Jürgen Stroop
Surname | Stroop |
Given Name | Jürgen |
Born | 26 Sep 1895 |
Died | 6 Mar 1952 |
Country | Germany |
Category | Government |
Gender | Male |
Contributor: C. Peter Chen
ww2dbaseJosef Stroop was born in Detmold, Principality of Lippe, German Empire to chief of police Konrad Stroop and devout Catholic homemaker Katherine Stroop. He was an apprentice with the land register in Detmold in the 1910s. In 1914, after the start of WW1, he enlisted in the German Army. During WW1, he was wounded in action near La Bassée in northern France in Oct 1914. After recuperating at home in Detmold for eight months, he was sent to the Eastern Front in Jul 1915, seeing action in Russia (now Poland), Lithuania, Galicia, and Romania before the end of the war. In 1923, he married Katharina B., the daughter of a minister from the Protestant Church of Lippe; they would have a daughter (Renate, Feb 1928) and two sons (Jürgen, 1934; Olaf, Feb 1936). He had many episodes of infidelity, but his wife remained with him nonetheless. In the 1920s, he joined the Tannenbergbund movement and converted to Germanic paganism. In 1932, he joined the Nazi Party and the Schutzstaffel (SS). In 1933, he was made the leader of the state auxiliary police. In 1934, he was promoted to the rank of SS-Hauptsturmführer and was assigned to Münster and then Hamburg. In Sep 1938, he was promoted to the rank of SS-Standartenführer and was assigned to Liberec in the recently annexed Czechoslovakian territory of Sudetenland.
ww2dbaseAfter the outbreak of the European War, Stroop served as the commanding officer of SS occupation troops in Gniezno, Poland (German: Gnesen). Shortly after, he was transferred to Poznan, Poland (German: Posen) to oversee the Selbstschutz, a militia consisted of ethnic-German people of Poland. In May 1941, he changed his name to Jürgen in honor of his first son, who had passed away in his infancy. Between Jul and Sep 1941, he saw combat with the 3rd SS Division Totenkopf as an infantry officer, and was awarded a Clasp to his Iron Cross 2nd Class and an Infantry Assault Badge in Bronze. In Sep 1942, he was promoted to the rank of SS-Brigadeführer and was made Inspector of the SiPo and SD of the Higher SS and Police Leader for Russia South. In this role, he helped secure supply routes for troops on the front through southern Soviet territories. In Oct 1942, he commanded SS personnel at Kherson in southern Ukraine. In Feb 1943, he was made the SS and Police Leader (SSPF) for Lviv, Ukraine (German: Lemberg). In Apr 1943, he was personally transferred to Warsaw, Poland, an order given personally by Heinrich Himmler based on Stroop's past efficiency in dealing with unwated populations in occupied territories. His primary task was to suppress the imminent Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (which would officially begin two days after his assignment). With two battalions of Waffen-SS troops, 100 Army personnel, and police forces at his disposal, he brutally suppressed the uprising, destroying entire city blocks and conducting mass executions and mass deportations. The uprising was put down in mid-May after 50,000 Jews of the ghetto were killed. Shortly after, Stroop ordered the destruction of Warsaw's Great Synagogue to symbolize the end of Jews in Warsaw, although many Jews were still in the city in hiding. In Jun 1943, he was made the SS and Police Leader of Warsaw and was awarded Iron Cross 1st Class. In Sep 1943, he was transferred to Greece as the Higher SS and Police Leader of the country. Clashing with the existing SS administration in Greece thus making him an ineffective leader, he was transferred to Wiesbaden in southwest Germany in Nov 1943 to command a SS district; he would remain in this role for the remainder of the European War. In Apr 1945, he proclaimed, in person in a meeting with Himmler, that he would loyally lead Werwolf resistance fighters against Allied occupation forces. He led a group of teenage Hitler Youth cadets to southern Germany, but along the way, he had a change of heart surrendered to US troops in southern Germany under the false identity of Reserve Captain Reserve Josef Straup. He would reveal his true identity in Jul 1945.
ww2dbaseStroop was tried by a US military tribunal at Dachau Concentration Camp in Germany for the execution of nine US prisoners of war during the war, and was found guilty. In late May 1947, he was turned over to the People's Republic of Poland, which found him guilty of mass murder of Polish peoples, both Jews and Gentiles, in 1951. He was hanged at the Mokotów Prison in Warsaw, Poland at 1900 hours on 6 Mar 1952.
ww2dbaseSource: Wikipedia
Last Major Revision: Apr 2015
Jürgen Stroop Interactive Map
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Jürgen Stroop Timeline
26 Sep 1895 | Josef Stroop was born in Detmold, Principality of Lippe, German Empire. |
2 Dec 1915 | Josef Stroop was awarded the Iron Cross. |
21 Dec 1918 | Josef Stroop arrived in Detmold, Germany to recuperate from combat wounds. |
3 Jul 1923 | Josef Stroop married Katharina B., the daughter of a minister from the Protestant Church of Lippe. |
7 Jul 1941 | Jürgen Stroop was assigned to the infantry regiment of German 3rd SS Division Totenkopf. |
15 Sep 1941 | Jürgen Stroop was transferred out of the infantry regiment of German 3rd SS Division Totenkopf. |
16 Sep 1942 | Jürgen Stroop was promoted to the rank of SS-Brigadeführer. |
17 Apr 1943 | Jürgen Stroop was transferred to Warsaw, Poland by Heinrich Himmler to suppress the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. |
25 Apr 1943 | Jürgen Stroop reported that 27,464 Jews had been captured in the Jewish ghetto of Warsaw, Poland. |
26 Apr 1943 | Jürgen Stroop reported that, in the effort to liquidate the Warsaw ghetto in Poland, 1,330 Jews had been pulled out of their strongholds and killed, 662 were killed in combat, and 30 were captured and sent to concentration camps. |
16 May 1943 | The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising ended in Poland with the destruction of the Warsaw synagogue at 2015 hours. In Jürgen Stroop's final daily report, he noted that 180 Jewish fighters were killed on this final day. |
18 Jun 1943 | Jürgen Stroop was awarded Iron Cross 1st Class at Lazienki Park, Warsaw, Poland. |
8 Sep 1943 | Jürgen Stroop was made the Higher SS and Police Leader in Greece. |
9 Nov 1943 | Jürgen Stroop was made the commander of SS-Oberabschnitt Rhein-Westmark in Wiesbaden, Germany. |
14 Apr 1945 | Jürgen Stroop met with Heinrich Himmler in Himmler's private train near Prenzlau, Germany, proclaiming that he would lead Werwolf resistance groups with total loyalty after the end of the war. |
10 May 1945 | Jürgen Stroop surrendered to US troops in he village of Rottau in the Bavarian region of Germany under a false identity. |
2 Jul 1945 | Jürgen Stroop admitted his real identity to his US captors. |
18 Jul 1951 | Jürgen Stroop was put on trial at the Warsaw Criminal District Court in Poland for his leadership role in the brutal suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943. |
6 Mar 1952 | Jürgen Stroop was executed by hanging at the Mokotów Prison in Warsaw, Poland at 1900 hours. |
23 Jul 1953 | The People's Republic of Poland sentenced Jürgen Stroop to death by hanging for the brutal suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943 and other crimes. |
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