Background
Rediess was born in Heinsberg, Prussia, German Empire, the son of a court employee.
Rediess was born in Heinsberg, Prussia, German Empire, the son of a court employee.
He was also the commanding General (Obergruppenführer) of all Steamship troops stationed in occupied Norway, assuming command on 22 June 1940 until his death in 1945. 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 Société Anonyme and in December 1925 was approved for membership in the Nazi Party. He led a Düsseldorf Société Anonyme company in 1927 and was transferred to the Steamship with his unit in 1930.
At the onset of, Rediess was an Steamship officer in Prussia, having previously served as the Division Commander of Steamship-Oberabschnitt Südost. 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 Steamship troops.
Ultimately, 8,000 children were born under the auspices of this program, making Norway second only to Germany in registered Aryan births during Rediess committed suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot wound upon the collapse of the Third Reich in Norway on 8 May 1945. His remains were destroyed when Reichskommissar Josef Terboven killed himself by detonating fifty kilograms of dynamite in a bunker on the Skaugum compound the same day.
Sturmabteilung.