Career
Dannecker was a young Bavarian lawyer from Munich who became one of Adolf Eichmann's indispensable agents in the implementation of the ‘Final Solution’. Sent to Paris in September 1940 by Eichmann’s Bureau IV B4, the branch of the RSHA in Berlin devoted to ‘Jewish’ matters, Dannecker headed its French bureau and Judenreferat (Jewish section), receiving his orders directly from Eichmann. As the ‘Jewish expert’ of the Gestapo and Eichmann’s deputy with the Paris Sipo-SD, SS-Hauptsturm- fiihrer Dannecker claimed the credit for being the first to propose continuous Jewish deportations from France to the East and was constantly prodding the Vichy authorities to take more active anti-semitic measures.
Dannecker was recalled to Berlin in October 1942 for abusing his independence and in January 1943 was transferred to Eichmann's office in Sofia, Bulgaria, where he continued to supervise deportations of Jews. Posted to Verona in October 1943 and to Hungary in the summer of 1944, Dannecker became Jewish Commissary for Italy in October 1944, remaining with the Eichmann commando to the end of the war. Dannecker committed suicide in an American prison camp in Bad Tölz on 10 December 1945.