Hangmen at War – Chapter 7 – Concentration Camp Atrocities

Dachau Concentration Camp and Its Sub-Camps

Dachau concentration camp was the first concentration camp to be opened by the National Socialist (Nazi) government on 22 March 1933. It was situated northeast of the town of Dachau, some 10 miles north of Munich in Bavaria, on the grounds of an abandoned munitions factory. It was constructed on the orders of Heinrich Himmler initially to hold up to 5,000 political prisoners, especially German Communists and Social Democrats. Management of the camp was taken over by the SS on 11 April 1933.

A major enlargement programme commenced in 1937 using forced labour. This was completed by August 1938.

During World War II, Dachau was used to house prisoners from occupied countries, especially Poland, in 32 barracks, including one solely for clergy.

Over its 12-year existence as a concentration camp, 206,206 prisoners were sent to Dachau and 31,951 deaths were recorded there, with undoubtedly more unrecorded. Crematoria were constructed to dispose of the bodies. The crematorium area, adjacent to the main camp, also had a firing range and a gallows for executions.

During the spring of 1942, between 6,000 and 8,000 Russian prisoners were shot.

Various experiments were carried out on prisoners, including subjecting them to sudden changes in air pressure, immersion in cold water for long periods, forcing them to drink salt water over five days, and infecting prisoners with malaria. These inmates were used as guinea pigs for research intended to benefit German soldiers. The air pressure experiments studied the effects on airmen who had to bail out at high altitudes. The cold water and salt water experiments were for the benefit of airmen ditching in the sea. The malaria experiment was to help soldiers serving in the Africa Corps.

As of 22 April 1945, the camp held 65,613 prisoners, comprising 5,656 German nationals, 14,053 Poles, 1,862 Czechs, 12,363 Russians, 3,322 Italians, and 13,357 of various other nationalities, according to the witness statement of a Polish prisoner named Cieslik, who worked in the camp records office.

Kaufering Sub-Camps and Forced Labour Camps

Jules Jost, an inmate and priest from Luxembourg, registered almost 29,000 prisoners kept at the 14 Kaufering sub-camps, of which eleven were numbered Kaufering I to Kaufering XI. They were situated some three miles north of Landsberg am Lech up to 9 March 1945. Three huge subterranean bunkers were built here for the production of the Messerschmitt jet fighter Me 262, as their factories in Augsburg had been heavily bombed. This project was known as “Ringeltaube” (wood pigeon).

Only about 15,000 inmates survived to be liberated by the US army on 27 April 1945.

In addition, there were another 112 camps elsewhere, set up to provide forced labour for arms production.

On 24 April 1945, some 6,000 to 7,000 inmates were evacuated and forced on a “death march” to Eurasburg and on to Tegernsee. A mass grave containing 1,071 bodies was later discovered along the route. The survivors were liberated by US soldiers on 2 May 1945.

Liberation and Conditions Discovered by the US Army

Dachau was liberated by the US 7th Army on 29 April 1945. They found the main camp and its sub-camps were grossly overcrowded and the conditions horrific. They also discovered some 50 railway wagons containing piles of corpses.

Everything was inadequate, especially food, clothing, accommodation, and medical treatment for the inmates. US soldiers discovered huge numbers of malnourished and ill prisoners. Between 2 May and 6 June 1945, they treated some 10,500 inmates for malnutrition and illness. From 9 May to 9 June 1945, some 100 people a day were dying from typhoid, dysentery, and malnutrition. Altogether, around 15,000 people were killed by typhoid between December 1944 and April 1945.

War Crimes Trials at Dachau

By October 1945, the US authorities had set up a courtroom at Dachau to try war criminals under the authority of the Judge Advocate General’s Department of the US Third Army. Over nearly three years, this court held 489 separate trials.

1,416 defendants were convicted: 297 sentenced to death, 279 to life in prison, 840 receiving lesser prison terms, and 256 acquitted. All convicted were sent to Landsberg am Lech prison to serve their sentences. Forty men were hanged for crimes committed at Dachau and its sub-camps.

Charges and the First Trial

A generic charge typically read:

Defendants’ names, “acting in pursuance of a common design to commit acts hereinafter alleged, and as members of staff of Dachau Concentration Camp and camps subsidiary thereto did wilfully, deliberately and wrongly encourage, aid, abet and participate in the subjection of civilian nationals of nations then at war with the German Reich to cruelties and mistreatment, including killings, beatings, tortures, starvation, abuses and indignities, the exact names and numbers of such civilians being unknown but aggregating many thousands who were then and there in the custody of the German Reich in exercise of belligerent control”.

The exact details of the individual’s crime would then follow.

The first trial was of 42 members of the staff at Dachau, held from 15 November to 13 December 1945 (United States of America v. Martin Gottfried Weiss et al., case no. 000-50-02). The eight-man Military Tribunal was presided over by Brigadier General John Lenz. The chief prosecutor was Lt. Col. William Denson; the defense team was led by Lt. Col. Douglas Bates.

All defendants were found guilty on two separate charges of Violation of the Laws and Usages of War for deliberately maltreating, torturing, experimenting on, and killing prisoners of war. Thirty-eight were sentenced to death on 13 December 1945. After the review process, 28 death sentences remained to be executed at War Criminal Prison #1, Landsberg/Lech.

Execution Logistics and Personnel

Since the trial had been convened by the Provost Marshal Section Third Army, it was their task to execute the sentences. At that time, the Assistant Provost Marshal Third Army at Heidelberg was on temporary duty in the USA, and his locum tenens disliked the task. He argued that since Munich was much closer to Landsberg than Heidelberg, Lt. Colonel Fogarty, in charge of the Provost Marshal Section rear in Munich, should take over.

