Walter Friedrich Schellenberg (16 January 1910 – 31 March 1952) was a German Schutzstaffel (SS) functionary during the Nazi era who rose through the ranks of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) to become one of its highest-ranking officers. Following the dissolution of the Abwehr in the aftermath of the July 1944 assassination attempt, Schellenberg became the effective master of all Nazi foreign intelligence. A direct subordinate of Reinhard Heydrich and later the closest professional confidant of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, Schellenberg was implicated in the expansion of the Einsatzgruppen killing operations associated with the genocide of those the Nazis defined as Jews.
In the war's final months, Schellenberg worked to persuade Himmler to negotiate a separate peace with the Western Allies through Count Folke Bernadotte, and he personally arranged the transport of 1,700 Jews from German-controlled territory to Switzerland and Sweden—an effort Hitler terminated when he learned of it. Tried at Nuremberg during the Ministries Trial, he was sentenced to six years' imprisonment, released after two years on grounds of ill health, and died in Turin in 1952.
Career Schellenberg, born in Saarbrücken, Germany, was his parents' seventh child; his father was a piano manufacturer. Schellenberg has stated his family moved to Luxembourg when the French occupied (1920) the Saar Basin after the First World War and the Weimar Republic experienced an economic crisis in the early 1920s. Like many young intellectuals who later joined the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), Schellenberg was deeply affected by the economic woes which befell Germany in the wake of the First World War.
Schellenberg returned to Germany to attend university, first at Marburg University and then, from 1929, at the University of Bonn. He initially studied medicine, but soon switched to law. While in law school, Schellenberg performed some spy work for the SD. He reported actually having been recruited by two SD agents who were college faculty, who also advised him to join the Civil Service. After graduating he joined the SS in 1933. (Schellenberg later wrote that the "better type of people" preferred the SS over the other Nazi organizations.) Although educated as a lawyer, Schellenberg distrusted administrative attorneys and was intent on ensuring that the SD could operate outside the constraints of normal law. Subscribing to the Führerprinzip, Schellenberg also regarded Hitler's directives as beyond the framework of the legal system and believed it was best to "unquestioningly" carry out anything ordered by the Nazi leader.
In 1935, Schellenberg met Reinhard Heydrich and worked for him in the counter-intelligence department of the SD. Besides his native German, Schellenberg also spoke French and English fluently. Correspondingly, his first foreign-intelligence assignment was to Paris in 1934 to check up on the political views of a professor. Then in 1937, Schellenberg was sent to Italy for a police assignment which included security duties for an upcoming visit by Mussolini; his outstanding work in providing security garnered positive attention from Heydrich, who then gave him additional organizational responsibilities, some of which later helped give birth to the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) in 1939. The official SS personnel report on Schellenberg described him as "open, irreproachable, and reliable"; the file also depicted him as "firm, tough, possesses energy" and as "very sharp thinking"; his National Socialist worldview was labeled "thoroughly fortified". Many of the SS street-brawling types despised men like Schellenberg, considering them effete, but for the most part Schellenberg made a good impression on the Nazi elite.
Sometime in 1938 Schellenberg married Käthe Kortekamp, a seamstress three years his senior, whom he dated for seven years and who had supported him through college. Their marriage proved brief, partially because of her social standing and because many things about her embarrassed him; the relationship ended in divorce in 1939, but only after Schellenberg promised her an aryanized fashion business expropriated from Jewish owners. Shortly thereafter, he married a more socially-acceptable woman named Irene Grosse-Schönepauck, the daughter of an insurance executive, but this relationship was also troubled.
As the Nazis tightened their grip on German society, Hitler and Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler determined that the SS and police organs should merge, a move which Schellenberg fully supported: on 24 February 1939 he released a memorandum which advocated further centralization within the state. In summer 1939, Schellenberg became one of the directors of Heydrich's foundation, the Stiftung Nordhav. Schellenberg was mentored by Herbert Mehlhorn while at the SS-Hauptamt. When Heydrich announced his intention to create the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) in July 1939, he had Schellenberg to thank as both the organisation's name and its existence resulted from his plans. On 27 September 1939, Himmler decreed the RSHA an official state organisation.
