He personally directed the slaughter of between 55,000 and 65,000 Jews of Lemberg between 1941 and 1942, followed by mass deportations to death camps including Janowska (pictured).

[2] Born in Langendreer, the sixth son of a coal miner, Katzmann worked as a carpenter before he lost his job and joined the SA, the Nazi paramilitary organization, in December 1927.

Assigned first to the SS formation in Duisburg until August 1931, he led units of the 25th SS-Standarte "Ruhr," based in Essen until January 1934.

[1] On 21 March 1938, he was named commander of SS-Abschnitt (District) VI in Breslau (today, Wrocław) overseeing three SS-Standarten.

[8] In October 1941, he ordered Jews to work on building Durchgangsstrasse IV, a major military road from Lemberg to Stalino (today, Donetsk).

Katzmann was promoted to SS-Gruppenführer and Generalleutnant of Police on 30 January 1943 and by midyear had produced a death toll of 143,000 more people in his district.

[12] On 1 July 1944, Katzmann was made a Generalleutnant of the Waffen-SS and tasked with the final liquidation of the Stutthof camp with all of its sub-camps, ahead of the Red Army advance.

Until that point, Stutthof prisoners were considered important for German armaments production with Focke-Wulf workshop churning out airplane parts right at the main camp.