Fogarty, in turn, passed the responsibility to the most junior and recently arrived officer in his department: 2nd Lieutenant Stanley Tilles, 28 years old, married with a young son, a printer in civilian life, and a Jew.

Fogarty told Tilles that the hangman of the Third Army, M/Sgt John C. Woods, was already at Landsberg supervising the construction of a second gallows. To expedite the executions, the Army planned to perform them over two days, with seven men to be hanged each morning and afternoon. This plan required a second gallows and a second hangman.

Fogarty knew the name of the German executioner previously used by Colonel Beall and told Tilles to find him. A German secretary in Fogarty’s office knew the hangman and agreed to help Tilles find him, although she did not know his current location. After driving around Munich and its surroundings all day asking at previous addresses, they finally found him.

Tilles remembers him — Johann Reichhart — as “an older man with a sad face and a soft voice,” who offered him a chair and a thin slice of black bread while discussing arrangements.

Tilles then traveled to Landsberg and met Woods, who was stretching his ropes with a duffel bag filled with sand, showing Tilles around.

Landsberg Prison and Execution Process

Landsberg prison was built in the shape of a cross and surrounded by a wall. The courtyard where the two gallows stood was enclosed by two wings of the prison with a corridor between them, and the outer wall. The court was large, offering space for several shade trees and a greenhouse.

There was one entrance in the center of the corridor, with gallows erected to the right and left, directly adjacent to the walls of the prison blocks. The condemned would come out of the corridor entrance and be led to the gallows. At the foot of the gallows stairs, their hands would be pinioned; they would be led up the steps, turned to face the court, and positioned on the trap doors. Their legs would be strapped, and after formalities such as reading of charges and sentence, last words, and prayer, the hood and noose would be adjusted and the prisoner dropped into the space below, concealed by a black curtain.

While one prisoner was dying, the next would be led out to the other gallows. Once a prisoner was pronounced dead by doctors, he would be cut down, laid in a coffin, the lid nailed down, and the coffin removed for burial. A door in the prison wall led directly to the cemetery.

As ordered, Tilles made a tour of the death cells, reading the execution orders aloud in English, followed by a translation read by his interpreter.

The next day, Tilles said, “the German hangman and his assistants arrived, and he and Woods spent several hours testing the gallows.”

Executions on 28 May 1946

The 14 men hanged on Tuesday, 28 May 1946, in chronological order, were:

  • Friedrich Wilhelm Ruppert, SS-Obersturmführer (1LT), was in charge of executions at Dachau, including those of 90 Russian officers in September 1944. He also beat prisoners with a riding crop. Ruppert was implicated in the executions of four female SOE (Special Operations Executive) agents on 13 September 1944: Noor-un-Nisa Inayat Khan, Yolande Beekman, Eliane Plewman, and Madeleine Damerment, all of whom were shot at the crematorium at Dachau. Ruppert was the first to hang, certified dead at 09:54 hrs.
  • Simon Kiern, a block leader, was convicted of murdering a prisoner and participating in two mass executions in 1942, in which 50 Russian prisoners were shot. Kiern was certified dead at 10:13 hrs.
  • Otto Förschner, SS-Sturmbannführer (MAJ), was in charge of nine sub-camps around Landsberg, housing some 10,000 inmates whom he maltreated. Förschner was certified dead at 10:22 hrs.
  • Franz Xaver Trenkle, SS-Hauptscharführer (M/Sgt), took people to their executions at the crematorium and read the execution order to them. He denied involvement in the actual killings. He was certified dead at 10:44 hrs.
  • Rudolf Heinrich Suttrop, SS-Obersturmführer (1LT), was the adjutant to three of the camp’s commandants and, as such, processed execution orders. Suttrop was certified dead at 10:54 hrs.
  • Josef Jarolin, SS-Obersturmführer (1LT), was convicted of ordering hangings, beating prisoners including clergymen, and personally shooting three Russian prisoners. During an Allied air raid on Munich, he forbade prisoners to enter a bunker, resulting in a number of deaths. Jarolin was certified dead at 11:11 hrs.
  • Engelbert Valentin Niedermeyer, SS-Unterscharführer (Sgt), was the administrator of the cemetery at Dachau where hangings took place. He was also convicted of having flogged around a hundred prisoners. He was certified dead at 11:21 hrs.
  • Vincenz Schöttl, SS-Hauptsturmführer (CPT), was in charge of work details in the “Kaufering 3” sub-camp, where he regularly beat prisoners and shot at least one to death. He was certified dead at 13:27 hrs.
  • Dr. Karl Klaus Schilling operated a malaria research station in the camp. He was responsible for experimenting on some 1,200 prisoners with malaria drugs, having first infected them with the disease. Thirty prisoners died from malaria, and some 400 more died from complications and drug treatments. Schilling was certified dead at 13:37 hrs.
  • Josef Seuss, SS-Hauptscharführer (M/Sgt), participated in the murder of 35 Russian prisoners in August 1942 and the murders of a further 90 Russian officers in 1944. Seuss was certified dead at 13:54 hrs.
  • Walter Adolf Langleist, SS-Hauptsturmführer (CPT), was in charge of the guard battalion at Dachau. He murdered two Polish prisoners by beating them and throwing one into a gravel pit where he died. Certified dead at 14:07 hrs.
  • Anton Endres, SS-Oberscharführer (T/Sgt), worked in the camp hospital, where he allowed his subordinate, Kapo Heiden, to beat and murder prisoners. Endres was certified dead at 14:23 hrs.
  • Otto Möll, SS-Oberscharführer (T/Sgt), was in charge of a work detail at “Kaufering 1” sub-camp, which took men to work at the Moll Company. He beat a Russian prisoner to death and, at the end of 1945, shot to death 26 prisoners who were being evacuated from “Kaufering 2” sub-camp. Möll was certified dead at 14:36 hrs.
  • Johann Viktor Kirsch, SS-Oberscharführer (T/Sgt), was convicted of maltreating prisoners while commandant of “Kaufering 1” sub-camp between November 1944 and April 1945. Kirsch was certified dead at 14:47 hrs.

