Otto Wächter
Baron Otto Gustav von Wächter | |
|---|---|
SS-Gruppenführer Otto Wächter | |
| Governor of the Kraków District | |
| In office 26 October 1939 – 22 January 1942 | |
| Governor General | Hans Frank |
| Preceded by | Office established |
| Succeeded by | Richard Wendler |
| Governor of the District of Galicia | |
| In office 22 January 1942 – 1944 | |
| Governor General | Hans Frank |
| Preceded by | Karl Lasch |
| Succeeded by | Office abolished |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 8 July 1901 Vienna, Austria-Hungary |
| Died | 14 July 1949 (aged 48) Rome, Italy |
| Spouse |
Charlotte Bleckmann (m. 1932) |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance | |
| Branch/service | Waffen-SS |
| Years of service | 1923–1945 |
| Rank | SS-Gruppenführer |
Baron Otto Gustav von Wächter (8 July 1901 – 14 July 1949) was an Austrian lawyer, Nazi politician and a high-ranking member of the SS, a paramilitary organisation of the Nazi Party. He participated in the Final Solution extermination of Jews in Europe, and was instrumental in creating an SS division consisting of Ukrainians.
During the occupation of Poland in World War II, he was the governor of the district of Kraków in the General Government and then of the District of Galicia (now mainly in Ukraine). Later, in 1944, he was appointed as head of the German Military Administration in the puppet Italian Social Republic. During the last two months of the war, he was responsible for the non-German forces at the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) in Berlin.
In 1940, he ordered the expulsion of 68,000 Polish Jews from Kraków and in 1941 the Kraków Ghetto was created for the remaining 15,000 Jews by his decrees. After the war, wanted by the Polish People's Republic, von Wächter managed to evade the Allied authorities for four years. In 1949, he was given refuge by the pro-Nazi Austrian bishop Alois Hudal in the Vatican where he died the same year, aged 48, reportedly from kidney disease.