Jürgen Stroop

Stroop volunteered to fight on the eastern front when Germany attacked the Soviet Union. However, he was wounded soon after and forced to focus his efforts on police work in the occupied territories. More specifically, he concentrated his efforts on persecution and harassment. Stroop gained control of the Warsaw Ghetto after it was decided that the local police commander was not up for the task of its liquidation. In this position, Stroop was in charge of the 2,000 troops that took part in what he called the "Great Operation" of taking out the Jewish resistance. Stroop considered his mission a sucess, writing in his final report "The Great Operation terminated on May 16, 1943, at 8: 15 pm, with the blowing up of the Warsaw synagogue. There is no longer any activity in the former Jewish residential quarter." However, after the war he was arrested and charged with war crimes. He was eventually sentenced to death and killed in Warsaw.