The German invasion of Poland took place in September 1939, and in October Koppe became the SS and Police Leader in Reichsgau Wartheland under the command of GauleiterArthur Greiser. However, because of the confusing power struggle – with Hitler dividing and ruling via his constantly changing favourites – Koppe had the same power and responsibilities as Greiser. He had a good working relationship with Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler.[1] He had a daughter, Ursula, who married an aristocrat Arnold Freiherr von Rotberg, a lieutenant colonel in the German armed forces and descendant of Bavarian war minister Eduard Anton Freiherr von Rotberg.[2]
The newly appointed police commander was an active participant in the implementation of Nazi racial ideals, and in November 1939 he declared that he would make Poznań (Posen) 'free from Jews' (judenrein), after which he ordered numerous executions and deportations of Poles and Polish Jews. He participated in the Nazi's euthanasia program as the overall commander of 'Special Detachment (Sonderkommando) Lange', an SS squad which gassed 1,558 patients from mental asylums at the Soldau concentration camp in the nearby Gau of East Prussia during May and June 1940.[4][5]
The Polish Secret State ordered his death. An attempted assassination resulted in his being wounded by the Kedyw unit – Battatlion Parasol in "Operation Koppe" ("Akcja Koppe") part of "Operation Heads" on 11 July 1944 in Kraków.[6] With the Eastern Front approaching Poland, Koppe ordered all prisoners to be executed rather than freed by the Soviets.
In 1945 Koppe went underground and assumed an alias (Lohmann, his wife's surname) and became a director of a chocolate factory in Bonn, Germany.[7] In 1960 he was arrested but released on bail on 19 April 1962. His trial opened in 1964 in Bonn. He was accused of being an accessory to the mass murder of 145,000 people. The trial was adjourned due to Koppe's purported ill health and in 1966 the Bonn court decided not to prosecute and Koppe was released for medical reasons.[8] The German government refused a Polish request for extradition.[9] Koppe died in 1975, aged 79, in Bonn.
^Dick de Mildt, In the Name of the People: Perpetrators of Genocide..., p. 381
^Martin Winstone (30 October 2014). The Dark Heart of Hitler's Europe: Nazi Rule in Poland Under the General Government. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 241. ISBN978-0-85772-519-6.
Datner, Szymon, Wilhelm Koppe - nieukarany zbrodniarz hitlerowski. Warszawa-Poznań, 1963
de Mildt, Dick; de Mildt, Dirk Welmoed (1996). In the Name of the People: Perpetrators of Genocide...]. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. ISBN90-411-0185-3. Google Books link.
Kania, Stanisław, Zbrodnie hitlerowskie w Polsce. Główna Komisja Badania Zbrodni Hitlerowskich w Polsce, Warszawa, 1983