Hans Helm

Hans Helm 

The Bavarian Hans Helm began his police career in Munich. Born in 1909 in a poor family, and has not completed the study of philosophy, and instead he got a job at the Munich police. He proved to be"an eager, disciplined and capable office" and promoted as a forensic officer. As of 1937 he started working for the Gestapo. Among other activities within the scope of work of the Gestapo, Helm supervised and processed Ustasha intelligence exiles in Germany. At the same time he maintained official contacts with the Yugoslav police, who searched for the Ustashe as members of a terrorist organization. In Berlin, in 1937 within the framework of cooperation with the Yugoslav police, he met with the Belgrade police officials Milan Acimovic and Dragomir Jovanovic. At the end of the same year he arrives to Belgrade and in January next year is officially appointed as a delegate at the German police mission in the capital of Yugoslavia. This was the beginning Helm's action in Belgrade, which lasted until the end of the 1941. In March and early April 1941 Helm was in Germany from where he arrived to Belgrade on 15 April as head of Department IV/ the Gestapo. Among his first actions upon his return to Belgrade, was the taking of measures against the Jews (the decision from 16 April about listing Jews). As head of the Gestapo, Helm was responsible for"solving of the Jewish questio" in Serbia. In January 1942 he was appointed police attaché at the German Embassy in Zagreb. After the war, Hans Helm was included in the"Police group of war criminal", delivered to anti-fascist Yugoslavia and subjected to investigation and trial in Belgrade during the 1946. He was sentenced to death on 22 December 1946.