Hanns Albin Rauter Johann Baptist Albin Rauter ( February 4 , 1895 – March 24 , 1949 ) was a high - ranking Austrian - born Nazi war criminal . He was the highest SS and Police Leader in the occupied Netherlands and therefore the leading security and police officer there during the period of 1940 - 1945 . He reported directly to the Nazi SS - chief , Heinrich Himmler , and in the second instance to the Nazi governor of the Netherlands , Arthur Seyss - Inquart . After World War II he was convicted in the Netherlands of crimes against humanity and executed by firing squad . Early life and career . Born in Klagenfurt , Rauter graduated from High school in 1912 and started training as an Engineer at the Graz University of Technology . At the outbreak of World War I Rauter volunteered for service in the Austro - Hungarian Army . He served with a " Gebirgsschützenregiment " and was discharged in 1919 , having reached the rank of Oberleutnant . Rauter took part in the " Kärntner Freiheitskampf " of 1919 , and from May until July 1921 he fought in the Freikorps Oberland in Oberschlesien . Rauter first met Adolf Hitler in 1929 and joined the National Socialist cause in Austria . His forays in Austria forced him to flee to Germany in 1933 , where he became part of the NSDAP department for Austria . He joined the SA , and was active in planning illegal NSDAP activities in Austria . In 1935 he left the SA to become a member of the SS . Until 1940 he was the Leader of the SS Southeast department in Breslau . Actions in the occupied Netherlands . In May 1940 he was appointed " Generalkommissar für das Sicherheitswesen " ( State secretary for of security forces ) and " Höherer SS - und Polizeiführer " ( Highest SS and Police leader ) for the occupied Netherlands . In his position as police commander and highest ranking SS leader in the Netherlands , Rauter was responsible for the deportation of 110 , 000 Dutch Jews to the Nazi concentration camp s ( 6 , 000 survived ) and the repression of the Dutch resistance . He had 300 , 000 Dutchmen deported to Germany for forced labour . His first victims to die were those killed during the armed break up of the February strike on February 26 , 1941 , accounting for 9 dead that day : he also immediately declared a state of emergency and ordered summary execution s . He was the chief promoter of terror through summary arrests and internment in the Netherlands . The SS set up a concentration camp named Herzogenbusch after the city of ' s - Hertogenbosch , but located in the neighboring town of Vught that gave the camp its name : Kamp Vught . In total this camp detained 31 , 000 people , of whom some 735 were killed . Also , his SS manned a so - called " polizeilches Durchgangslager " or police transit camp near Amersfoort , known as Kamp Amersfoort , in fact also a concentration camp , where some 35 , 000 people were detained and maltreated and 650 people ( Dutch and Russian ) died . Rauter ' s SS also managed the Kamp Westerbork ( " polizeiliches durchganslager Westerbork " ) , the place from which some 110 , 000 Dutch Jews were deported to Nazi concentration and extermination camps , mainly Auschwitz and Sobibor . Under Rauter ' s guidance , a special block was built for ' political prisoners ' ( i . e . resistance workers ) in the Scheveningen prison . These were often held in indefinite detention . In total 28 , 000 people were detained here over 4 years ; many were severely mistreated , some were tried and 738 men and 21 women died here or on the nearby execution field , the Waalsdorpervlakte ( now a national place of remembrance ) . Rauter also instigated a system of retaliation for assaults on Nazi officials and their Dutch collaborators : one killed Nazi equalled ten Dutch victims , one killed Dutch collaborator equalled three Dutch victims . During 1944 these numbers sharply increased with the rise of resistance violence During the Allied assault on Arnhem in Operation Market Garden , Rauter took the active field command of the " Kampfgruppe Rauter " during operations in the Veluwe area and near the bridges over the IJssel river . " Kampfgruppe Rauter " consisted of the Landstorm Nederland , " Wachbataillon Nordwest " and a regiment of the " Ordnungspolizei " . After the assault on Arnhem had been fought off by the Germans , Rauter was given the command of the Maas front as a General in the Waffen - SS . In the night of 7 to 8 March 1945 he was severely wounded by an attack staged by the Dutch resistance at " Woeste Hoeve " on the Veluwe , a little village between Arnhem and Apeldoorn . As a reprisal the Germans executed 117 political prisoners at the location of the attack as well as 50 prisoners in Kamp Amersfoort and 40 prisoners each in The Hague and Rotterdam . This attack had not been planned ; the resistance merely wanted to hijack a truck and use it to drive to a farmer who had butchered cows for the German army . Instead of the truck , Rauter ' s BMW motorcar was stopped by members of the resistance dressed in German uniform s . However , Rauter had just two weeks earlier issued a directive stating that German patrols should not stop any German military vehicles outside towns or villages , and a firefight broke out . His fellow passengers were all killed , but Rauter feigned death and survived . He was found by a German military patrol and transferred to a hospital where he remained until his arrest by British Military Police after the end of hostilities . After the war . Rauter was handed over to the Dutch government by the British and was tried by a special court in The Hague . Rauter denied committing war crimes but the court found him guilty and sentenced him to death . A film record was made of the trial . The death sentence was confirmed by a higher court on 12 January 1949 and he was executed by firing squad near Scheveningen on 24 March 1949 . The location of his grave remains a state secret .