Jakob Sporrenberg

Jakob Sporrenberg (16 September 1902 – 6 December 1952) was a SS-Gruppenführer und Generalleutnant der Polizei in Minsk, Belarus and Lublin, Poland. After the war, Sporrenberg stood trial in Poland and was convicted in 1950 of war crimes and sentenced to death. He was executed in December 1952.

Biography
Jakob Sporrenberg was born on 16 September 1902 in Düsseldorf, Germany. Sporrenberg joined the NSDAP in 1925. In 1929 he was appointed an SA officer and one year later joined the SS, rising to the rank of SS-Brigadeführer by 1933. In January 1940, he was promoted to the rank of SS-Gruppenführer (Generalleutnant). From 1941 to 1943, he was SS and Police Leader (SSPF) in Minsk. In 1943 he was assigned to the staff of General Erich von dem Bach to combat partisans.

Sporrenberg subsequently succeeded Odilo Globocnik as SS and Police Leader of Lublin, in the Generalgouvernement of occupied Poland in August 1943. In this capacity, Sporrenberg organized the Operation "Harvest Festival" there.

In November 1944 Sporrenberg and several of his staff were redeployed to Norway. There Sporrenberg served as SS and Police Leader of Süd-Norwegen (South Norway). In May 1945, Sporrenberg and his staff were captured by British forces. Their interrogation shed much light on Globocnik's activities in Lublin. One outcome of his interrogation was the transfer of Sporrenberg from the PWIS Detachment (Norway) in Oslo to the MI19 interrogation centre in Kensington Palace Gardens, London, known as the "London Cage"; for further questioning by the War Crimes Interrogation Unit. This established his participation in a number of war crimes committed in Poland and the Soviet Union.

Postwar
Sporrenberg was extradited to Poland in October 1946, and sentenced to death by a Polish court in Warsaw in 1950, the sentence being carried out on 6 December 1952 when he was executed by hanging.

Sporrenberg has since been linked to the alleged German secret project Die Glocke (The Bell) by Polish writer Igor Witkowski, who claimed to have discovered the existence of Die Glocke from transcripts of an interrogation by Polish authorities of Sporrenberg. Witkowski claims to have gained access to read the transcripts through an unnamed contact in the Polish intelligence service. The interrogation and its contents have no primary documentation aside from Witkowski.