(1913--1945), SS officer who helped organize the deportation of Jews from Nazi-occupied Europe.
Abtransport jüdischer Männer ins Internierungslager der französischen Üplizei, Gare d'Austeritz, Paris, 15. Mai 1941, li. Theodor Dannecker, "Judenreferent" des Reichssischerungshauptamtes
Born in Tubingen, Dannecker was trained as a lawyer. In 1937 he joined the staff of SS officer Adolf Eichmann, who ran the Jewish affairs department of the Reich Security Main Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt, RSHA). In 1940 Dannecker was sent to Paris as Eichmann's representative advisor on Jewish affairs. In this position, he oversaw the amassing of names of French Jews who were then arrested in May and August 1941. In 1942 Dannecker came up with a set of regulations regarding the deportation of both native-born French Jews and Jewish immigrants, referring to the latter as "stateless" Jews.
An extreme antisemite, Dannecker also strenuously encouraged the Vichy authorities to step up their deportation of Jews to the east. At the end of 1942 Eichmann called Dannecker back to the Berlin office as a punishment for Dannecker's abuses of power. He was quickly transferred to Bulgaria, where he arranged for the deportation of 11,000 Jews from Macedonia and Thrace. In October 1944 Dannecker was appointed by Eichmann as Jewish Commissioner in Italy. He stayed in Italy until the end of the war. In December 1945 Dannecker took his own life in an American prison camp. (For more on Vichy, see also France.)