Walter Rauff

Who was Walter Rauff?

Walter Rauff was an SS officer in Nazi Germany, attaining the grade of Colonel in June 1944. From January 1938 he was an aide of Reinhard Heydrich firstly in the Sicherheitsdienst or SD, the SS security service, later in the Reichssicherheitshauptamt or RSHA, the Reich Security Main Office, a department created by Himmler in 1939 grouping the Gestapo, SD and Kripo, the criminal police. Between 1958 and 1962 he worked for the Bundesnachrichtendienst, West Germany's intelligence service. His funeral in Santiago, Chile was attended by hundreds of old Nazis.

Rauff is thought to have been responsible for nearly 100,000 deaths during the Second World War. He was instrumental in the creation of the Nazis’ “mobile gas chamber”. His victims included Communists, Jews, Roma and the physically and mentally ill. In the late 1970s and '80s, he was arguably the most wanted Nazi fugitive still alive.