He was a Nazi criminal responsible for mass murders of the civilian population of Bromberg/Bydgoszcz in Poland at the outset of the Second World War, and later for crimes against humanity in the Hol­o­caust in the Soviet Union.

[5] His military career under the German Empire and the Weimar Republic bears the unmistakable hallmarks of patronage commonly accorded at the time to people of high birth.

On 17 January 1917 he was decorated with the Royal Prussian Hohenzollern House Order (Knight's Cross with Swords) for military exploits that remain a complete mystery.

Next, over the period of 3 years and 4 months from October 1923 to Feb­ru­a­ry 1927, Braemer served on the General Staff of the 6th Division at Münster in Westphalia: here he saw another ad­vance­ment in rank to Oberst­leutnant (lieu­ten­ant colonel) on 1 April 1926.

(Preu­ßi­sches) Rei­ter-Re­gi­ment) headquartered in the northern town of Pasewalk, about 40 km west of Stettin (now Szczecin) in Western Pomerania — a post in which he spent 3 years and 11 months (his longest tour of duty ever).

[15] Two years and eight months after Hitler's rise to power and nearly three years after his leave-taking of the army, on 1 October 1935, Braemer — then aged 52 — joined the SS with the rank of Standartenführer (regiment leader),[16] and in this rank was posted as a "training consultant" to the General Staff of the SS circuit or Ober­abschnitt known as command Nord (not an army post), where he stayed until 15 April 1936, to be transferred to the Ober­abschnitt Nord­west for one month, before being moved again to the Ober­abschnitt Nord­see, where he stay­ed until 1 July 1938.

[16] At this time Braemer involved himself with Himmler's Lebens­born So­ci­e­ty, an or­gan­i­za­tion whose purpose was to devise ways and means of en­gi­neer­ing the genetic makeup of the German nation by promoting Nazi eugenics and "breeding" pure "Aryans".

At the time of mobilization mounted in preparation for the Nazi attack on Poland Braemer was appointed as the Commander of the 580th Army Rear Area, a position abbreviated to "Korück 580".

Within just four days of Braemer's beginning to exercise his "executive authority" he be­came personally re­spon­si­ble for the murder of 370 Polish civilians in Bydgoszcz in the large-scale pacification operations he ordered (the so-called säu­be­rungs­ak­ti­on­en or "cleanup op­e­ra­tions").

[43] While carrying out his actions against the townsfolk of Bydgoszcz, in reprisal for the stiff resistance that the civilian population put up against the German invaders after the Polish armed forces withdrew from the city on 4 September 1939, Braemer instituted at the same time ethnic cleansing policies against the Jewish minority of the town (which numbered about 2,000 before the War), being able as a result to report on 14 November 1939, in the 11th week of the war, that "the Jewish question does not arise in Bydgoszcz... because during the säu­be­rungs­ak­ti­on­en all the Jews who did not deem it advisable to flee from the city beforehand were eliminated".

Historians (such as Stani­sław Na­wro­cki) have merely noted that he did not play any role in the occupation of the historical region of Greater Poland (Wielko­pol­ska), i.e. of the lands to the west of Cuyavia where Bydgoszcz is located, thereby suggesting that his activities were of interest to researchers in other areas.

After his appointment as Ko­rück 580 came to an end on 19 May 1941, Braemer spent 35 days, until 24 June 1941, officially mothballed in the füh­rer­re­ser­ve or officers' reserve pool within the German Army High Command (Oberkommando des Heeres) as his new assignment was being prepared for him.

Two days after the commencement of the Operation Barbarossa (the German attack on the Soviet Union), Braemer was appointed the Wehr­macht­befehls­haber or supreme military commander of the so­-call­ed Reichskommissariat Ostland, a Nazi régime established in the combined occupied territory of the Baltic states, parts of north­eastern Poland and western Byelo­russia, head­quarter­ed in Riga, the capital of Latvia (again in the general region of his birth, 380 km to the north­-east of his native Königs­berg).

Thus for example, on 25 Sep­tem­ber 1941 Braemer issued his "Guidelines for Military Security and Maintenance of Quiet and Order" which specifically stipulated the "imperative elim­i­na­tion" of, among others, "Jews and philo­se­mit­ic elements (ju­den­freund­liche Kreise)".

After his retirement on 20 April 1944 from the position of Wehrmachtbefehlshaber in the Ostland — an office to which Braemer was first appointed on 24 June 1941 but which from 30 January 1942 onwards he had been holding concurrently with his (second) SS posting on the command of Ober­abschnitt Nord­see, an SS beat headquartered at Altona near Hamburg — he continued on active duty in the latter (non-army) post for 6 months and 3 weeks longer, until 9 November 1944, even while being rusticated by the army to the Führerreserve or officers' reserve pool within the German Army High Command (Oberkommando des Heeres) with effect from 20 April 1944.

After nearly nine months in reserve, on 17 January 1945 Braemer was suddenly recalled by the Wehrmacht to active duty as a so-called "general on special assignment" (General zur besonderen Ver­wen­dung) and in that capacity posted to the Military District Command I at Königs­berg, his native place (Wehr­kreis I (Königs­berg); 17–22 January 1945), only to shift after just five days — doubtless in connection with the tightening vice grip by the Soviet forces investing the city — to the Military District Com­mand II at Stettin in Western Pom­er­a­nia (Wehrkreis II (Stettin)), some 480 kilometres (overland) away from Königsberg and its Eastern front, where he spent the following 19 days in a similar capacity (as a "general on special assignment") between 22 January and 10 February 1945.

[11] There he was apparently set free some­time later that October without extenuating cir­cum­stances (like ill health: the precise circumstances and date of release are not known), having spent less than 2+1⁄2 years in prisoner-of-war camps but without having been brought to trial for war crimes.

[11] This outcome was ap­par­ent­ly brought about by the deliberate shielding of Braemer by British authorities wilfully refusing to take cognizance of his past as a war criminal.