Hermann Fegelein was born on the 30th of October 1906 in Ansbach, then part of the German Empire. Hermann Fegelein came into contact with Nazism thanks to his father who several times made his riding institute available to the SS as a meeting place. Nazi equestrian units also used his father’s training facilities and horses.
In August 1930 Fegelein joined the Nazi Party and the SA and in 1933 he joined the SS. The same year Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party came into power and Germany became a dictatorship.
The Second World War started on the 1st of September 1939 with the invasion of Poland. The campaign in Poland ended on the 6th of October with Germany and the Soviet Union dividing and annexing the whole of the country. Fegelein and his Death's-Head Horse Regiment, which he commanded, arrived in Poland shortly after.
In Poland, Fegelein and his unit took part in killing the civilians, mostly the Polish intelligentsia such as teachers, priests, physicians, and other prominent members of Polish society.
These mass murder operations claimed the lives of 100,000 Poles.
The German invasion of France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands started on the 10th of May 1940 and became known as the Battle of France.
Fegelein took part in the French Campaign and was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class in December 1940. On Sunday, the 22nd of June 1941 started Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, and Hermann Fegelein and his unit were deployed on the Eastern Front. Because the horses were exhausted, the man were transported to the front combat zone in lorries and the horse-drawn artillery equipment was towed using any available vehicles.
Heinrich Himmler ordered Fegelein and his unit to kill partisans and later exterminate Jews in the area of Soviet Byelorussia and Ukraine.
From January 1944, Fegelein belonged to Hitler's headquarters staff to which he was assigned by Heinrich Himmler as his liaison officer and representative of the SS. On the 20th of July, 1944 when Claus von Stauffenberg and other conspirators attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Hermann Fegelein was present at the Wolf's Lair headquarters. The Führer survived and Fegelein received a minor wound to his left thigh from the bomb explosion.
On the 3rd of June 1944 Fegelein married Gretl Braun who was one of the two sisters of Eva Braun, Adolf Hitler’s longtime companion and briefly his wife. Their wedding took place at the Mirabell Palace in Salzburg, far from the bombing and fighting, with Hitler, Himmler, and Martin Bormann as witnesses. Eva Braun made all the wedding arrangements.
In early 1945 the Third Reich was on the edge of collapse. On the 16th of January 1945, Adolf Hitler moved into the Führerbunker under the Reich Chancellery Garden and on the 21st of April 1945 the Soviet Red Army reached the outskirts of Berlin. It was clear that the war was lost. Because Fegelein had abandoned his post at the Führerbunker, Hitler sent for him. Fegelein was arrested and taken back to the Führerbunker. When Hitler found out about Himmler’s secret negotiations, he considered them a betrayal and ordered Himmler’s arrest and Fegelein to be stripped of all rank and court-martialed.
On the 29th of April, 1945, Fegelein, then 38 years old, was taken to the garden of the Reich Chancellery and was shot.
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