Walter Huppenkothen (31 December 1907 in Haan, Rhineland – 5 April 1978 in Lübeck) was a German lawyer, Sicherheitsdienst (SD) leader, and Schutzstaffel (SS) prosecutor in the Hauptamt SS-Gericht. Huppenkothen attended school in Opladen and studied Law and Political Science at the University of Cologne and University of Düsseldorf and then qualified as a lawyer. On 1 May 1933, he joined the Nazi Party and the Allgemeine SS. Unable to find employment in government service he joined the SD (the intelligence service of the SS) in Düsseldorf. He also served for a brief time as head of State Police and as an SD Chief in the East Prussian-town of Tilsit (now Sovetsk, Russia), and was replaced in both positions by fellow Gestapo member Dr. Heinz Gräfe in October and November of 1937. World War II Role in the Holocaust Following the German invasion of Poland, Huppenkothen was involved in the Holocaust in various areas of occupied Poland (part of the Nazi-controlled General Government). He worked as a liaison with the SD's Einsatzgruppen during his time as part of the Gestapo, as well as an SD Chief in Kraków and as head of the Gestapo in Lublin in February 1940 . In July 1941, he was appointed to the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) in Berlin with the rank of Sturmbannführer (Major) in charge of a Gestapo unit dealing with political enemies of the Reich as the successor to Walter Schellenberg. Prosecutions As an SS Standartenführer (Colonel) he was appointed the prosecutor of the SS and police court in Munich. On 6 April 1945, he prosecuted Hans von Dohnanyi in Sachsenhausen concentration camp while the defendant lay semi-conscious on a stretcher having contracted a serious infection and the proceedings ended with him being condemned to death by Sturmbannführer Otto Thorbeck. On 8 April 1945, under orders from Ernst Kaltenbrunner, he was the prosecutor at a drumhead court-martial presided over by Otto Thorbeck without witnesses, records of proceedings or a defence in Flossenbürg concentration camp. Among the condemned were Lutheran clergyman Dietrich Bonhoeffer, General Hans Oster, Army Chief Judge Dr. Karl Sack, Captain Ludwig Gehre and former head of the Abwehr Admiral Wilhelm Canaris. The prisoners were accused of making an assassination attempt by bombing on Adolf Hitler at his headquarters of Wolf's Lair, which killed four and wounded Hitler himself. The court's prosecution employed torture methods such as thumb screwing and