Executions on 29 May 1946

A further 14 men were hanged the following day, Wednesday, 29 May 1946:

  • Fritz Becher, a Kapo and “block eldest,” beat fellow inmates and took part in beating eight priests who subsequently died from their injuries. Becher was certified dead at 10:26 hrs.
  • Arno Lippmann, SS-Hauptsturmführer (CPT) and commandant at “Kaufering 7” sub-camp. He beat a Polish boy who was trying to help his father, and the boy later died. He also fired on a group of prisoners when the camp was being evacuated. Lippmann was certified dead at 10:31 hrs.
  • Wilhelm Tempel, SS-Unterscharführer (Sgt) at “Kaufering 4” sub-camp, murdered at least two inmates. Tempel was certified dead at 10:52 hrs.
  • Wilhelm Welter, SS-Oberscharführer (T/Sgt), was in charge of work details and often beat inmates. He also selected 12 prisoners for cold water experiments in 1942. He was certified dead at 11:06 hrs.
  • Michael Redwitz, SS-Hauptsturmführer (CPT), organised public floggings of prisoners on the parade ground. He was present at 40 hangings of Russian, Polish, and French prisoners. Redwitz was certified dead at 11:16 hrs.
  • Wilhelm Wagner, SS-Hauptscharführer (CPT), was in charge of the laundry from 1941 to 1943. He frequently beat prisoners and deprived them of food. One prisoner whom he had assaulted later died from his injuries. Wagner also participated in two hangings. He was certified dead at 11:35 hrs.
  • Martin Gottfried Weiß (Weiss), SS-Obersturmbannführer (Lt.-Col.) and camp commandant, was held responsible for the war crimes committed at Dachau. He was certified dead at 11:46 hrs.
  • Johann Kick, SS-Hauptsturmführer (CPT), was a camp administrator who processed the orders for 300 executions. He also beat prisoners and made selections for gassing. He was certified dead at 13:19 hrs.
  • Alfred Kramer, SS-Hauptsturmführer (CPT) and commandant of “Kaufering 1” sub-camp between August and November 1944. He was responsible for several deaths there. He was certified dead at 13:27 hrs.
  • Dr. Fritz Hintermeyer, SS-Sturmbannführer (MAJ), was the chief doctor in the camp. He murdered prisoners by lethal injection of phenol and did very little to help stop the typhus epidemic sweeping the camp. He was present at 10 executions between November 1944 and April 1945 to certify death. He was certified dead by a U.S. doctor at 13:48 hrs.
  • Christof Ludwig Knoll, a Kapo in charge of the gravel pit detail, boasted at a Christmas celebration in 1942 that he had killed 97 Jews and was hoping to make it 100. Knoll was certified dead at 14:01 hrs.
  • Johann Baptist Eichelsdorfer, SS-Hauptscharführer (M/Sgt), was commandant of “Kaufering 4” sub-camp at the beginning of 1945. He was convicted of beating prisoners there and causing at least one death. Even though “Kaufering 4” was a sick camp, Eichelsdorfer still sent inmates out on work details. He was certified dead at 14:14 hrs.
  • Franz Böttger, SS-Hauptscharführer (M/Sgt), was a labour service leader who organized work details. He also gave orders for executions and took people to the crematorium to be hanged or injected. He was certified dead at 14:25 hrs.
  • Leonhard Anselm Eichberger, SS-Hauptscharführer (M/Sgt), was present at the execution of 90 Russian officers in 1944 and participated in the shootings of 15 others, including a French general. Eichberger was certified dead at 14:36 hrs.

Sentences Reduced to Imprisonment

Ten men had their death sentences reduced on review to prison with hard labour:

  • Dr. Wilhelm Witteler: commuted to 20 years imprisonment
  • Otto Schulz: commuted to 20 years imprisonment
  • Dr. Hans Eisele: commuted to 20 years imprisonment (later escaped)
  • Peter Betz: commuted to 15 years imprisonment
  • Emil Erwin Mahl (Kapo): commuted to 10 years imprisonment
  • Hans Bayer: commuted to 15 years imprisonment
  • Dr. Fridolin-Karl Puhl: commuted to 10 years imprisonment
  • Fritz Degelow: commuted to 10 years imprisonment
  • Friedrich Wetzel: commuted to 10 years imprisonment
  • Sylvester Filleböck: commuted to 10 years imprisonment

A further three were sentenced to prison with hard labour in the first instance:

  • Johann Schöpp: given 10 years imprisonment, reduced to five years on review (24 January 1946)
  • Hugo Lausterer: 10 years imprisonment
  • Albin Gretsch: 10 years imprisonment

Trials from 1946 to 1948

From 26 February to 6 March 1947, the trials of five men took place at Dachau (case no. 000-50-2-62). The accused were Willi Fischer, Unteroffizier (Sgt) Martin Philipp Schreyer, Josef Jorewitz, Albert Lippmann, and Walter Jentner. All faced two charges of Violation of the Laws and Usages of War for acts committed at Dachau, Kaufering, and Landsberg. Fischer and Schreyer were sentenced to death and hanged at Landsberg on 19 September 1947. Fischer, 33, was a Kapo at Dachau, and Schreyer, 44, an SS guard there. Jorewitz and Jentner were both convicted, the former receiving a life sentence, the latter a two-year sentence. Lippmann was acquitted on both counts.

Witnesses testified that Fischer had beaten prisoners so severely that at least seven died from their injuries. Schreyer committed similar murders of inmates.

