The Schutzstaffel (SS): Waffen-SS, Gestapo & Einsatzgruppen
The Butcher of Galicia: SS General Fritz Katzmann Who Boasted of Genocide
16m
22 June 1941. As Nazi Germany launches Operation Barbarossa against the Soviet Union, the city of Lviv falls under German occupation. Within weeks, its 200,000-strong Jewish community is subjected to pogroms, deportations, and mass executions — carried out under the command of Fritz Katzmann, the SS and Police Leader of Galicia.
A former carpenter turned fanatical Nazi, Katzmann rose to become one of the most feared SS generals of the Holocaust. In 1943, he proudly submitted the infamous “Katzmann Report,” documenting the murder of 434,329 Jews and declaring Galicia “free of Jews.”
A chilling bureaucrat of mass murder, Katzmann remains one of the key architects of the Holocaust in Eastern Europe.
Up Next in Season 1
-
The SS Butcher of Radom: The Crimes a...
Born in 1907 in East Prussia, Herbert Böttcher rose from a young lawyer to one of Nazi Germany’s most ruthless SS and Police Leaders. After joining the SS and Nazi Party, he quickly advanced through the ranks — using law, power, and ideology to serve a regime built on terror.
As SS and Police Le...
-
The Rise and Fall of Nazi Germany’s S...
He was the man who ruled Nazi Germany’s internal empire of fear.
As Chief of the Reich Security Main Office, Ernst Kaltenbrunner controlled the Gestapo, Criminal Police, and SS Security Service, enforcing Hitler’s will through mass arrests, deportations, and executions. A devoted Austrian Nazi an... -
The SS Commander Behind the Babi Yar ...
On September 1, 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland — and behind the advancing Wehrmacht marched the Einsatzgruppen, mobile death squads led by men like Otto Rasch.
An educated lawyer turned SS officer, Rasch helped design the blueprint for Nazi mass murder — from the secret executions of Polish in...
