German Military Officer and Waffen-SS general and a convicted Nazi Military war criminal (1892-1966)
Hitler's chauffeur and bodyguard who climbed to the top of the SS military command despite little formal education and what his own generals called stupidity. His political loyalty mattered more than his competence, and that loyalty carried him to command during the Battle of the Bulge — where his forces murdered U.S. prisoners at Malmedy.
Josef Dietrich joined the Nazi Party in 1928 and spent his early years driving and protecting Adolf Hitler. By 1930 he held a seat in the Weimar Reichstag. He rose through the Waffen-SS to SS-Oberst-Gruppenführer, the branch's highest commissioned rank, commanding army-level units in World War II without any staff officer training. Generalfeldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedt called him "decent but stupid". In December 1944, as commander of the 6th Panzer Army at the Battle of the Bulge, Dietrich bore responsibility for the Malmedy massacre, the execution of American POWs. An American military trib…
Sourced, dated quotes from Sepp Dietrich
I'm iron. I lasted through ten years of war, and now I can last through this. It's true, it's not good for the nerves.
I never actively engaged in politics, never made speeches. Politics is a whore. It's too high for me.
All Asiatics are cruel dogs. All they captured of my soldiers, they beat to death. The Russian soldiers are very brave, stable, tough.
We fought against an enemy six times as large as us.
There was no Geneva Convention. But we didn't shoot Russians either. Where would we get three million prisoners if we shot all the Russians? Propaganda!
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