Martin Sandberger (17 August 1911 – 30 March 2010) was a German SS functionary during the Nazi era and a convicted Holocaust perpetrator.

He commanded Sonderkommando 1a of Einsatzgruppe A, as well as the Sicherheitspolizei and SD at the time of Nazi German occupation of Estonia during World War II.

[1] Martin Sandberger was born in Charlottenburg, Berlin as a son of a director of IG Farben.

On 8 March 1933 Sandberger and fellow student Erich Ehrlinger raised the Nazi flag in front of the main building at the University of Tübingen.

[2] During the first two weeks of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, which began on 22 June 1941, Sandberger traveled with Franz Walter Stahlecker, the commander of Einsatzgruppe A.

[1] Sandberger was involved since March 1941 in the distribution of a business plan for the RSHA and a director of the curriculum organization of the schools (Lehrplangestaltung der Schulen).

The Nazi organization most responsible for carrying out The Holocaust in the Baltic states was the Security Service (Sicherheitsdienst), generally referred to by its initials SD.

[1] Sandberger received his knowledge of the Führer order from Bruno Streckenbach, an official with Department IV of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA).

[1] Streckenbach also gave Sandberger explicit instructions in a personal conversation: Streckenbach personally informed me about the Führer order, which said that, in order to secure the Eastern territory permanently, all Jews, Gypsies, and communist functionaries were to be eliminated, together with all other elements who might endanger security.

These organizations then engaged in destruction of synagogues, the liquidation of 400 Jews, and the setting up of groups for the purpose of fomenting pogroms.

[1] A variety of shooting actions of Jews, Romani, Communists and the mentally-ill began once Sandberger and his kommando entered Estonia.

A report dated 15 October 1941 on executions in Ostland during Sandberger's tenure included one item under Estonia of 474 Jews and 684 Communists.

Jewesses in Pärnu and Tallinn of the age groups from 16 to 60 who are fit for work were arrested and put to peat-cutting or other labor.

17, dated 9 July 1941 carried the item — With the exception of one, all leading communist officials in Estonia have now been seized and rendered harmless.

S. belongs to the Officers of the Leadership Service and has fulfilled the requirements of the promotion regulations up to the minimum age set by the RF-SS (36 years).

Because of his political service and his efforts, which far exceed the average, the Chief of the Sipo and SD already supports his preferential promotion to SS Standartenfuehrer.

[2] In the fall of 1943, Sandberger was appointed the Gestapo chief for the Italian city of Verona.

VI (Ausland-SD, the foreign intelligence service); in this position he reported directly to Walter Schellenberg.

[9] With all the access he had had to highly secret information, after the war, under British interrogation, Sandberger tried to delay or avoid prosecution by disclosing what he knew.

[10] Until internal reports of the Einsatzgruppen were discovered, Sandberger was able to convince the British interpreters that his account of his activities in Tallinn as the Kommandeur der Sicherheitspolizei (or KdS) had involved "'no evidence of any particular criminal actions on his part.'"

At his trial, Sandberger denied responsibility for the killings described in the 15 October report and sought to blame the German field police and Estonian home guard.

This was rejected by the tribunal, which found that the Estonian home guard was under Sandberger's jurisdiction and control for specific operations, as shown by the same report.

[2] Sandberger testified that he had protested against the inhumanity of the Führer order, but his account was not accepted by the Nuremberg Military Tribunal which was conducting the trial: "Despite the defendant's protestations from the witness stand, it is evident from the documentary evidence and his own testimony, that he went along willingly with the execution of the Fuehrer Order.

[12]Despite political pressures, General Lucius D. Clay confirmed Sandberger's death sentence in 1949.

[10] In 1951, Sandberger's sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment by the "Peck Panel" clemency board acting under the authority of John J. McCloy, the U.S. High Commissioner for Germany.

[11] Sandberger's father, a retired production director of IG Farben, used his connections with West German president Theodor Heuss.

[14] Heuss in turn contacted the US Ambassador at that time James B. Conant with the request for pardon.

Numerous pleas for leniency from influential individuals including Minister of Justice Wolfgang Haußmann and Landesbischof (bishop) Martin Haug were made.

Sandberger was denied parole, but the board unanimously voted for his life sentence and that of the other three to be commuted to time served.

[15][16] Subsequently, through the mediation of Bernhard Müller, he received a position as legal counsel in the Lechler Group.