Rauter, Hanns Albin°

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RAUTER, HANNS ALBIN°

RAUTER, HANNS ALBIN ° (1895–1949), Austrian *SS officer and *Himmler's principal representative in the occupied *Netherlands. One of the founders of the fascist Steirischer Heimatschutz ("Styrian Homeguard"), he became its chief. In 1933 he adhered with his organization to the Austrian branch of the Nazi Party. Himmler appointed him in 1940 Higher SS and Police leader in the Netherlands. In this capacity he won Himmler's praise for precisely and zealously carrying out the persecution of Dutch Jewry and their deportation to the camps in Poland. Rauter was considered the chief executor of the "Final Solution" (see *Holocaust, General Survey) of the Jews of the Netherlands. He was sentenced to death by a Dutch court and executed in 1949.

bibliography:

Het proces Rauter (Dutch, 1952); J. Presser, Ashes in the Wind (1968); G. Reitlinger, Final Solution (1953), index.

[Yehuda Reshef]