Erich Isselhorst

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Erich Georg Heinrich Isselhorst (5 February 1906 – 23 February 1948) was a German Nazi official and SS officer who reached the rank of SS-Standartenführer. He was born in Saint-Avold, Lorraine, then part of the German Empire, and studied law, earning a Doctor of Laws degree in 1931.

Isselhorst joined the Nazi Party in 1932, the SA in 1933, the SS in 1934, and the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) in 1937. He worked with the Gestapo, leading offices in Cologne (1936–1938) and Munich (1939–1942). In 1942 he moved to occupied Belarus and the Baltic states, where he headed Einsatzkommando 8 and later Einsatzkommando 1, taking part in the murder of Jews.

From 1943 to 1944 he was Kommandeur der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD in Minsk, and later held positions in Strasbourg as head of SiPo and SD in Alsace and as Inspekteur der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD in Wehrkreis V (Stuttgart). In October 1944 he was promoted to Oberst of police and, on 9 November, to SS-Standartenführer.

In late 1944, during Operation Waldfest, villages in the Vosges were destroyed and many inhabitants deported. Isselhorst ordered the execution of captured British SAS soldiers and several French civilians, including three French priests and four US airmen.

After the war, Isselhorst was arrested by American forces in May 1945. He was sentenced to death by a British military court for the murder of British POWs and was handed over to the French, who also sentenced him to death. He was executed by firing squad in Strasbourg on 23 February 1948.