  • Josef Neuner, 34-year-old SS-Hauptscharführer (M/Sgt), was tried on 27 and 28 March 1947. He was convicted of hanging two Russian prisoners who had tried to escape and of shooting prisoners during a forced evacuation march in April 1945. Neuner was executed on 26 September 1947.
  • Hermann Zisch, 40-year-old SS-Unterscharführer (Sgt), was tried between 3 January and 3 February 1947. He was convicted of maltreating prisoners and the shooting death of a Czechoslovakian prisoner who tried to get a drink of water during a forced march from Kaufering 11 to Buchberg in April 1945. Zisch was hanged on 26 September 1947.
  • Josef Deiner, the only defendant at a trial held on 4–6 March 1947, was a 62-year-old SS-Obersturmführer (1LT). He was in charge of the carpenter’s shop and wood yard at Dachau and was convicted of beating to death a Polish youth and two other Polish men. Deiner was hanged on 14 November 1947.

Trials and Executions in Late 1946 and 1947

Three defendants were tried from 26 November to 3 December 1946: Franz Frohnapfel, Alois Hipp, and Ernst Angerer. Frohnapfel was an SS-Oberscharführer (T/Sgt), Hipp and Angerer were SS-Hauptscharführer (M/Sgt) and SS Roll Call leaders, and all had taken part in murders of Russian prisoners. Frohnapfel and Hipp were hanged on 14 November 1947. Angerer was sentenced to 25 years imprisonment.

  • Nikolaus Kahles, a 32-year-old private in the Waffen SS, was tried at Dachau from 16 to 18 June 1947. He was convicted of shooting a man with his rifle when he was late getting back onto a prisoner transport train. Kahles was hanged on 14 November 1947.
  • August Richard Ruhnke, 56-year-old SS-Hauptscharführer (M/Sgt) and deputy leader at the Kaufbeuren-Riederloh sub-camp, was convicted of beating prisoners to death, making them stand for hours in the snow, and starving them. He was hanged on 14 November 1947.
  • Alex Bernhard Piorkowski, SS-Sturmbannführer (MAJ) and commandant at Dachau, was tried on 17 January 1947, accused of murdering or ordering the murders of prisoners, including several Russian TB patients killed by lethal injection and others shot. He was also convicted of participating in experiments involving immersion in cold water and air pressure changes. Piorkowski was hanged on 22 October 1948.
  • Josef Remmele, SS-Hauptscharführer (M/Sgt), was tried at Dachau from 9 to 15 September 1947 on four charges, including participating in the killing of approximately 40 Russian prisoners in October 1941. He was hanged on 3 December 1948.
  • Georg Schallermair, a 52-year-old, was tried on 18 to 23 September, 1947. He too had been an SS Hauptscharführer (M/Sgt) and roll call leader from August 1944 to 1 May, 1945. He was accused of beating inmates to death and was hanged on the 7th of June, 1951, in the last batch of executions carried out at Landsberg.

Neuengamme Concentration Camp

Neuengamme concentration camp (Konzentrationslager in German) may not be as well known to some readers as other camps such as Auschwitz, Belsen, Dachau, and Ravensbrück, but more members of its staff were hanged than those of any other camps under British jurisdiction. In all, 32 men were hanged at Hameln for war crimes committed at Neuengamme and its 80 satellite camps.

In September 1938, the SS-owned company DEST (German Earth & Stone Works) took over the defunct brickyard (Klinkerwerk in German) on the banks of the Dove-Elbe river at Neuengamme in the Bergedorf borough of Hamburg.

Neuengamme was opened by the SS on 13 December 1938 as a satellite camp of Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Its original purpose was to resume brick production using forced labour for the many building projects being undertaken around Hamburg.

By June 1940, Neuengamme had become an independent concentration camp housing around 1,000 inmates. This number grew rapidly to 3,000 by the end of that year.

Initially, the camp housed German “undesirables.” Later it held prisoners from Eastern Europe, and in total some 104,000 to 106,000 people were held there over its existence. The camp was evacuated and virtually empty by the end of April 1945. It was seized by the British Army in early May of that year.

The death register at Neuengamme records that some 40,000 prisoners died in the camp up to 10 April 1945. At least 10,000 more died in the following week and during the forced evacuation of the remaining inmates. In all, more than 50,000 prisoners—almost half of all the camp’s inmates—died during its six-year existence. Many succumbed to disease, malnutrition, and overwork. Some were gassed, including around 200 Russian prisoners in 1942.

During 1942, Messap, a firm making time fuses for grenades; Jastram, which produced ship engines and torpedo parts; and Walther-Werke, the well-known small arms firm, all set up factories adjacent to the camp to use forced labour. In April 1942, a crematorium was constructed.

In 1943, female sub-camps were established to provide further sources of labour for the factories. The following year, a special area of the camp was set up to house some 400 “prominent” French prisoners.

As the end of the war neared, the SS evacuated about 10,000 prisoners on a forced march toward Lübeck. Thousands had already been sent to Bergen-Belsen, and another 6,500 prisoners had been transferred onto ships in the North Sea, two of which were sunk by British aircraft.

Trials of Neuengamme Staff

A total of 33 trials of staff from the main Neuengamme camp and its satellite camps were carried out by British authorities, involving 99 male defendants and 19 females between March 1946 and 1948. However, only those trials resulting in death sentences fall within the scope of this book.

The First Neuengamme Trial

Fourteen members of staff from the main camp were tried by a British war crimes court at the Curiohaus in Hamburg, from 18 March to 3 May 1946, before three military judges sitting with a Judge Advocate.

They were charged with committing a war crime by, between June 1940 and May 1945, being members of staff at Neuengamme concentration camp and, in violation of the laws and usages of war, being jointly concerned in the killing and ill-treatment of Allied nationals, inmates of the camp.

All pleaded not guilty. Former inmates from six European countries gave evidence of the inhumane conditions they had endured: severe mistreatment, the killing of Soviet POWs with poisonous gas, human experiments, and executions carried out in the concentration camp.

