Richard Wendler

Richard Wendler (22 January 1898, Oberndorf bei Salzburg – 24 August 1972, Prien am Chiemsee) was a high-ranking Nazi official during World War II. During the occupation of Poland, he was the Governor of new District Lublin in the General Government, in charge of Lublin concentration camp and the creation of the , among others. Before his deployment to Poland, he was the mayor of the city Hof between 1933 and 1941 and became an SS-Gruppenführer in 1942 during the murderous Operation Reinhard. Wendler was Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler's brother-in-law; his sister was married to a brother of Himmler.

Wendler was born the son of a border official, in southeast Bavaria, near the border with Austria. He attended elementary school in Bad Reichenhall and the humanist Ludwigsgymnasium in Munich. Wendler was a soldier during the First World War, reaching the rank of Unteroffizier. From the spring of 1919, he was a member of the Freikorps and participated in the fight against the Bavarian Soviet Republic in 1919 and the suppression of the Ruhr Uprising in 1920. He studied jurisprudence and political science from 1919 to 1922 at the University of Munich, where he received his doctorate of jurisprudence. From 1924, he worked as general counsel in Stuttgart, and completed his studies with his second Staatsexamen in 1925. He then worked as a lawyer in Deggendorf.