Bernhard Siebken

Bernhard Siebken
HIAG members laying a wreath at Siebken's grave in 1959; photo originally appeared in HIAG's periodical Der Freiwillige ("The Volunteer")
Born	4 April 1910 Pinneberg, Province of Schleswig-Holstein, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire
Died	20 January 1949(1949-01-20) (aged 38) Hamelin Prison, Hamelin, Allied-occupied Germany
Cause of death	Execution by hanging
Allegiance	Nazi Germany
Service / branch	Schutzstaffel Waffen-SS
Years of service	1931–1945
Rank	SS-Obersturmbannführer
Service number	NSDAP #558,752 SS #44,894
Unit	SS Division Leibstandarte SS Division Hitlerjugend
Commands	SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment 2 "LSSAH"
Battles / wars	World War II
Awards	Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross

Bernhard Siebken (4 April 1910 – 20 January 1949) was a German SS commander during World War II and a convicted war criminal. He was sentenced to death for the killing of Canadian prisoners of war and was executed in 1949.

Life

Siebken, a driving and riding instructor, joined the SS and the NSDAP in 1931 and was one of the original members of the SS-Stabswache (March 1933) and its successor the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH). He took part in the invasion of Poland in 1939 and went on to serve on the Eastern Front.

In 1944, Seibken commanded the 2nd Battalion, 26th SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment and later the 25th SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment; both with the SS Division Hitlerjugend. Siebken was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on 17 April 1945.

After the end of the war, he stood trial for war crimes related to his activities while in command of the 2nd Battalion, 26th Panzer Grenadier Regiment of the LSSAH.

Death

He was found guilty in the shootings of Canadian prisoners of war from the Queen's Own Rifles during the Battle of Le Mesnil-Patry and hanged on 20 January 1949. The death sentence and its execution were very controversial at the time: the British war correspondent Basil Liddell Hart, among others, spoke out against the unjust sentence.

Following the reburial of executed war criminals in Hamelin in 1954, the cemetery became the focal point for veterans' reunions, with distinct Nazi overtones. In 1959, for example, the convention of the lobby group and revisionist organisation of former Waffen-SS members, HIAG, concluded with "comrades gathering around [Siebken's] tomb" and laying a wreath.

Awards (excerpt)

• Honour Chevron for the Old Guard in February 1934
• SS Honour Sword
• SS Honour Ring
• SS-Julleuchter in December 1935
• Anschluss Medal
• Sudetenland Medal
• Iron Cross (1939), 2nd and 1st Class
• War Merit Cross (1939), 2nd and 1st Class
• Order of the Crown of Romania, Officer's Cross with Swords on 16 July 1942
• Eastern Medal
• Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on 17 April 1945 as SS-Obersturmbannführer and commander of the SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment 2 "Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler"

References

Bibliography

• Margolian, Howard (1998). Conduct Unbecoming: The Story of the Murder of Canadian Prisoners of War in Normandy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-0802083609.
• Scherzer, Veit (2007). Die Ritterkreuzträger 1939–1945 Die Inhaber des Ritterkreuzes des Eisernen Kreuzes 1939 von Heer, Luftwaffe, Kriegsmarine, Waffen-SS, Volkssturm sowie mit Deutschland verbündeter Streitkräfte nach den Unterlagen des Bundesarchives [The Knight's Cross Bearers 1939–1945 According to the Documents of the Federal Archives] (in German). Jena, Germany: Scherzers Militaer-Verlag. ISBN 978-3-938845-17-2.
• Ward, Richard, ed. (2015). A Global History of Execution and the Criminal Corpse. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-137-44399-1.