Defendants

  • Maximilian Johann Pauly, SS-Obersturmbannführer (Lt.-Col.), camp commandant from September 1942 until evacuation. Previously camp commander of KZ Stutthof.
  • Anton Thumann, SS-Obersturmführer (1LT), commander of the “Protective Detention” (Schutzhaft) camp. From 1933, a member of the KZ guard at Dachau. In May 1941, became commandant of the “Protective Detention” camp at KZ Groß-Rosen. From February 1943 to March 1944 served at KZ Majdanek in the same position. Due to his sadistic tendencies, participation in selections, gassings, and shootings (Operation Erntefest), he was nicknamed “Executioner of Majdanek” by inmates.
  • Dr. Alfred Trzebinski, SS-Hauptsturmführer (CPT), chief medical officer for the Neuengamme sub-camps from 1943. Camp doctor at Auschwitz in July 1941 and at Majdanek from autumn 1941. Participated in the killing of 20 Jewish children at Bullenhuser Damm by injecting them with morphine before they were hanged.
  • Dr. Bruno Kitt, SS-Hauptsturmführer (CPT), camp doctor.
  • Wilhelm Dreimann, SS-Unterscharführer (Sgt), known as the “executioner” of Neuengamme.
  • Adolf Speck, SS-Scharführer (S/Sgt), block leader at the brickworks who shot a prisoner after being spat at.
  • Johann Reese, SS-Unterscharführer (Sgt).
  • Wilhelm Bahr, SS-Unterscharführer (Sgt), testified in the trial of Bruno Tesch that he had gassed 200 Soviet POWs (see “Zylon B” case).
  • Andreas Brems, SS-Unterscharführer (Sgt).
  • Wilhelm Warnke, SS-Rottenführer (Cpl).
  • Heinrich Ruge, SS-Unterscharführer (Sgt), block chief.

On 3 May 1946, the above were sentenced to death and transferred from Altona prison to Fuhlsbüttel penitentiary. Lord Russell of Liverpool, highest-ranking Judge Advocate of the British Army of the Rhine (B.A.O.R.), confirmed the sentences on 26 August 1946. On 2 October 1946, the condemned were transported to Hameln. All eleven, plus Ludwig Knorr, a kapo condemned in a different trial, were hanged at Hameln on 8 October 1946.

Prison Sentences

Three further defendants received prison sentences:

  • Karl Totzauer, SS-Obersturmführer (1LT), Pauly’s adjutant: 20 years.
  • Karl Wiedemann, SS-Obersturmführer (1LT), guard commander: 15 years.
  • Walter Kümmel, SS-Unterscharführer (Sgt), block leader: 10 years.

Kümmel was released from Allied National Prison, Werl, on 26 February 1952; Totzauer and Wiedemann on 5 August 1954. Kümmel was investigated again in 1970 and accused of murder in three cases in 1982. He was acquitted in two cases; the third was ruled “aiding and abetting,” and due to the statute of limitations, he could not be retried.

Medical Experiments and Murders

SS physician Dr. Kurt Heißmeyer conducted tuberculosis experiments on prisoners at Neuengamme. In November 1944, he brought ten girls and ten boys aged 5 to 12 from Auschwitz to Neuengamme, accompanied by two French doctors and two Dutch male nurses, prisoners themselves.

To erase all traces of the experiments, the SS decided to murder the children and their caretakers. Just days before the war’s end, they were brought to the Bullenhuser Damm School satellite camp in Rothenburgsort. On the night of 20 April 1945, they were hanged from hooks set into the basement wall. On the same night, 24 unnamed Soviet prisoners were also hanged there.

Dr. Trzebinski injected the children with morphine to render them unconscious before they were hanged by Johann Frahm. Arnold Strippel, Ewald Jauch, and Wilhelm Brake were also involved. Frahm and Jauch were hanged on 11 October 1946; Brake was sentenced to five years in prison.

Heißmeyer escaped British trial and continued medical practice. He was eventually tried by a German court in 1966 and sentenced to life imprisonment, dying 14 months later on 29 August 1967.

Arnold Strippel initially went into hiding but was recognized in December 1948. A German court sentenced him to multiple life terms in June 1949. His sentence was later reduced, and he was released on 21 April 1969. Having served more time than the revised sentence, he was compensated 121,500 German Marks, equivalent to about $3.3 million (USD) in 2017.

Execution of Resistance Fighters

During the evacuation, 58 male and 13 female resistance fighters from the nearby Fuhlsbüttel satellite camp were brought to Neuengamme for execution on orders of Higher SS and Police Leader Georg-Henning Graf von Bassewitz-Behr.

Camp Protective Detention Leader Anton Thumann participated in the executions, which took place between 21 and 23 April 1945 in a detention cell. When some prisoners resisted, Thumann threw a hand grenade into the cell.

Graf von Bassewitz-Behr was tried by a British Military Court in August 1947 and acquitted of charges of murdering five Russian women and participating in executions of 71 prisoners. He was later handed over to the Soviets, who sentenced him to 25 years with hard labour for the murder of 45,000 civilians in the Dnipropetrovsk region. He died in a Siberian labor camp two years later.

Subsequent Trials

In eight subsequent trials, a further 23 defendants faced charges for crimes committed in the main Neuengamme camp. These trials resulted in thirteen death sentences, nine of which were confirmed and carried out.

ChatGPT said:

Neuengamme Trials 2 & 3

Thirteen men stood trial in Hamburg, with three defendants sentenced to death. They were:

  • Johann Frahm and Ewald Jauch (both hanged on 11 October 1946). See Bullenhuser Damm School murders above.
  • Emil Hoffmann (death sentence, hanged 23 January 1947).

Details of the verdicts and sentences of the other 10 defendants are not known.

