Adrian von Renteln

Theodor Adrian von Renteln (Khodzi, September 15, 1897 – USSR, 1946), German Nazi politician and Generalkomissar (Commissar General) of Lithuania during part of the Second World War.

Von Renteln was born in Khodzi (Russia). He studied economics and law, but worked as a journalist. In 1928 he joined the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) and the following year he was head of the National Socialist Secondary School Students' League. In 1931, he was appointed head of the Hitler Youth, but he left command of both organizations after being elected to the Reichstag.

On March 29, 1933, he became a member of the "Central Committee to Divert Jewish Atrocity and Boycott-Mongering", participating in the boycott of Jewish businesses and other forms of persecution. In June 1933, he was appointed President of the German Council of Industry and Commerce, holding this position until 1935. Von Renteln soon became known as the leading defender of the middle class in Nazi Germany. In 1940, he was appointed Hauptamtsleiter of the Trade and Artisanship Section of the Reich Command NSDAP and also head of the Supreme Court of the Reich Labor Front.

In 1941, he was appointed Commissar General of Lithuania, where he took increasingly stronger measures against the Jewish population. On August 26, 1941, he ordered that all telephones and lines be eliminated, the postal service canceled and the Kowno ghetto be surrounded with barbed wire to prevent people from escaping. In 1943, he ordered the & # 34; cleanup & # 34; of the Vilna ghetto, deporting more than 20,000 Jews to concentration camps. After the war he was captured by the Russians, held and finally executed by hanging for his crimes in 1946.