Dollmann, Eugen

SS-Standartenführer Dr. Eugen Dollmann

Himmler's representative in Italy and police attaché in Rome


Date: 21.08.1900
From.


He was born on August 21, 1900, in Reich, Germany, where he graduated from the Gymnasium. He then studied art history and succeeded in obtaining a doctorate. In the 1920s he stayed practically constantly in Italy for archaeological excavations, learning perfect Italian in the meantime. In the mid-1930s, he was offered the cooperation of the NSDAP, which he joined with serial number 3403541, also joining the SS, with serial number 289259. Due to his knowledge of the Italian environment, he was appointed police attaché and deputy to the Reichsführer of the SS at the German embassy in Rome in 1938. From 1944 to April 1945, he was Deputy Supreme Commander of the SS and Police in Italy and Deputy Supreme Commander of Army Group South. He was promoted to the rank of SS Standardführer on 9 November 1943. He was also awarded the War Cross for Merit 2nd Class with swords. He also served as an interpreter for the leaders of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy throughout his career, including Himmler and Hitler.
Dr. Eugen Dollmann was a fair-haired, kind, elegant, slender and tall man who always looked ten years younger than he really was. He was a connoisseur of Italian art, culture, architecture and above all, a language he spoke with complete fluency. Whenever he could, he would swap his SS uniform for designer, tailored suits and drive his luxury Mercedes around Rome. He charmed more than one young lady from wealthy Italian aristocratic families with his worldly verses, as well as his inexhaustible clear and witty conversations. Hitler and Himmler had a very high opinion of him, and he was one of Eva Braun's many friends.
Like many other educated and intelligent members of the SD, Dollmann was sober about the ideology and politics of Nazism. When Hitler was visited on 20 July 1944 by the by-then deposed dictator Benito Mussolini, he made the following note of their conversation in his diary: "The Führer was constantly going into fits of rage and shouting, foaming at the mouth, that he would take revenge on the assassins and their families, that Providence alone had saved him. He screamed about the absolutely uncompromising application of the principle of "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" and that he would wipe out anyone who resisted him." Before that, he had unsuccessfully intervened with Hitler and Himmler in an attempt to prevent the Ardean Caves massacre of late March 1944. In retaliation for a bomb attack by Italian partisans on a Waffen-SS detachment that killed 33 soldiers, 335 Italians were executed in the catacombs of ancient Rome. However, he had a more successful influence, along with the supreme commander of the SS and police in Italy and SS Oberruppenführer Karl Wolff, in the 1945 armistice negotiations with the Americans during Operation Sunrise. This armistice took place on May 2, 1945.
He then surrendered to the American army and after his release from captivity lived in Munich as a freelance writer, where he published his memoirs in a book entitled Roma Nazi. He also cooperated with American intelligence in the search for Nazi war criminals.

Reichsführer Himmler, SS leader and head of the German police, with his deputy in Italy. The image is from 1938.



German-Italian party in 1938. Himmler in conversation with a representative of Fascist Italy. He is translated by his representative in Rome, Dr. Eugen Dollmann.



Source: www.axishistory.com

(edited by buko1 01/09/2007)