Werner Best

Karl Rudolf Werner Best
SS-Obergruppenführer K.R.W. Best
Born	(1903-07-10)10 July 1903 Darmstadt, Hesse
Died	23 June 1989(1989-06-23) (aged 85) Mülheim, Germany
Allegiance	Nazi Germany
Service/branch	SS
Years of service	1931–1945
Rank	SS-Obergruppenführer
Commands held	Amt I, RSHA
Battles/wars	World War II

Karl Rudolf Werner Best (10 July 1903 – 23 June 1989) was a German Nazi, jurist, police chief, SS-Obergruppenführer and Nazi Party leader from Darmstadt, Hesse. He studied law and in 1927 obtained his doctorate degree at Heidelberg. Best served as civilian administrator of France and Denmark while Nazi Germany occupied those countries during World War II.

Best joined the NSDAP with member number 341,338. He went on to join the SS with membership number, 23,377. Prior to September 1939, as an SS-Brigadeführer, Best while head of Department 1 of the Gestapo oversaw organization, administration, and legal affairs. He was a deputy to Reinhard Heydrich. Both men saw the Gestapo as actually working on "behalf of the German people" through both "ethnic and political purification". During 1934, Ernst Röhm pushed for greater political influence for his already powerful Nazi organisation, the Sturmabteilung (SA). Hitler decided that the SA had to be eliminated as an independent political force. On 30 June 1934 the SS and Gestapo acted in coordinated mass arrests that continued for two days. While Heydrich co-ordinated the operation from Berlin, Best was sent to Munich to "oversee a wave of arrests" in the southern part of Germany. The purge became known as the Night of the Long Knives. Up to 200 people were killed in the action.

Even though Canadian historian Robert Gellately wrote that most Gestapo men were not Nazis, at the same time they were not opposed to the Nazi regime, which they were willing to serve, in whatever task they were called upon to perform. Over time, membership in the Gestapo included ideological training, particularly once Best assumed a leading role for training in April 1936. Employing biological metaphors, Best emphasized a doctrine which encouraged members of the Gestapo to view themselves as 'doctors' to the national body in the struggle against "pathogens" and "diseases"; among the implied sicknesses were "communists, Freemasons, and the churches—and above and behind all these stood the Jews." Heydrich thought along similar lines and advocated both defensive and offensive measures on the part of the Gestapo, so as to prevent any subversion or destruction of the National Socialist body.