Ernst Boepple

Boepple earned his Abitur in 1905 at the Gymnasium in Reutlingen. Then he studied languages and history at several universities: University of Tübingen, University of Paris, University of Oxford, and the University of London and earned his PhD in 1915. He fought in the First World War in the infantry and left the German Army with the rank of first lieutenant in 1919.

He then became a fellow worker of the publisher Julius Friedrich Lehmann and was one of the founders of the German Workers' Party (DAP). In 1919 he took over the Deutsche Volksverlag, which had been established by Lehmann. There he published Anton Drexler's book - My Political Awakening.
The Deutsche Volksverlag published a large section of the early formative National Socialist literature


When Hans Schemm died after an aircraft crash, Boepple became the Bavarian Minister for Culture until 1939. In 1940 he again served in the military. On September 1, 1941, he was appointed the State Secretary of the General Government in Poland, serving as deputy to Deputy Governor Josef Bühler. Boepple was deeply implicated in the Final Solution as the deputy to Bühler and also held rank in the SS, being an SS-Oberführer (senior colonel). He Headed construction of gas chambers during Aktion T4, and at Sobibor and Treblinka extermination camps during Operation Reinhard.

Boepple was sentenced to death by a Polish court on December 14, 1949 and hanged on December 15, 1950.

 

Born

30th November 1887
Betzingen, German Empire

Died

15th December 1950 (aged 63)
Montelupich Prison, Kraków, Polish People's Republic