English source-aligned edition
Fritz Liphardt
Fritz Liphardt served as commander of Einsatzkommando 2/III in 1939, then commander of the Security Police and SD (KdS) in the Radom District. The profile reconstructs the person’s function in Łódź, Radom and the Radom District through documented office, decisions, supervision or operational conduct. It does not assign every crime committed by an institution or region to one individual.
Confirmed findings
- IPN studies and research on the Einsatzgruppen identify Liphardt as commander of Einsatzkommando 2/III, which was subordinate to Einsatzgruppe III and operated behind the 8th Army during the invasion of Poland in 1939.
- From November 1939 to October 1943 he served as KdS in the Radom District; an IPN study documents the subordinate network of Security Police and SD field offices and the succession after his departure.
- Academic sources link Einsatzkommando 2/III under his command to operations to arrest the Polish intelligentsia in autumn 1939. This finding concerns his command role in the unit and does not automatically establish Liphardt's personal participation in every arrest.
- IPN documentation states that the British detained him in June 1945, transferred him to Poland and that he died on 18 May 1947 in prison in Szczecin; the source records suicide as the officially reported cause.
Place in the chain of responsibility
Liphardt connects two stages in the construction of the machinery of terror: a mobile Einsatzkommando operating during the 1939 war and a permanent regional Security Police and SD command in the General Government. The profile describes his organisational authority and documented operations of subordinate structures, but does not attribute to him without evidence every act of the KdS Radom field offices.
Key events and mechanisms
- commanding Einsatzkommando 2/III during the German invasion of Poland in September 1939
- the subordinate unit's participation in operations to arrest members of the intelligentsia in autumn 1939
- taking office as KdS Radom in November 1939 and developing the network of field offices
- removal from the KdS post in October 1943
- arrest by the British in 1945, transfer to Poland and death in prison on 18 May 1947
The circle records authority, function and agency. Several profiles may describe different parts of the same persecution chain, so profile-level totals must not be added together.
Postwar accountability
The British arrested him in Flensburg in June 1945, after which he was extradited to Poland. He died in prison in Szczecin on 18 May 1947 before a trial could take place; IPN documentation states that the death was officially ruled a suicide.
Limits of the evidence
The scope of responsibility held by the commander of EK 2/III and a KdS does not amount to personal commission of every arrest, execution and deportation in the district. The circumstances of his death are known from postwar documentation, without a judicial determination. The new basis relative to the Wave 4 deferral consists of independent sources: a study of the KdS Radom structure, university research on EK 2/III and a publication held by the Library of Congress describing the transition of Einsatzgruppe personnel into the permanent Security Police apparatus.
Sources
The source set combines institutional, archival, trial or scholarly material from at least two independent publishers.