Name Wolfgang Birkner | Died March 24, 1945 | |
 | ||
Wolfgang Birkner (27 October 1913 – 24 March 1945) was a German SS functionary with the rank of SS-Hauptsturmführer, and the Holocaust perpetrator in World War II. Birkner served as the KdS Warschau (Komandeur der Sicherheitspolizei) in Warsaw following the German invasion of Poland in 1939.
After the German attack on the Soviet forces in eastern Poland during Operation Barbarossa, Birkner and his Einsatzkommando were deployed in the newly-formed Bezirk Bialystok district in the Army Group Centre Rear Area due to reports of alleged Soviet guerrilla activity. Birkner arrived in Białystok from the General Government on 30 June 1941, sent in by the SS Police commander Eberhard Schöngarth on orders from the Reich Main Security Office. As veteran of Einsatzgruppe IV from the Polish Campaign of 1939, Birkner was a specialist in rear security operations.
Kommando Bialystok
Birkner was appointed chief of the Kommando Bialystok under Arthur Nebe, commander of Einsatzgruppe B. Birkner's death squad was made up of 29 Security Police and Gestapo functionaries. It was one of several units summoned at around the same time by Schöngarth stationing in Kraków, to meet the new threat of Russian partisan warfare south-east of East Prussia with local Jews being suspected as participants. Birkner and his Einsatzgruppe committed mass murder in and around Białystok. In the two initial months of operation, between 30 June and 28 August 1941, they had claimed the lives of 1,800 Jews. Birkner was promoted to the rank of SS-Hauptsturmführer Kriminal-Kommisar (the equivalent of a police captain) on 20 April 1943. He was killed in the Pomorze Province on March 24, 1945.
Birkner was investigated by the West German prosecutors in 1960, prior to a court trial of the SS commander Hermann Schaper, who had directed parallel mass murders by Kommando SS Zichenau-Schröttersburg in the same area, including many villages and towns of eastern Poland such as Radziłów, Tykocin, Jedwabne, Łomża, Rutki, Wizna, Piątnica, and Zambrów.