Walter Schellenberg Add a review

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.