Franz Karmasin

During World War II he was state secretary of German affairs in the Slovak Republic, and rose to the rank of SS-Sturmbannführer.

Karmasin was born on 2 September 1901 in Olomouc, a city formerly inhabited mostly by Germans, which only acquired a Czech majority after the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918.

[2] And with the merger of SdP and KdP in November 1935, Karmasin was named as Konrad Henlein's deputy for Slovakia and Ruthenia.

In Slovakia the German Party (DP) was founded as a successor organization on 8 October 1938, under Karmasin's leadership.

[6] After World War II broke out and the Slovak Republic was formed, he was appointed state secretary for German affairs.

[1] In 1939 he spoke out against the Jews, arguing that one could not wait for the state to solve the problem of the anti-German enemies but that the people should take measures themselves.

Karmasin is thought to have contributed to the deportation of Jews and to the "purification" of the German population, cleansing (in his words) it from "racially inferior and anti-social elements".