Gerhard Flesch

Gerhard Friedrich Ernst Flesch (8 October 1909 – 28 February 1948) was a German Nazi executed for war crimes, specifically the torture and murder of members of the Norwegian resistance movement.

He was an Oberregierungsrat and held the rank of SS-Obersturmbannführer (Lieutenant Colonel). He was born in Posen, Province of Posen, German Empire. He became a member of NSDAP in 1933. In 1934, he took his degree in law and in 1936 was appointed by Reinhard Heydrich to the Gestapo where he was appointed to controlling the religious sects of Germany. In 1938, he took part in the German march into the Sudetenland, and in 1939, in the annexation of Bohemia and Moravia, and was later appointed political adviser to Gauleiter Fritz Sauckel in Thuringia. After the outbreak of the war in September, 1939, he became leader of an Einsatzkommando in Poznań (German: Posen). In 1940, he joined the 3rd SS Division Totenkopf in their march into France.