Nazi Beginnings
Rademacher was born on February 20, 1906 in Neustrelitz, Mecklenburg-Strelitz. His father was a railway engineer. He studied law in Rostock and Munich, and entered the profession as a jurist in April 1932. He held membership in the Sturmabteilung (Nazi stormtroopers) between 1932 and 1934. In 1933, he joined the Nazi party. He was a vocal anti-semite.
From 1937, he was a diplomat with the German Foreign Office, serving at the German embassy in Montevideo, Uruguay until May, 1940. In 1940, he was selected to lead Referat D III, or Judenreferat, of Ribbentrop's Foreign Affairs Ministry. His direct superior was Nazi diplomat Martin Luther. It was during his tenure in this office, throughout the spring and summer of 1940, that Rademacher kick-started the Madagascar Plan, which sought to forcibly deport all of Europe's Jews to the island of Madagascar. He jousted briefly with Adolf Eichmann over organizational control of the plan, which would shortly be abandoned amidst Germany's changing fortunes in World War II.
In October 1941, he was responsible for mass deportations and executions of Serbian Jews. He also had a hand in the deportation of Jews from France, Belgium, and the Netherlands.
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