English source-aligned edition
Lothar Beutel
Lothar Beutel served as commander of Einsatzgruppe IV during the German invasion of Poland. The profile reconstructs the person’s function in Pomerania, Mazovia and Warsaw 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
- Beutel commanded Einsatzgruppe IV during the opening phase of the invasion of Poland in September and October 1939.
- The formation operated between Pomerania, Mazovia and Warsaw within the Operation Tannenberg and Intelligenzaktion apparatus.
- Josef Meisinger succeeded him, marking a documented change in the command of the unit.
Place in the chain of responsibility
Beutel's profile documents command of a mobile security-police formation between central planning and local commands. It assigns only actions supported for Einsatzgruppe IV and his tenure, not every crime in the formation's geographic corridor.
Key events and mechanisms
- In September 1939 Einsatzgruppe IV entered occupied Poland under Beutel's command.
- During September and October the unit operated in areas including Warsaw as part of the security-police campaign against targeted groups.
- Beutel was removed and succeeded by Josef Meisinger.
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
Beutel was interned and interrogated after the war. He was not finally convicted for the actions of Einsatzgruppe IV in occupied Poland and died in 1986.
Limits of the evidence
The source base requires event-by-event attribution from Einsatzgruppe IV reports. Geographic presence or command title alone does not justify attributing every local killing to Beutel.
Sources
The source set combines institutional, archival, trial or scholarly material from at least two independent publishers.