Wilhelm Trapp
{{Short description|Nazi war criminal (1889–1948)}}
{{Infobox criminal
| name = Wilhelm Gustav Friedrich Trapp
| birth_date = {{birth date|1889|9|4|df=y}}
| death_date = {{death date and age|1948|12|18|1889|9|4|df=y}}
| birth_place = Havelberg, German Empire
| death_place = Siedlce, Masovian Voivodeship, Polish People's Republic
| conviction_penalty = Death
| conviction_status = Executed
| conviction = War crimes
| death_cause = Execution by hanging
| party = Nazi Party
| module = {{Infobox military person |embed=yes
|embed_title=Police career
|allegiance={{flag|Nazi Germany}}
|branch=File:Ordnungspolizei flag.svg Ordnungspolizei
|serviceyears=July 1942 – November 1943
|commands= Reserve Police Battalion 101
|rank = Major
}}
}}
Major Wilhelm Gustav Friedrich Trapp, nicknamed Papa Trapp by his subordinates,{{sfnp|Browning|2017|p=7}} (4 September 1889 – 18 December 1948) was a German career policeman who commanded the Reserve Police Battalion 101 formation of Nazi Germany's uniformed police force known as the Order Police (Ordnungspolizei). The Battalion was the subject of Christopher Browning's Ordinary Men.
A World War I veteran, recipient of the Iron Cross First Class, and an "old Party fighter", having joined the NSDAP in December 1932,{{sfnp|Browning|2017|p=64}} Trapp served in occupied Poland during World War II, subsequently leading his battalion of nearly 500 middle-aged men from Hamburg on genocidal missions against the Polish Jews.{{sfnp|Browning|2017|pp=69-76}}
After the war, Trapp was taken into British custody. After investigation by the Polish Military Mission, the British extradited him to Poland in 1946, where he was put on trial as a war criminal. Trapp was found guilty and sentenced to death by the Siedlce District Court on 6 July 1948, and executed by hanging on 18 December 1948, along with fellow officer Gustav Drewes.Trials (Sygn. GK 284), [http://collections.ushmm.org/findingaids/RG-15.223M_Pl_En.pdf Trapp Gustaw: File SOSBP 45. Protocols.] Siedlce (Poland) Sąd Okręgowy: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej; Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu, ul. Towarowa 28, Warsaw, Poland. PDF file from ushmm.org; retrieved 3 December 2014.[https://www.uni-marburg.de/icwc/forschung/2weltkrieg/polen?order=court_town&order_type=asc&offset=1225&count=25&name=&id_trial=Forschungs-und Dokumentationszentrum für Kriegsverbrecherprozesse (ICWC): Polen] Philipps-Universität Marburg - ICWC.{{cite web|title=Hamburg Police Battalions during the Second World War|author=Struan Robertson|url=http://www1.uni-hamburg.de/rz3a035//police101.html|access-date=24 September 2009|format=Internet Archive|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080222023331/http://www1.uni-hamburg.de/rz3a035//police101.html|archive-date=22 February 2008}}
Excerpts
File:Józefów obelisk 2.jpg, southeast of Biłgoraj commemorating the Jewish victims of the 1942 massacre committed by the Reserve Police Battalion 101]]
The killing of 1,500 of the 1,800 Jews from Józefów (other names: Józefów Biłgorajski, Józefów Ordynacki, Józefów Roztoczański) located {{convert|20|mi|km|-1|order=flip}} southeast of Biłgoraj in Distrikt Lublin on 13 July 1942 {{sfnp|Browning|2017|pp=7-8}} was performed by German (Ordnungspolizei) policemen: the 1. Company, and, mostly, by the three platoons of the 2. Company. Trapp gave his commanders their respective assignments before the operation:{{sfnp|Browning|2017|p=81}}
{{quote|"The men were explicitly ordered to shoot anyone trying to escape. The remaining men were to round up the Jews and take them to the marketplace. Those too sick or frail to walk to the marketplace, as well as infants and anyone offering resistance or attempting to hide, were to be shot on the spot."}}
The bodies of the dead carpeting the forest floor at the Winiarczykowa Góra hill (about 2 km from the village) were left unburied.{{cite web|url=http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ghettos/jozefow.html|title=Jozefow|publisher=Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team|work=Holocaust Research Project.org|year=2007|access-date=17 June 2014| author=Robert Kuwalek, Chris Webb}} Watches, jewelry and money were taken.{{cite web|url=http://www.sztetl.org.pl/pl/article/jozefow-794/5,historia/?action=view&page=1|title=Józefów. Lata okupacji|publisher=Muzeum Historii Żydów Polskich|work=Virtual Shtetl.org|date=2014|access-date=17 June 2014|author=Marta Kubiszyn}}
The Reserve Police Battalion 101 left for Biłgoraj at 9 pm.{{sfnp|Browning|2017|p=102}} According to one policeman, Trapp told him "Man, … such jobs don't suit me. But orders are orders." Trapp later remarked to his driver: "If this Jewish business is ever avenged on earth, then have mercy on us Germans."{{sfnp|Browning|2017|p=83}}
Notes
{{Reflist}}
References
- {{cite book |last=Browning |first=Christopher R. |author-link=Christopher Browning |year=2017 |orig-year=1992 |title=Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland |publisher=Harper Perennial |edition=revised |isbn=9780062303028 }} [https://web.archive.org/web/20131019043400/http://hampshirehigh.com/exchange2012/docs/BROWNING-Ordinary%20Men.%20Reserve%20Police%20Battalion%20101%20and%20the%20Final%20Solution%20in%20Poland%20(1992).pdf See also Penguin Books edition.]
- {{cite book |last=Goldhagen |first=Daniel J. |author-link=Daniel Jonah Goldhagen |year=1997 |title=Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust |publisher=Abacus |isbn=978-0349107868 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/hitlerswillingex00dani }}
{{Holocaust Poland}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Trapp, Wilhelm}}
Category:Executed German mass murderers
Category:German police officers convicted of murder
Category:Holocaust perpetrators in Poland
Category:Recipients of the Iron Cross (1914), 1st class
Category:Nazis executed by Poland by hanging