English research edition
Max Grosskopf
Max Grosskopf served as commander of the Security Police and SD in the Kraków district. The profile reconstructs the person’s function in Kraków and the Kraków 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
- Grosskopf headed the Kraków KdS from 1940 to 1943, with authority over the Gestapo, criminal police and SD.
- The office participated in the persecution of Kraków’s Jews, deportations and the liquidation of the ghetto.
- Recent research reconstructs the local organisers of the Holocaust within the Kraków Gestapo and distinguishes their respective competencies.
Place in the chain of responsibility
Grosskopf’s responsibility follows from his direction of a regional police apparatus. It does not rest on an assumption that he personally carried out all crimes committed by that apparatus.
Key events and mechanisms
- the operation of the Kraków ghetto
- deportations and the liquidation of the Kraków ghetto
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
Grosskopf died by suicide in April 1945. A court declared him dead in 1948; he was never tried.
Limits of the evidence
The candidate had been deferred in wave 3. A peer-reviewed study published in 2025 and a separate IPN publication provided the new independent basis required for publication.
Sources
The source set combines institutional, archival, trial or scholarly material from at least two independent publishers.