Erich Ehrlinger

Erich Ehrlinger
Erich Ehrlinger (sometime before 1945)
Born	14 October 1910 Giengen an der Brenz, Kingdom of Württemberg
Died	31 July 2004 (aged 93) Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg
Other names	Erich Fröscher
Criminal penalty	Twelve years imprisonment, later partially remitted
Motive	Nazism
Conviction(s)	Crimes against humanity in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus, and Russia.

Erich Ehrlinger (14 October 1910 in Giengen an der Brenz, Kingdom of Württemberg – 31 July 2004 in Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg) was a member of the Nazi Party (number: 541,195) and SS (number: 107,493). As commander of Special Detachment (Sonderkommando, also known as Einsatzkommando or EK) 1b, he was responsible for mass murder in the Baltic states and Belarus.

He was also the commander of the Security Police (SiPo) and the Security Service (SD) for central Russia as well as a department chief in the Reich Main Security Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt or RSHA). He did not hold a doctorate degree, as is sometimes reported. He would eventually rise to the rank of SS-Standartenführer.

Ehrlinger was the son of the mayor of Giengen an der Brenz, a small town in southwestern Germany, in what is now the state of Baden-Württemberg. In 1928 he completed high school (Abitur) in Heidenheim, then studied law in Tübingen, Kiel, Berlin (where in 1931 he joined the SA) and then back at Tübingen. The nationalist and xenophobic atmosphere at the University of Tübingen (already by 1931 there were no longer any Jewish professors there) fit in well with his later legal career in the SD, the RSHA, and the Einsatzgruppen.