Albert Hartl

Albert Hartl (1904–1982) was a former Catholic priest in Germany who joined the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazi Party) in 1933 and the Sicherheitsdienst (SD, an intelligence agency) the following year.^[1]

Albert Hartl at the Nuremberg trials, 1945–1946

Early life and education

Hartl studied for the priesthood from 1916 to 1929 at a seminary in Freising and the University of Munich. He was ordained in 1929 by the Archbishop of Munich Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber and began teaching, including at the Freising seminary.^[2]

Career with SD

While teaching at Friesing, Hartl became involved with a group of priests who had joined the Nazi Party, and in 1933 he signed up as a paid SD informant. He reported Father Josef Rossberger, apparently his best friend, for anti-Nazi activity, which led to Rossberger's trial and imprisonment, and Hartl becoming a protégé of Reinhard Heydrich, head of the SD. Consequently Hartl renounced the priesthood and joined the SD himself.^[2][3] In 1935, according to Gitta Sereny, he became the SD's Chief of Church Information, ^[4] and was tasked with the collection of information about party members that had close association with the church and collecting information from them.^[5] In March 1941, when the Reich Security Head Office was reorganized, he was placed in charge of a Gestapo office known as IV B ("Sects"). Department IV B4, led by Adolf Eichmann, was the office responsible for the deportation of Jews outside Poland.^[6]