On September 1, 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland. Following the German army were the Einsatzgruppen, mobile death squads tasked with killing civilians, primarily members of the Polish intelligentsia, including teachers, priests, and physicians.
After the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, these paramilitary units conducted mass shooting operations with the help of German armed forces and local collaborators. Their targets were mostly Jews, Romani people, Soviet officials, and people with disabilities.
Between 1941 and 1945, the Einsatzgruppen murdered around two million innocent men, women, and children behind the front lines in Eastern Europe. This accounted for one-third of all Jewish Holocaust victims.
One of the main perpetrators of these atrocities was Hellmuth Becker. He was born on August 12, 1902, in the small town of Alt Ruppin, then part of the German Empire. The son of a house painter, he grew up in the nearby city of Neuruppin.
At just 18 years old, Becker enlisted in the German army in August 1920. He joined the Fifth Prussian Infantry Regiment, which was stationed in his hometown. He completed his military training in 1925 and graduated from a German army technical school.
He was then posted to the military command in the city of Stettin, today’s Polish Szczecin, where he served as a senior sergeant. In 1928, Becker was transferred to an artillery unit, where he served until his 12-year military contract ended in 1932.
At age 30, he was left unemployed, without a profession and with no clear future. In August 1932, Becker joined the SA, also known as the Stormtroopers or Brown Shirts, the Nazi paramilitary force.
On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany. One month later, Becker became a member of the SS in Stettin, working briefly with high-ranking SS commanders Wilhelm Bittrich and Hermann Priess.
In July 1935, he was transferred to the SS Death’s Head Unit Upper Bavaria, stationed at the SS training camp in Dachau. Dachau, near Munich, had been established in March 1933 as the first Nazi concentration camp. The first prisoner transports arrived there on March 22, 1933.
In October of that year, Dachau commandant Theodor Eicke introduced a system of regulations that inflicted brutal punishments on prisoners for the slightest offenses. Eicke ensured that Dachau served as a model for all later concentration camps. It also became a training center for SS guards deployed throughout the concentration camp system.
The Death’s Head unit stationed at Dachau later evolved into a full Waffen-SS combat division. The SS Division Totenkopf, or Death’s Head Division, was an elite unit deeply indoctrinated with Nazi ideology under Eicke’s command. His men were fanatically loyal and became infamous for their brutality, committing numerous war crimes during the war.
During his time in Dachau, Becker became commander of a recruit training company. From 1936, he headed the junior leader training courses at the SS training school. He later rose to become head of the entire school. In addition to training duties, he was involved in transport and guard operations at the camp.
In 1938, Becker took part in the annexation of Austria and the occupation of the Sudetenland, a border region of Czechoslovakia with an ethnic German majority. During this time, his unit, the First SS Battalion, was placed under the command of the Wehrmacht, the German armed forces.
World War II began on September 1, 1939, with the German invasion of Poland. During the invasion, Becker’s SS unit operated alongside the Wehrmacht in Upper Silesia under the 10th Army, led by General Walter von Reichenau. Their mission was to cleanse occupied areas, which often meant violent reprisals and the persecution of civilians.
In October 1939, the SS Division Totenkopf was officially formed. Becker’s unit became the division’s first infantry regiment, and he was appointed commander of its first battalion.
In the spring of 1940, Becker took part in the Battle of France, where he was awarded both classes of the Iron Cross for his service.
Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, began on June 22, 1941. Shortly after the campaign began, Becker was wounded but continued to lead his men. In August 1941, he was officially appointed commander of the regiment.
In the autumn of 1941, Becker led operations near the town of Demyansk in northwestern Russia. He initially commanded the motorcycle battalion of the SS Division Totenkopf. By late October, he assumed command of the SS Totenkopf Infantry Regiment 3, continuing to engage in fierce battles aimed at encircling Soviet forces and securing key positions under harsh conditions.
For his leadership during this period, Becker was awarded the German Cross in gold on September 26, 1942. Later that year, as the Totenkopf division transitioned into an armored unit, Becker was promoted to commander of the Sixth SS Panzergrenadier Division.
After the death of SS leader Theodor Eicke, the regiment was renamed in his honor. In August 1943, Becker’s regiment was ordered to capture the city of Nikitovka and nearby high ground. Despite heavy Soviet resistance, he launched a bold assault with his reserve battalion, advancing ahead of neighboring units.
His forces seized key positions, allowing the division to push forward and inflict major losses on Soviet troops. For his leadership, Becker was awarded the Knight’s Cross on September 7, 1943, one of Nazi Germany’s highest military decorations.
Becker was considered a tough commander but personally unpredictable. He was also a sexual deviant. According to internal correspondence between SS-Obergruppenführer Hans Jüttner and SS-Gruppenführer Maximilian von Herff, who were disgusted by his actions, Becker had raped Russian women in public and had appeared completely drunk on several occasions at the front as a regimental commander.
In the spring of 1943, he organized for prostitutes to visit his command center. On April 20, 1943, he ordered the artillery to fire a 10-minute salute to celebrate the Führer’s birthday.
Even on the Western Front, at Christmas in 1942, he organized an orgy for his regiment in the officers’ casino. He destroyed furniture, smashed windows, and had a horse ridden to death by his fellow officers.
In July 1944, Becker was appointed commander of the Third SS Panzer Division Totenkopf. He later took part in the brutal suppression of the Warsaw Uprising.
The uprising began on August 1, 1944, when the Polish Home Army, with its 45,000 members, launched a coordinated effort to liberate Warsaw from German occupation. Only a quarter of the resistance fighters had access to weapons. They fought against 25,000 German soldiers equipped with artillery, tanks, and air forces.
In the first few days, Polish forces took control of several districts of Warsaw, including downtown and the old town. However, after the initial success, German troops gradually recaptured the city. They surrounded the old town and other areas. After more than two weeks of combat, the last Polish soldiers left the old town through the sewers.
As a result of the fighting, Warsaw’s historical district was turned into ruins. By the end of September 1944, German forces had taken control of most of Warsaw, systematically destroying much of the city. The uprising ended on October 2, 1944, with the number of victims exceeding 180,000 people.
In October 1944, Becker was promoted to the rank of SS-Brigadeführer, equivalent to a Brigadier General in the U.S. Army.
In December 1944, Becker and his division were moved to Hungary to take part in the battles around Budapest. They later crossed the Danube River to Vienna, just before the surrender of German forces. The unit attempted to surrender to the Americans, but local U.S. commanders refused and handed them over to the Soviets.
World War II in Europe ended on May 8, 1945. In November 1947, Becker was sentenced to three terms of 25 years of hard labor for war crimes by a Soviet military tribunal in the city of Pava.
He was sent to prisoner of war camp 377 in Sverdlovsk, today’s Yekaterinburg in the Ural Mountains. However, on September 9, 1952, Becker was sentenced to death for sabotage in the labor camp, as he had allegedly attempted to manufacture explosives.
Hellmuth Becker was executed on February 28, 1953, at the age of 50. There were no tears shed for him.