Neuengamme Trial 4

This trial resulted in two death sentences:

  • Josef Klinger, who was hanged on 26 June 1947 (see below).
  • Wilhelm Schneider, who was hanged on 23 January 1947.

Neuengamme Trial 6

SS-Oberscharführer (T/Sgt) Max Markwart was the only defendant sentenced to death and was hanged on 23 January 1947. Markwart, as Kommandoführer, had been in charge of the infamous Elbe Command (work detail) and of the work detail in the brickworks.

Details of Markwart’s specific crimes and the verdicts and sentences of four other defendants are not known.

Neuengamme Trial 8

This trial was held at the Curiohaus in Hamburg, with sentences announced on 7 March 1947. Two death sentences were passed:

  • SS-Hauptsturmführer (CPT) Albert Lütkemeyer admitted to having shot dead five Soviet POW officers. He was hanged on 26 June 1947, together with Wilhelm Keus.

Neuengamme Trial 9

SS-Unterscharführer (Sgt) Udo Kettenbeil had been Kommandoführer of the Penal Company in autumn 1943, described by inmates as “a KZ within the KZ.” Kettenbeil was tried in Hamburg on 22 and 23 October 1947 and hanged at Hameln on 29 January 1948.

The trials of the staff of the satellite camps resulted in 14 death sentences, of which eleven were carried out.

Hannover-Ahlem Satellite Camp Trial

The trial started in Hamburg on 16 April 1947. The defendants were charged with being concerned in the ill-treatment of Allied National internees of the Concentration Camp at Hannover Ahlem between November 1944 and April 1945.

The sentences were as follows:

  • SS-Rottenführer (Cpl) Wilhelm Dammann: death – hanged 15 September 1947.
  • SS guard Stefan Streit: death – hanged 15 September 1947.
  • Otto Harder: 15 years, later reduced to 10 years, released in 1951.
  • SS-Oberscharführer (T/Sgt) Hans Hermann Ernst Harden (leader of the guard): 1 year.

Wilhelmshaven Satellite Camp Trial

The trial of the Wilhelmshaven, also known as Alter Banter Weg, satellite camp staff took place in Hamburg in 1947, with the following outcomes:

  • Gustav Alfred Jepsen, Danish SS member: death sentence – hanged 26 June 1947.
  • Gottfried Drossen, navy shipyard official: 15 years.
  • Hans Horstmann: 15 years.
  • SS-Unterscharführer (Sgt) Rudolf Günther, camp commandant: 15 years.
  • Otto Thümmel, camp commandant: 5 years.
  • Ernst Hoffmann, head of camp administration: 4 years.
  • Hinrichs Sührig (kapo), kitchen chief: 18 months.

Wilhelmshaven Trial

Three men were tried at Wilhelmshaven between 12-30 September and 1-8 October 1946. They were in charge of the civilian internment camp Esterwegen. The charge against them was: that they, at Wilhelmshaven between 1941 and 1945, in violation of the laws and usages of war, were concerned in the ill-treatment and killing of Allied Nationals interned in Germany.

All were convicted and sentenced as follows:

  • Sebastian Schipper: death – hanged 23 January 1947.
  • Wilhelm Vohs: 14 years.
  • Josef Lucas: 1 year.

The sentences of Vohs and Schipper were confirmed by the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief (GOC-in-C), BAOR, on 23 December 1946, who refused to confirm the sentence of Lucas.

Schandelah Trial

This trial took place at Braunschweig from 2 January 1947 to 3 February 1947. The thirteen defendants were charged with committing war crimes in that they, as managers and staff at Schandelah Labour Camp between 1 May 1944 and 30 April 1945, in violation of the laws and usages of war, were concerned in the ill-treatment and killing of Allied Nationals interned in the camp and working for Steinoel Co. Ltd.

Schandelah was a satellite camp of Neuengamme where inmates had to extract oil shale for synthetic gasoline production. The SS personnel were subordinate to Hauptscharführer (M/Sgt) Max Kirstein (satellite camp Schillstraße), who was never tried.

Four men were sentenced to death:

  • Friedrich Ebsen, SS-Unterscharführer (Sgt) and camp commandant (hanged 2 May 1947).
  • Carl Truschel, deputy camp commandant who had killed a Russian inmate (hanged 2 May 1947).
  • Johann Heitz, SS dog handler (hanged 2 May 1947 for shooting three prisoners).
  • Arthur Große (hanged 2 May 1947 for beating to death a French inmate).

Other sentences included:

  • Solms Wittig (sentenced to death; commuted to 20 years by GOC-in-C and released in May 1955).
  • Hans Detlev Ohlen (10 years; commuted to 7 years by GOC-in-C and released August 1950).
  • Herbert Schiefelbein, kapo (2 years).
  • Erich Arnold Jahn, head of kitchen – not guilty.
  • Otto Hefter – not guilty.
  • Paul Schenawa – not tried.
  • Hans Spinnrath – not tried.
  • Jakob Hamm – not tried.
  • Hennings – not tried.

The above sentences were confirmed by GOC-in-C, BAOR, on 17 March 1947.

Final Notes on Neuengamme Trials

There were 26 more trials, all connected to Neuengamme. Neuengamme had 85 secondary camps, and crimes committed in 16 of them were investigated and the alleged perpetrators brought to trial. In August 1948, trials were discontinued—even those under investigation—because the time limit for authorization to hold trials under the Royal Warrant had run out!

Hannover-Mühlenberg
This satellite camp existed from February to 6 April 1945. About 3,000 inmates were employed in the manufacturing of 5-inch anti-aircraft guns.

