Franz Six

Franz Six completed his classical high school in 1930, and proceeded to the University of Heidelberg to study journalism, sociology and politics. His late graduation was due to the fact he had to drop out of school from time to time to earn the money needed to graduate.^[2] He graduated with a degree of doctor in philosophy in 1934. In 1936, Six earned the high degree of doctor, and became a professor of journalism at the University of Königsberg where he also took up the position of press director for the German Student's Association.^[3] By 1939, he had become chair for Foreign Political Science at the university of Berlin and was its first dean of the faculty for foreign countries.

In 1930, Six joined the Nazi Party as member number 245,670. In 1932 he became a member and student organizer for the Sturmabteilung – or SA (Storm Troopers). In 1935 Six joined the SS (membership number 107,480) as an officer of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the intelligence agency of both the SS and Nazi Party.^[4] Impressed by his academic achievements and curriculum vitae, Reinhard Heydrich appointed Six head of Amt VII, Written Records of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), which dealt mainly with ideological issues and publications. Six's responsibilities included the creation of antisemitic, anti-Masonic^{[dubious – discuss]} propaganda, the sounding of public opinion, and the monitoring of Nazi indoctrination of the public. He held this post until 1943 when he was succeeded by Paul Dittel.^{[5][full citation needed]}

On 17 September 1940, the same day on which Hitler indefinitely postponed the idea of an invasion of Great Britain, Heydrich charged Six to form death squads to eliminate anti-Nazi elements in Britain following a successful invasion by the Wehrmacht. Six was slated to become the SD-Commander in the country, with his headquarters to be located in London, and with regional task forces in Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, and Edinburgh.^[6] His immediate mission would have been to hunt down and arrest some 2,820 people listed in the Sonderfahndungsliste G.B. ('Special Search List Great Britain'). This document, which post-war became known as "The Black Book", was a secret list previously compiled by Walter Schellenberg, Chief of RSHA Amt VI, Ausland-SD, that made up the foreign intelligence branch of the SD. The list contained the names of prominent British residents to be arrested immediately after a successful invasion.^[1] The list included British politicians and celebrities, such as Winston Churchill and other members of the Cabinet, Noël Coward, Sigmund Freud (even though he had died in September 1939), the philosopher Bertrand Russell, members of exiled governments, financiers such as Bernard Baruch, and many others deemed anti-Nazi. A separate list named organizations which would have to be dismantled as well, namely the Freemasons, the Jehovah's Witnesses and even the Boy Scouts. Six would also have been responsible for handling the population of 300,000 British Jews.^[1]