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Paul Dittel (14 January 1907 in Mittweida, Saxony - 8 May 1982 in Mönchengladbach) was a German historian and Anglicist who was also an German: [[Obersturmbannführer]] in the German: [[Schutzstaffel]] (SS). He played a central role in the Nazi German policy of confiscating libraries and literary collections from occupied countries.
Within the SS, Dittel was affiliated with the German: [[Sicherheitsdienst]] (SD) intelligence service and he was chief of that body's museum, library and research department.[1] In late 1939 he was one of a number of Ahnenerbe members selected by Wolfram Sievers to travel to Poland in order to raid its museums and collections.[2]
In 1943, Dittel succeeded Franz Six as chief of the Reich Security Main Office (SS-Reichssicherheitshauptamt; RSHA) department, Amt VII, the "written records" section which had responsibility for ideological research.[3] In this role his activities soon came to focus on the topic of Freemasonry and he was involved in the looting of collections, devoted to this topic.[4] Dittel oversaw the publication of a number of anti-Masonic books from the collection of material that he had gathered as well as the establishment of a Masonic Library.[5] He was also responsible for the development of a special collection of books on occult topics such as theosophy and astrology, a project that had been devised by Ernst Kaltenbrunner and in which SS chief Heinrich Himmler took a keen interest.[6]
Dittel was imprisoned after World War II. Following his release in 1948, he moved to Mönchengladbach where he was employed as a clerk until at least 1973.[4]
Dittel was one of a number of residents of 72, German: Pfalzburger Strasse|italic=no in German: [[Wilmersdorf]]|italic=no, Berlin—where his neighbours included a Jewish family and a man from Togo— featured in the fifth series of the BBC Television history series, A House Through Time.[7]