders and joined the Schutzstaffel (SS). His knowledge of the SA was now being used against his former organization, which Hitler suspected would one day turning against him politically. In Nov 1932, he was elected to the Reichstag as a representative of the Electoral District Berlin-Ost, a seat he retained until 1945. At the same time, he served in the Prussian Ministry of the Interior as the police chief. In 1936, after the German police was reorganized under a central command in Berlin, he was made an administrative leader in the police force, but without any executive powers. In Jun 1942, Reinhard Heydrich was assassinated, and Daluege was placed as the Deputy Protector of Bohemia and Moravia to fill the hole that Heydrich left; in this role, he was among those responsible for the destruction of the villages of Lidice and Ležáky in Bohemia as retaliation for the assassination. In May 1943, he suffered a heart attack, and by Aug 1943 he was relieved of all his duties for continued health problems. In May 1945, he was arrested by American troops in Lübeck, Germany. He was interned in Nuremberg, German until Sep 1946, when he was extradited to Czechoslovakia to face trial for the massacres of Lidice and Ležáky. He was found guilty and was hanged at Pankrác prison in Prague, Czechoslovakia. He was buried in an anonymous pit at Prague's Dáblice cemetery.

Kurt Daluege Interactive Map

Photographs

Kurt Daluege Timeline