Lot 690

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690. KALTENBRUNNER AND FEGELEIN HONOR RUDOLF LANGE-ERNST KALTENBRUNNER (1903-1946), Chief of the S.D. and a rabid anti-Semite who greatly increased efforts to round-up Jews. Executed at Nuremberg. An exceptionally rare, war-date typed D.S., 3pp. legal 4to., Berlin, Feb. 5, 1945 in which Kaltenbrunner recommends that Col. Dr. Rudolf Lange, who was Commander of Security Police and SS Security Services in Posen (Poland), be recommended for the award of the German Cross in Gold. Kaltenbrunner The document lists Lange's biographical details on the second page, and Kaltenbrunner, then also heading the R.S.H.A. following the murder of Reinhard Heydrich, proposes Lange for the award on the third page. He praises Lange's "...successful command of the forces under him in counterinsurgency operations ...through the apprehension of numerous saboteurs and deserters ... the collection and return to their units of Wehrmacht stragglers ... strengthening the combat effectiveness of the Wehrmacht...distinguished himself in the fight against the Bolshevik encirclement troops...seven enemy tanks were destroyed in front of the duty station...destruction of resistance groups within the fortress Posen..." Boldly signed by at the conclusion by Kaltenbrunner. Following Kaltenbrunner's submission of the document, it made its way to the hands of HERMANN FEGELEIN (1906-1945), Nazi military leader and SS-Gruppenfuhrer, a Knight's Cross winner with Oak Leaves. Fegelein had married Eva Braun's sister and served as liaison between Hitler and Himmler. He endorses the first page of the document: "Awarded by the Fuhrer on 6 February 1945 Fegelein Reichsfuhrer SS [Himmler] concurs". Files holes in left margin, light, one chip at blank lower right margin, even toning, else very good. Lange, commander of SD and SIPO in Riga, Latvia, was one of only fifteen attendees at the infamous Wannsee Conference, along with Eichmann, Heydrich, and Muller. Overall, he was a mass killer, first commanding Einsatzgruppen, and eventually killing over 250,000 Jews and other innocents in German-controlled Latvia. All of these criminals got their just desserts: Kaltenbrunner was convicted of war crimes and hanged at Nuremberg, and Fegelein, attempting to flee Hitler's bunker in the final days, was arrested and ordered shot by his brother-in-law. And Lange received his German Cross in Gold - just in time to pin it on his uniform and be killed in action (or commit suicide) only a few days later. $2,000 - 3,000

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April 30, 2008 11:00 AM EDT
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