Wilhelm Rediess

Infobox Military Person
name= Wilhelm Rediess
lived= October 10 1900 – May 8 1945
placeofbirth= Heinsberg, Rhine Province,
German Empire
placeofdeath= Oslo, Norway


caption=
nickname=
allegiance=
serviceyears= 1918; 1925–1945
rank= "Obergruppenführer"
(General)
commands= SS and Police Leader, Norway
unit= 1918
battles=World War I
World War II
awards=
laterwork=
portrayedby=

Wilhelm Rediess (October 10, 1900 – May 8, 1945) was the SS and Police Leader during the German occupation of Norway in the Second World War. He was also the commanding General ("Obergruppenführer") of all SS troops stationed in occupied Norway, assuming command on June 22, 1940 until his death in 1945.

Early life

Rediess was born in Heinsberg, Prussia, German Empire, the son of a court employee. After school, Rediess became an electrician. In June 1918, he enlisted in the German army, serving as an infantryman until the end of the First World War in November 1918. He then worked as an electrician until losing his job in the German economic crisis of 1929.

In May 1925, Rediess joined the SA and in December 1925 was approved for membership in the Nazi Party. He led a Düsseldorf SA company in 1927 and was transferred to the SS with his unit in 1930. Promotion swiftly followed for Rediess, achieving the rank of Lieutenant General ("SS-Obergruppenführer") in 1935.

World War II

At the onset of World War II, Rediess was responsible for implementing German racial laws in Prussia, overseeing the deportation of Jews from East Prussia. Rediess was then given the task of eradicating 1,558 Jewish deportees deemed mentally ill. Rediess borrowed "gas vans" and personnel from other SS units, offering a bounty of ten Reichsmark for each Jew killed. It took seventeen days to accomplish these killings, whereupon Rediess reneged on the payment.

Rediess was commended for his initiative and given command of SS units in Norway as a reward.

In March 1941, citing reports of large numbers of Norwegian women impregnated by German soldiers, Rediess implemented the German "Lebensborn" program in Norway. This program encouraged the production of "racially pure" "Aryan" children, usually sired by SS troops. Ultimately, 8,000 children were born under the auspices of this program, making Norway second only to Germany in registered "Aryan" births during World War II.

Rediess committed suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot wound upon the collapse of the Third Reich in Norway on May 8, 1945. His remains were destroyed when "Reichskommissar" Josef Terboven detonated fifty kilograms of dynamite in a bunker on the Skaugum compound the same day.