Banco de dados da Segunda Guerra Mundial (WW2DB)

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseGünther Altenburg was a German diplomat who had served in Rome, Italy; Vienna, Austria; and Bucharest, Romania before the war. He was recalled to Germany after the failed July Putsch in Austria, possibly because of his connections with the conspirators. He joined the Nazi Party in 1935 and remained in the foreign ministry through the start of the European War. After serving very briefly in Serbia, Yugoslavia, he was made the Reich Plenipotentiary for Greece, responsible for overseeing the puppet government alongside with his Italian counterpart Pellegrino Ghigi. He was in this position between Apr 1941 and Nov 1943 and bore some responsibility for the deportation of the Jewish population of Thessaloniki, Greece in the spring of 1943.

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Günther Altenburg Timeline