English source-aligned edition
Peter Leideritz
Peter Leideritz served as head of the Security Police and SD field office in Kołomyja. The profile reconstructs the person’s function in Kołomyja, Horodenka, Szeparowce and the Galicia District through documented office, decisions, supervision or operational conduct. It does not assign every crime committed by an institution or region to one individual.
Confirmed findings
- A current IPN study based on Polish and German records establishes Leideritz's date of birth as 5 January 1911 and confirms that from September 1941 he headed the KdS Lwów field office in Kołomyja.
- IPN research and Yad Vashem's encyclopedia of ghettos attribute to the office he headed the organisation of the mass execution in the forest near Szeparowce on 12 October 1941; a current study states that the operation was carried out on his orders.
- Sources document Leideritz's participation in his office's operations in Horodenka in December 1941 and in selections and deportations of Jews from Kołomyja county to Bełżec in 1942. Not every act by members of the mobile group is presented as an act he personally committed.
- The Regional Court in Warsaw found him guilty on 17 November 1947 of both offences charged—participation in mass murders of civilians and membership in the Gestapo—and sentenced him to death; the judgment was carried out on 22 February 1949.
Place in the chain of responsibility
Leideritz shows how a small KdS field office could combine police intelligence, mobile execution groups, administration of a ghetto and deportations to an extermination camp. The profile grounds responsibility in his leadership of the office, specific operations and the judgment, while keeping accounts of personal shootings within the limits of what the files actually established.
Key events and mechanisms
- taking charge of the Security Police and SD field office in Kołomyja in September 1941
- the mass execution near Szeparowce on 12 October 1941
- the field office's operation in Horodenka on 4–5 December 1941
- selections and deportations from Kołomyja and the surrounding area to Bełżec in 1942
- the Warsaw trial on 17 November 1947 and execution of the judgment on 22 February 1949
The circle records authority, function and agency. Several profiles may describe different parts of the same persecution chain, so profile-level totals must not be added together.
Postwar accountability
The Americans detained him on 7 August 1946 under the name Peter Lewald and extradited him to Poland in December. The Regional Court in Warsaw sentenced him to death on 17 November 1947; after appeals were rejected and clemency denied, the judgment was carried out on 22 February 1949.
Limits of the evidence
The Polish judgment encompassed broadly phrased participation in mass murders and membership in the Gestapo; it did not determine separately every episode described by witnesses. Older compilations incorrectly give 1947 as the year of his death—the execution records used by the IPN confirm 22 February 1949. Estimates of the number of victims of individual operations are not used to determine the circle of responsibility.
Sources
The source set combines institutional, archival, trial or scholarly material from at least two independent publishers.