The commandant was SS-Oberscharführer (T/Sgt) Walter Quakernack. He was a member of the “Political Department” (Camp Gestapo) at Auschwitz. He allegedly participated there in the gassing of Soviet POWs and shot inmates himself. Quakernack led the Mühlenberg inmates in a death march to Bergen-Belsen on 6–8 April 1945. He was sentenced to death for his crimes at Auschwitz and Belsen. Quakernack was hanged at Hameln on 11 October 1946.

Helmstedt-Beendorf
At Beendorf, there were two satellite camps of Neuengamme and one of Ravensbrück. The inmates worked in subterranean salt mines on armament production for the German Air Force.

The camp commandant, SS-Obersturmführer (1LT) Gerhard Poppenhagen, was sentenced on 14 August 1946 to 15 years imprisonment in a British military trial at Hamburg (Curiohaus), which lasted from 29 July to 13 August 1946. He was released in 1953.

His deputy, SS-Unterscharführer (Sgt) Anton Brunken, received the death penalty and was hanged on 23 January 1947. Survivors described Brunken as the actual chief of the camp, since Poppenhagen did nothing to prevent his wanton punishments and killings.

Husum-Schwesing
From 26 September 1944 to 29 December 1944, 2,500 inmates from 14 nations were used in forced labour to dig and build anti-tank trenches, dugouts, and command posts as part of the “Friesenwall” (Frisian Wall) project. During these three months, an estimated 300 to 500 inmates died from overwork, malnourishment, and ill-treatment.

The camp commandant was SS-Untersturmführer (2LT) Hans Otto Hermann Griem. His career included posts at Neuengamme, Dachau, Hannover-Stöcken, Schwesing, Ladelund, and (Meppen-)Dalum. Inmates accused him of embezzlement of food and of shooting indiscriminately into a crowd of inmates when drunk (which he frequently was, they said).

Griem was arrested by the British in 1945 but succeeded in escaping on 3 August 1946, shortly before his trial was about to start.

Ladelund
This camp was also involved with the erection of defenses as part of the “Frisian Wall” project (see Husum-Schwesing above). Hans Otto Hermann Griem was in charge of this camp as well, and his deputy was SS-Unterscharführer (Sgt) Josef Klingler, who enjoyed the reputation of a cruel brute.

Klingler was sentenced to death by a British Military Court sitting in Hamburg in March 1947 and was hanged on 26 June 1947 at Hameln.

Salzgitter-Drütte
Situated on the premises of the Hermann-Göring-Works, this camp was built in 1942. The number of inmates rose to 2,700 by mid-1944 and 3,150 in September 1944. The inmates had to produce shells and cartridge cases. A total of 682 died through illness, executions, and accidents.

On 7 April 1945, the camp was evacuated, and inmates were transported to Celle, together with women from the concentration camp Salzgitter-Bad.

At Celle, the train holding about 4,000 inmates was attacked on 8 April by American bombers. Since inmates were not allowed to leave the train, up to 1,000 lost their lives. About 1,300 inmates managed to escape; 1,100 of them were recaptured, and at least 170 were killed during the so-called Celle Massacre (also euphemistically called the “Celle hare hunting”), in which SS, police, army, Volkssturm, Hitler Youth, and Celle residents participated.

After preliminary proceedings in December 1947, a British Military Court—first at Hannover, later at Celle—sat in April and May 1948 to try “crimes against humanity” under Control Commission Order No. 10.

On 14 May 1948, three defendants were sentenced to death: policeman Helmut Ahlborn, civilian and local boxing celebrity Otto Amelung, and a young soldier named Fritz Joost. Four received prison sentences between four and ten years (Alwin Schuchardt and Otto Schwandt 10 years each, Jakob Decker(t) seven, and Albert Sievert four years imprisonment). Six were acquitted (Heinz Luhmann, Friedrich Lautenbach, Oskar Carlowitz, Karl Schmidt, Heinrich Giesemann, and Ernst Fischer).

The highest British Court reviewed the cases and quashed Joost’s death sentence because there was no evidence to refute his defence that he had shot above the heads of fleeing inmates and not at them. The other two death sentences were reduced to 15 years for Ahlborn and 20 years for Amelung, respectively. All these men were released early, the last in early October 1952. Amelung, despite his own confession to having shot dead four inmates, remained a highly respected citizen locally.

Mauthausen Concentration Camp

Location and Early History
Mauthausen is a small town in Upper Austria on the north bank of the Danube River, some 20 km from the city of Linz. In March 1938, following the Nazi annexation of Austria (Anschluss), a concentration camp was established there, and the first inmates arrived on 8 August 1938.

The early inmates were Austrian and German men who were political opponents of the Nazi regime, as well as people labelled “criminal” or “antisocial” by the Nazis, including homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Gypsies. Mauthausen and its satellite camp at Gusen were close to existing granite quarries, and inmates were used as forced labour to provide stone for building projects.

By 1942, over 3,300 prisoners—living on totally inadequate food rations—were working in these quarries, 11 hours a day in summer and nine hours a day in winter. The less fortunate were required to carry 50 kg (110 lb) rocks up 186 steps from the quarry floor as punishment for minor infringements of camp rules. This led to deaths from exhaustion and crushing when the exhausted man and rock fell onto those below.

Camp Commandants
The first commandant of Mauthausen was Albert Sauer. In February 1939, he was replaced by Franz Ziereis, a former career soldier, who remained commandant for six years until 3 May 1945, when he fled with his wife. Ziereis was arrested on 23 May, tried to escape, was shot three times, and died from his injuries without standing trial.

Designation and Operation
In January 1941, SS General Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the Reich Main Office for Security (Reichssicherheitshauptamt; RSHA), designated Mauthausen as a Category III concentration camp, to hold prisoners deemed “severely incriminated,” especially previously convicted criminals and asocials. This effectively meant extermination through labour.

Mauthausen remained in operation until taken over by the US Army on 5 May 1945. There were just over 100 sub-camps, including the three nearby Gusen camps (opened May 1940), Passau I and II in Germany, and many smaller ones in Austria and neighboring countries to the east.

