Georg Wilhelm Johannes Michalsen (13 September 1906 – 21 May 1993) was a German SS-Sturmbannführer. During the Second World War, he was involved in the systematic deportation and murder of Polish Jews (Operation Reinhard) and later served as the SS and Police Leader in Trieste. Decades after the war, he was tried as an accomplice to murder, convicted and sentenced to twelve years in prison.
Early life
Born Georg Michalczyk in Wendrin (today, Vendryně), then part of Austria-Hungary, he was the son of a primary school teacher and, from 1912 to 1920, attended school in Oppeln (today, Opole) then located in Germany. After serving an apprenticeship as an office assistant in a law firm in Oppeln, he worked as an accountant. Brought up with a strong belief in German nationalism, in 1924 he joined a wehrverband, a völkische military association. On 1 November 1928, Michalczyk became a member of the Nazi Party (membership number 103,613). From 1930 he was the Party's Ortsgruppenleiter (Local Group Leader) in Oppeln. He also belonged to the SA, the Nazi paramilitary organization. On 10 January 1932, he transferred from the SA to the SS (SS number 29,337). He served in the 45th SS-Standarte in Oppeln, was commissioned an SS-Untersturmführer on 9 November 1934 and promoted to SS-Obersturmführer on 30 January 1937.
Second World War and Holocaust involvement
Poland
In September 1939, during the German attack on Poland which launched the Second World War, Michalczyk was part of the SS force from Oppeln that marched into Częstochowa. In Poland, he led a 70-strong SS unit that, in addition to guard duties, trained the "Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz" in Piotrków Trybunalski, as well as the Opoczno and Rawa districts. This paramilitary organization, made up of ethnic Germans living in Poland, was used as an auxiliary police force and was involved in the deportation and murder of Jews and ethnic Poles. In 1940 Michalczyk, embarrassed by his Polish-sounding surname, officially changed it to Michalsen.
Initially, Michalsen was assigned to the staff of SS-Oberführer Fritz Katzmann, the SS and Police Leader (SSPF) in the Radom District of the General Government. In August 1940, he transferred to the staff of SS-Brigadeführer Odilo Globočnik, the SSPF of the Lublin District. Michalsen ran a camp for mainly Jewish forced laborers charged with building fortifications along the German-Soviet demarcation line. After the German attack on the Soviet Union, Globočnik was assigned to set up SS and police bases (Polizeistützpunkte) in the newly conquered areas of the Soviet Union and Michalsen was appointed head of the unit in Riga. Michalsen was present when the Riga Ghetto was partially cleared on 30 November 1941 and approximately 13,000 people were shot in the forest of Rumbula.
Michalsen was promoted to SS-Hauptsturmführer on 30 January 1942 and, in the early summer, returned to Lublin. At that time, following the Wannsee Conference, Globočnik was organizing Operation Reinhard, the systematic murder of all Polish Jews. In Treblinka, Belzec and Sobibor, extermination camps were set up for industrial-scale murder utilizing gas chambers. On 21 July 1942, a cadre of officials from Globočnik's office, including Michalsen, SS-Sturmbannführer Hermann Höfle and SS-Sturmbannführer Ernst Lerch arrived in Warsaw at the onset of the Grossaktion Warsaw, the expulsion of the Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto. Beginning on 27 July, approximately 7,000 Jews per day were transported by train for alleged "resettlement" to the east, however, the true destination of the deportations was the Treblinka extermination camp. During this time, Michalsen was deployed at the Umschlagplatz, where the victims boarded the transports. The deportations lasted until 21 September 1942, and it is estimated that around 265,000 Warsaw Jews were murdered in this fashion.