Franz Rademacher

(1906--1973), Nazi official. Rademacher joined the Nazi Party in March 1933. He was recruited to work in the Foreign Office in 1937, and served abroad for several years. In May 1940 Rademacher became the head of the Foreign Office's Jewish desk. Rademacher wanted to attain prominence in this post as the man who came up with a "final solution" to the Jewish question. One of the ideas he presented was the expulsion of European Jewry to the French island colony of Madagascar. High-ranking Nazis expressed their approval for this idea, so Rademacher set out to develop the madagascar plan, which was also being prepared by Adolf eichmann. However, the plan hit a dead end when the Germans failed to defeat the British in the Battle of Britain. Nonetheless, Rademacher did play a role in the Final Solution: he was in charge of making sure that there were no foreign policy issues that could delay or threaten the deportations of Jews to extermination camps, and he performed this task very well.

After the war, Rademacher was convicted of war crimes, but he jumped bail and escaped to Syria. He returned to Germany in 1966 and was once again tried and convicted before he died in 1973.