Ludolf Jakob von Alvensleben

Ludolf Jakob von Alvensleben Wittenmoor-Plutowo/Thorn (9 August 1899 – 23 August 1953) was a Standartenfuhrer (colonel) in the Nazi era SS and a senior staff member of the Action Reinhard group assigned by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler to systematically murder the Jews of Europe. He ended the war as SS and Police Leader (SSPF) of Adria-West, Northern Italy. He escaped investigation after the war and is reported to have died when his car overturned on a road outside Dortmund, in August 1953. There were no witnesses to the accident. The police chief at the time of the discovery and identification of the corpse had served under von Alvensleben in Southern Russia during the war.

Staf. Ludolf Jakob von Alvensleben, Obstubaf. Erich Spaarmann, Obstubaf. Dr Hans Kölzow and Stubaf. Christian Schnug

Ludolf "Ludi" Jakob von Alvensleben was the third of four sons born to Udo von Alvensleben of Wittenmoor, Stendal, Saxony-Anhalt in Germany. His oldest brother, Busso died in 1918, in the First World War. His remaining older brother was the art historian and diarist Udo von Alvensleben-Wittenmoor. His younger brother Wichard von Alvensleben has entered history as being involved in the rescue of a large number of prominent hostages in Tirol in the last days of the Second World War.

Like his two older brothers, Ludolf Jakob von Alvensleben attended school at the Knights Academy (de) in Brandenburg on the Havel until he volunteered for service in the First World War. After returning from the war as a 19-year-old Lieutenant, he was active in a Freikorps company, before taking over the family estate in Plutowo / Thorn (Polish; Torun) in West Prussia. This was given as an inheritance from his father. As a consequence of the Treaty of Versailles, Ludolf Jakob von Alvensleben became one of a large number of Junker members who lost their lands to the Polish state. He was compensated by the new German government. However, he lost this compensation in the hyperinflation that was rampant in Germany in the early 1920s. He was also involved in an unsuccessful Ford auto franchise in the then West-Prussian city of Danzig (Polish; Gdańsk).[1]

Financially ruined, Ludolf Jakob von Alvensleben returned to Saxony-Anhalt and in June 1932, became an early member of the SS and Adjutant to the SA Gruppenführer and later Reichssportführer Hans von Tschammer und Osten. He rose rapidly through the ranks. By September 1939 and the invasion of Poland, Ludolf Jakob von Alvensleben had become Standartenführer. His familial connections to Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler's Personal Adjutant, Ludolf Hermann von Alvensleben enabled Standartenführer von Alvensleben to be assigned as Inspektionsführer for the ethnic paramilitary Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz in West Prussia. He established his headquarters on his dispossessed estate in Plutowo/Thorn (Polish; Torun) and exacted revenge. The cellars of the estate house became the scene for torture and murder of hundreds of Poles and Jews.[2] He reported directly to his namesake and Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz commander Oberführer Ludolf Hermann von Alvensleben. The identical name, shared fanaticism and areas of murderous activity, has resulted in the identities of both men being confounded by historians.

By the end of October 1939, many of the younger members of the Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz in Danzig-West Prussia were incorporated into the Police, SS/SD or Wehrmacht. The Reichsdeutsche Officers were given new duties as ethnic cleansers with the Reichskommisar fur die Festigung des Deutschen Volkstums (RKFDV) and its affiliate organizations. Ludolf Jakob von Alvensleben was sent to Lublin to serve under the SS and Police Leader in Lublin, Oberführer Odilo Globocnik. His responsibilities included the organization and training of the Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz in and around Lublin. He was later involved in the training of both the Sonderdienst and the Trawniki guards.[3] In February 1940 he also became head of the Lublin-Lipowa camp.[4] Between October 1939 and the Spring and the summer of 1940, von Alvensleben made use of his Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz auxiliaries to play a significant part in the massacre of the Polish intelligentsia in West-Prussia and later between Lublin and Warsaw. This became known as the AB-Aktion.[5] In April 1940, von Alvensleben commanded the Selbstschutz during the massacre of more than 160 Polish civilians at Jozefow in the Lublin district. In June 1940, a further massacre of 27 civilians was carried out at Radawiec under his orders.[6]