{{Short description|SS and Police Leader and SS-Sturmbannführer}} {{Infobox military person |name= Wilhelm Traub |birth_date= 2 April 1910 |death_date= 18 February 1946 (age 35) |birth_place= Buoch (today, Remshalden), Kingdom of Württemberg, German Empire |death_place= Vrbas, Yugoslavia |image= |caption= |birth_name= |nickname= |allegiance=<br />{{flag|Nazi Germany}} |service_years= 1938–1945 |rank = SS-''Obersturmbannführer'' |branch= ''Schutzstaffel'' |commands= ''Gebietskommissar'', "Navahrudak"<br />SS and Police Leader, "Quarnero" |unit= |battles= World War II |awards= }}
'''Wilhelm Traub''' (2 April 1910 – 18 February 1946) was a German Nazi SS-''Obersturmbannführer'' who, during the Second World War, served as the occupation administrator of the Navahrudak (today, Novogrudok) area of the ''Generalbezirk Weißruthenien'', and as the SS and Police Leader of "Quarnero" (Kvarner Gulf) based in Fiume (today, Rijeka). After the war ended, he died in captivity in Yugoslavia in 1946.
== Life == Few details are known about Traub's early life. He attended university, joined the Nazi Party (membership number 4,355,116) and the SS (member number 290,239) and was commissioned an SS-''Untersturmführer'' in 1938. After the German invasion of the Soviet Union, now a member of the ''Sicherheitsdienst'' (SD) with the rank of SS-''Sturmbannführer'', he was made the ''Gebietskommissar'' (Area Commissioner) of the ''Kreisgebiet'' "Navahrudak", a subdivision of the ''Generalbezirk Weißruthenien''. He reported to the ''Generalkommissar,'' SS-''Gruppenführer'' Curt von Gottberg, whose headquarters were in Minsk.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kagan |first1=Jack |last2=Cohen |first2=Dov |title=Surviving the Holocaust with the Russian Jewish Partisans |date=1969 |publisher=Vallentine Mitchell |isbn=978-0-853-03336-3 |pages=196}}</ref>
Traub was charged with creating a local mounted anti-partisan unit under the direction of the SS that would be raised from among the local Belarusian collaborators. In early autumn 1943, Traub summoned Boris Ragula, his twenty-three-year-old Belarusian translator and liaison officer. Traub outlined a plan for organizing a cavalry unit of 150 men under Ragula’s command that would operate directly under the German authorities. Ragula would go on to help organize and lead the Belarusian Home Defence force in early 1944.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ragula |first1=Boris |title=Against the Current: The Memoirs of Boris Ragula, M.D. |date=2005 |publisher=McGill-Queen's University Press |location=Montreal |isbn=978-0-773-52964-9 |pages=74-75}}</ref> Following steady German reversals in Russia, Navahrudak fell to the Red Army on 8 July 1944.
Now an SS-''Obersturmbannführer'', Traub subsequently was transferred to northern Italy, reporting to the Higher SS and Police Leader (HSSPF) of the Operational Zone of the Adriatic Littoral, SS-''Gruppenführer'' Odilo Globočnik. There on 27 October 1944, Traub was made SS and ''Polizeigebietkommandeur'' (Police Area Commander) of "Quarnero," with his headquarters in Fiume.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Yerger |first1=Mark C. |title=Allgemeine-SS: The Commands, Units and Leaders of the General SS |date=1997 |publisher=Schiffer Publishing Ltd. |isbn=0-7643-0145-4 |pages=47, 79}}</ref> Here also, he mainly was engaged anti-partisan warfare against the Slovene partisans. Fiume fell to the partisans on 2 May 1945 and, after the end of the war in Europe, Traub was imprisoned in Yugoslavia and died in a prisoner of war camp in Vrbas in February 1946.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kagan |first1=Jack |last2=Cohen |first2=Dov |title=Surviving the Holocaust with the Russian Jewish Partisans |date=1969 |publisher=Vallentine Mitchell |isbn=978-0-853-03336-3 |pages=196}}</ref>
== References == {{reflist}}
== See also == * [https://www.yadvashem.org/yv/pdf-drupal/en/research/yv-studies/bauer.pdf Nowogródek – The Story of a Shtetl] in [https://www.yadvashem.org/ Yad Vashem]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Traub, Wilhelm}} Category:1910 births Category:1946 deaths Category:German people who died in prison custody Category:German prisoners of war in World War II Category:People from the Kingdom of Württemberg Category:People of Generalbezirk Weißruthenien Category:SS and police leaders Category:SS-Obersturmbannführer Category:Prisoners who died in Yugoslav detention Category:Nazis who died in prison custody