Franz Six

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Dr. Franz Alfred Six (August 12, 1909 in Mannheim - July 9, 1975 in Bolzano) first rose to prominence as dean of the faculty of Economics of the University of Berlin. He quit his post to join the SD (Sicherheitsdienst - the security and intelligence service of the SS), and became one of the most fanatical members of the Nazi Party.

[edit] Academic Career

Franz Six completed his classical High School in 1930, and proceeded to the University of Heidelberg to study sociology and politics. He graduated there with a degree of Doctor in philosophy in 1934. In 1936 he earned the high degree of Dr.phil.habil. and began teaching at at the University of Koenigsberg where he also took up the position of Press Director for the German Student's Association. By 1939 he had become chair for Foreign Political Science at the University of Berlin and was its first Dean of the faculty for Foreign Countries.

[edit] Nazi Official

Dr. Six joined the Nazi party in 1930 and the SA in 1932. Following the dissolution of the latter, Six joined the SD in 1935. His academic achievements and impressive curriculum cast a spell on Reinhard Heydrich who appointed him as head of Amt VII, Written Affairs of the RSHA which dealt primarily with ideological combat.

On September 17, 1940, the same day in which Hitler abandoned the idea of an invasion of Great Britain, Heydrich charged him to plan the elimination of anti-Nazi elements in Britain following a successful invasion by the Wehrmacht, since this task would be appointed to the RSHA, which included the SD. Among other things, his responsibilities included the detention of some 2,300 individuals immediately after the conquest of Britain by Germany. Their names came from a list previously compiled by Walter Schellenberg, at that time a part of the counter-intelligence apparatus of the SD. This list included British politicians, namely Winston Churchill and other members of the Cabinet, scholars like Sigmund Freud, even though he was already dead since September 1939, members of exiled governments, financiers such as Bernard Baruch and many other anti-Nazi elements. Accroding to William L. Shirer's book "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich", Churchill was to be placed into the hands of RSHA Amt VI (Foreign Intelligence), but most of the rest of the people on the list were to be placed into the hands of RSHA Amt IV (Gestapo). A separate list also named many organizations who would have to be dismantled as well, namely the Freemasons, the Jehovah's Witnesses and even the Boy Scouts.

Franz Six was also charged with the creation of six Einsatzgruppen located in London, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Liverpool and either Edinburgh or Glasgow. These death squads would be charged with the elimination of civilian resistance members and Jews all over Great Britain.

[edit] Einsatzgruppen

After the Battle of Britain, Hitler gave up on his attempts to invade Great Britain and as such, Six's plans came to nothing. On June 20, 1941, Six was assigned as chief of Vorkommando Moscow a unit of Einsatzgruppe B in Russia. During this command, Six' kommando reported "liquidating" 144 persons. The report claimed "The Vorkommando Moscow was forced to execute another 46 persons, amongst them 38 intellectual Jews who had tried to create unrest and discontent in the newly established Ghetto of Smolensk.". He was promoted by Himmler himself on November 9, 1941 to SS-Oberführer for exceptional service in the Einsatz. On January 31, 1945 he was again promoted to SS-Brigadeführer. Dr. Six was tried as a war criminal at Nuremberg in the Einsatzgruppen trial of 1948. Unable to link him directly to any atrocities, he was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment. A clemency court commuted this sentence to 10 years, and he was released in 1952.