Editing Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski (section)

==[[World War II]]==

Bach-Zalewski did not participate in the invasion of Poland personally, although the units under his command took part in reprisal actions and the shooting of POWs in the course of the September Campaign. Instead, on 7 November 1939, SS chief [[Heinrich Himmler]] offered him the post of Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germandom in Silesia. His duties included mass resettlement and the confiscation of Polish private property there. By August 1940, some 18,000–20,000 Poles from Żywiec County were forced to leave their homes in what became known as the Action Saybusch (German name for Żywiec).

On 22 June 1941, Bach-Zelewski became the HSSPF in the region of Silesia. He provided the initial impetus for the building of Auschwitz concentration camp at the Polish artillery barracks in the Zasole suburb of Oświęcim due to overcrowding of prisons. The location was scouted by his subordinate Obergruppfuhrer Arpad Wigand. The first transport arrived at [[Auschwitz]] on 14 June 1940, and two weeks later Bach-Zelewski personally visited the [[concentration camp]].

During Operation Barbarossa, Bach-Zelewski served as the SS and police leader in the territory of Belarus, extending all the way to the Urals. He oversaw the activities of the ''[[Einsatzgruppen]]'', responsible for the extermination of Jews in Riga and Minsk between July and September 1941. He went back to Berlin in February 1942 for medical treatment. Bach-Zalewski was hospitalized with intestinal ailments, and described as suffering from "hallucinations connected with the shooting of Jews". He asked Himmler to be reassigned from managing executions to anti-partisan warfare. Bach-Zalewski resumed his post in July, with no apparent reduction in his ruthlessness.

In June 1942, after the assassination of [[Reinhard Heydrich]] in Prague, [[Hitler]] wanted Bach-Zelewski to take Heydrich's place as the leader of the Reich Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. When Himmler argued that Bach-Zelewski could not be spared due to the prevailing military situation, Hitler relented and appointed [[Kurt Daluege]] to the position.

In July 1943, Bach-Zelewski became commander of the so-called "Bandenkämpfverbände" ("Band-fighting Unit"), responsible for the mass murder of 35,000 civilians in Riga and more than 200,000 in Belarus and eastern Poland. The authorities designated him as the future HSSPF in Moscow; however, the Wehrmacht failed to take the city. Until 1943, Bach-Zalewski remained the HSSPF in command of "anti-partisan" units on the central front, a special command created by Adolf Hitler. Bach-Zalewski was the only HSSPF in the occupied Soviet territories to retain genuine authority over the police after [[Hans-Adolf Prützmann]] and [[Friedrich Jeckeln]] lost theirs to the civil administration.