Werner Best
German lawyer, police chief, Gestapo organizer, National Socialist, war criminal, and Holocaust perpetrator (1903-1989) · Germany · On the map · Politicians · Died at 85
Karl Rudolf Werner Best was a German jurist, police chief, SS-Obergruppenführer, Nazi Party leader, and theoretician from Darmstadt. He was the first chief of Department 1 of the Gestapo, Nazi Germany's secret police, and initiated a registry of all Jews in Germany.
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As a deputy of SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, he organized the SS-Einsatzgruppen paramilitary death squads that carried out mass-murder in Nazi-occupied territories.