Einsatzgruppen – 1941 As the role of the SS and its action groups, the Einsatzgruppen, expanded in the war zones and prospective war zones in May 1941, Schellenberg negotiated with the Wehrmacht to acquire logistical support from the army (both on the front line and in rear areas) so the Einsatzgruppen could carry out their killing operations more effectively. Acting on behalf of Heydrich, Schellenberg issued a circular on 20 May 1941 to all segments of the German Security Police which forbade any Jews from emigrating out of German-controlled territory; this new policy formed part of the genocidal Final Solution. The language within the circular Schellenberg issued even contained the explicit expression: "in view of the undoubtedly imminent Final Solution of the Jewish question", wording that makes it clear he was both complicit in and aware of the impending extermination activities. Despite being Heydrich's direct subordinate, Schellenberg skillfully ingratiated himself with Himmler by first delivering his intelligence reports to him instead of to Heydrich, which earned him the Reichsführer's confidence. After Heydrich's death in June 1942, Schellenberg became the "closest professional confidant" of Himmler. Himmler bestowed upon Schellenberg a unique position beyond that of a simple aide, making him his special plenipotentiary (Sonderbevollmächtigter).
SD operations When Walter Schellenberg moved to Frankfurt in 1934, he recalled meeting an SS-Oberführer, who explained to him the mission of the SD; he was told the following, which he wrote in his memoirs: The SD was the chief organ of the intelligence service of the party. Its task was to inform the top Party leaders of all opposition movements and forces at home and abroad. It covered the administration, the Party, industry, the theatre, journalism, the police—in fact there was no sphere that was not under the watchful eye of the SD, no place where it did not seek out the first signs of opposition among movements or individuals 'hostile' to the state'.
In March 1938, Schellenberg traveled with Himmler and Heydrich to Vienna for the impending Anschluss with Austria. One of the reasons for their journey was so the SD could "confiscate Austrian secret service material." During the trip, Schellenberg allegedly saved Himmler from a potential mishap when he noticed that the aircraft door that he had been leaning against was not properly secured. Throwing Himmler aside in the process, Schellenberg earned the gratitude of the Reichsführer, who promised to reciprocate the favor if the chance ever presented itself. Following the exuberant reception of Hitler when he arrived in Vienna, Schellenberg later wrote, "'never...have I seen such tremendous, enthusiastic and joyous crowds."
Much like Austria, the Nazis set their sights on the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia, a region with over three million ethnic Germans which they wanted to incorporate into the Reich; more than that, Hitler once told his generals that he desired for Czechoslovakia to "disappear from the map". In the summer of 1938, the Gestapo and SD-Ausland, which had taken control of the Secret Service in Czechoslovakia, helped the Sudeten Nazis from the Sudetendeutsche Partei infiltrate regional and local organizations, veterans groups, musical societies, sporting associations, sailing clubs, and cultural societies—which gave them insight into the economic, political, and military situation there. So thorough was the Nazi penetration in much of the Sudetenland, that Schellenberg stated later it was necessary to establish two telephone transmission stations along the frontier to communicate with Berlin. Eventually after strained negotiations with the West, Hitler acquired the Sudetenland when the Munich Agreement was concluded. Following this event, Schellenberg accompanied Hitler, Himmler, and Heydrich into Prague on 15 March 1939 and reported that Himmler was so pleased with the performance and racial makeup of the Czech police, that he incorporated them into the SS.
In November 1939 Schellenberg played a major part in the Venlo Incident, which led to the capture of two British MI6 agents, Captain Sigismund Payne-Best and Major Richard Stevens. Schellenberg posed as a "Major Schaemmel" claiming to be part of an anti-Nazi group of officers planning a coup against Hitler. At Schellenberg's third meeting with Stevens and Best in the German-Dutch border town of Venlo, the trap was sprung; the two British agents were captured. Hitler awarded Schellenberg the Iron Cross for his actions. Success in this operation helped the SD acquire greater leverage in foreign policy and gave their police Attachés access to foreign networks through the diplomatically immune offices of the German embassies abroad. The operation also damaged British morale and inclined them to mistrust the opposition in Germany.