Littlemarylil - Mary

I've been waiting for this one.

Walter Schellenberg

These are some facts and curiosities about Walter Schellenberg, the deputy head of the Gestapo:

He was born in Saarbrücken on 16 January 1910 but his family moved with his family to Luxembourg when the French occupation of the Saar Basin after the First World War triggered an economic crisis in the Weimar Republic.

 He returned to Germany to attend university, first at the University of Marburg and then, in 1929, at the University of Bonn. He initially studied medicine, but soon switched to law.

He joined the SS in 1933.

He was recruited in the SD through 2 professors ( he gave an anti catholic speech which aroused Heydrich's interest )

In November 1939 Schellenberg played a key role in the Venlo Incident, which ended with the capture of two British espionage agents and was awarded the Iron Cross for this.

In 1940 he was responsible for drawing up a list of 2,300 British personalities who were to be arrested as soon as Germany occupied Great Britain; he was also involved in many other espionage activities, among which the Kitty Salon activity was very successful.

In March 1942, Heinz Jost was fired from his position as RSHA Chief of Amt VI, SD-Ausland (SD foreign intelligence). In his place, Schellenberg was appointed chief of SD-Ausland by Heydrich

According to his memoirs, Schellenberg had been a friend of Wilhelm Canaris, the head of the Abwehr (military intelligence).

In the last months of the conflict Schellenberg tried to persuade Himmler to reach a separate peace with the Western Allies by exploiting the mediation of Count Folke Bernadotte, whom he himself met personally in Stockholm in April 1945.

He was captured in Denmark in June 1945 while working on an attempt to make a separate peace with the Americans.

During the postwar Nuremberg Trials, Schellenberg testified against other Nazis. In the 1949 Ministries Trial he was sentenced to six years' imprisonment, during which time he wrote his memoirs, The Labyrinth.

He died of cancer in 1952 in Turin, Italy.

During the German occupation of Paris, Schellenberg was believed to have been a lover of Coco Chanel, who paid for the cost of his funeral when he died penniless.

Sources:

Wikipedia: Walter Schellenberg

Military Wiki: Walter Schellenberg

❗❗I DON'T SUPPORT NAZISM,FASCISM OR ZIONISM IN ANY WAY, THIS IS AN EDUCATIONAL POST❗❗

I wanted to share this picture of Walter Schellenberg with another SS members in Nuremberg jail (as witnesses), because I haven't seen this here yet.

(I do not support their actions or the ideology.)

Aufzeichnungen: die Memoiren des letzten Geheimdienstchefs unter Hitler

Walter Schellenberg

Updated with better scan quality. Tumblr has a size restriction for image upload. Original 600 dpi scans are in the link below:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/149JNBSInYlFAXFq6XGGwKIAgXBqCgorl/view?usp=sharing

Jakob Diehl and Felix Kammerer in All the Light We Cannot See (2023) S01E01/E02