Martin Sandberger
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Martin Sandberger (born 17 August 1911) was an SS Standartenführer and commander of Sonderkommando 1a of the Einsatzgruppe. As well as a commander of the Sicherheitspolizei and SD in Estonia, he played an important role in the mass murder of the Jews in the Baltic states. He was born in Berlin.
Martin Sandberger was born in Berlin Charlottenburg as a son of a director of I.G. Farben. Sandberger studied law at the Universities of München, Köln, Freiburg and Tübingen. At the age of 20 he joined the NSDAP and the SA. From 1932 - 1933 Sandberger was a Nazi student activist and student leader in Tübingen. He attained a doctorate in November 1933, As a functionary of the nazi student league he eventually became a university inspector.
In 1936 he became an enlisted member of the SS and under the command of Gustav Adolf Scheel for the SD in Württemberg. Also within the SD he made a career and already became in 1938 an SS Sturmbannführer (major). On 13 October 1939 Himmler appointed Sandberger the boss of the immigrant central office northeast, whose task was among other things the evaluating resettlement of the newly conquered eastern territories. After beginning of the war against the Soviet Union Sandberger became a leader of Sonderkommando 1a of the Einsatzgruppen along with Franz Walter Stahlecker) carried out the systematic mass murders of Jews and others in the Baltic states. Sandberger showed particular eagerness; in its annual report from 1 July 1942 he announced 941 murdered Jews. His tasks were appreciated, and he was appointed on 3 December 1941 the commander of the SD in Estonia.
Sandberger was involved since March 1941 in the distribution of a business plan for the RSHA and a director of the curriculum organization of the schools, starting from January 1944 as directors/conductors of the department VI A (organization of the foreign intelligence service) in the office VI of the RSHA. Arrested after the war, he was condemned to death in the 1948 Einsatzgruppen Trial, but his sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment. Sandberger's father, retired I.G. Farben director of work, used his relations with Theodor Heuss who contacted the US Ambassador at that time James B. Conant with the request for pardon. Numerous pleas for leniency from influential individuals like the Minister of Justice Wolfgang Haußmann or the national bishop Martin Haug were made. Even the renowned lawyer and vice-president of the German federal daily Carlo Schmid worried about Sandberger's conditions in Landsberg prison. This commitment for Sandberger showed effect and in 1958 Sandberger was unconditionally freed after serving only part of the life sentence.