“Aktion 14f13” and Executions
In early 1941, the SS began the “Aktion 14f13” or “Sonderbehandlung” (Special treatment) operation to kill weak and sick inmates. Starting in August 1941, prisoners from Gusen and Mauthausen were transported to the Hartheim Castle euthanasia facility near Linz, to be gassed or killed by lethal injection. Around 5,000 prisoners from Mauthausen and Gusen, and about 3,000 from Dachau, were killed in Hartheim as part of this operation. Hartheim had a crematorium for body disposal.

Executions by shooting were carried out at Mauthausen, and by March 1942, a gas chamber was in operation there. Initially used for Russian POWs, it was later used for inmates too sick to work. Approximately 3,500 people were killed in this gas chamber between March 1942 and April 1945. Crematoria were also installed at Mauthausen, Gusen, and the Melk and Ebensee sub-camps.

Forced Labour and Women’s Section
Use of Mauthausen for forced labour in industry began only in 1942. Steyr-Daimler-Puch AG, Austria’s largest arms company, took prisoners from Mauthausen and later set up a sub-camp near their works to manufacture arms.

In 1944, a women’s section was added with a capacity of around 3,000 women; an estimated total of about 10,000 women were held there at different times.

Evacuations and Prisoner Influx
As the Russian army advanced through Poland, camps were evacuated, and some 25,000 prisoners from Auschwitz-Birkenau, Groß Rosen, Sachsenhausen, Ravensbrück, and Mittelbau-Dora arrived at Mauthausen between January and May 1945. Others came from the Venusberg and Freiberg sub-camps of Flossenbürg, but records of their numbers do not remain.

Death Toll
Estimates of prisoners who died at Mauthausen and its satellites vary greatly, from 122,000 to 320,000. The Mauthausen Memorial website gives a more conservative figure of 90,000, out of around 190,000 people imprisoned in the main camp and sub-camps over seven years. Surviving records show over 11,000 deaths occurred in April 1945 alone. Many death records were destroyed during April 1945 to remove incriminating evidence.

Liberation
On 3 May 1945, camp staff fled, leaving some 40,000 prisoners to their fate. When US soldiers entered two days later, many inmates were in poor health from malnutrition and disease; about 3,000 died in the following weeks.

War Crimes Trials
War crimes investigators began work immediately, aided by prisoner-kept records. Suspected war criminals were rounded up and sent to Dachau to await trial.

The first trial of 61 Mauthausen staff took place at Dachau between 29 March and 13 May 1946 (US vs. Hans Altfuldisch et al., case 000-50-5). The defendants were charged generically with subjecting prisoners to “killings, tortures, beatings, starvation, abuses, and indignities” between 1 January 1942 and 5 May 1945.

All defendants were found guilty. Fifty-eight men were sentenced to death; three received life imprisonment. Forty-nine men were hanged at Landsberg. Twenty-three were executed on 27 May 1947 in two hours and 37 minutes using two gallows; 25 were executed the next day in three hours and 30 minutes with the same gallows. Otto Striegel received a last-minute stay and was hanged on 20 June 1947.

The court found all involved criminally responsible and that no one in the camps could have been unaware of the war crimes.

There were 61 further trials of Mauthausen staff, most in 1947. According to mauthausen-memorial.org, 306 persons were tried; 37 were hanged, and many others received prison sentences but were released in the early 1950s.

Selected Notable Cases

Case No. 000-50-5-23
Ten men arraigned at Dachau between 7–21 August 1947. Four sentenced to death, one acquitted, others imprisoned. The four condemned were hanged at Landsberg on 19 November 1948. Among them was Franz Kofler (32), block leader at Mauthausen, who participated in brutal killings and beatings.

Case 000-50-5-3: Erik Schuettauf et al.
Trial at Dachau, 13–24 June 1947. Six former Waffen SS members at Gusen charged with “Violation of the Laws and Usages of War.” All convicted. Schuettauf and Alfons Heisig received life sentences; Wilhelm Grill, Willi Jungjohann, Oskar Tandler, and Herbert Hartung were sentenced to death. Only Tandler’s sentence was confirmed; he was hanged on 26 November 1948. Tandler, drafted into the SS in 1940, served as an interpreter and block leader responsible for Russian juveniles. In March or April 1942, he participated in gassing 156 Russian prisoners and executions of others. Testimony detailed his maltreatment of prisoners.

US vs. Lauriano Navas et al. (Case No. 000-50-25)

An unusual case was US vs. Lauriano Navas et al., case number 000-50-25, heard from 14 to 21 July 1947. It is the only trial in which there was no German defendant but four subjects of a neutral country, Spain. These four had fought in the Spanish Civil War on the Republican side, fled to France, and were captured by the Germans when France was overrun.

To the Nazis, Spanish Republicans were equated with Communists, so they were held as political prisoners at Mauthausen, where they became Kapos. Thirty-seven-year-old Indalecio Gonzalez was hanged on 2 February 1949, the other three receiving prison sentences. Gonzalez had been a chief Kapo at Gusen who, in late 1944 and early 1945, beat a French and several Polish prisoners to death. Witnesses also testified to his frequent acts of physical violence toward inmates.

Case No. 000-50-5-23: Trial of Ten Men at Dachau

Ten men were arraigned at Dachau between 7 and 21 August 1947, in case No. 000-50-5-23. Two did not stand trial; four were sentenced to death by hanging; one was acquitted; and the others received prison terms. The four condemned were subsequently hanged at Landsberg on 19 November 1948, along with three other men convicted of similar offences in separate trials.

All were accused of “Violating the Laws and Usages of War” at Mauthausen and its sub-camps between 1 January 1942 and 5 May 1945.

Notable Defendants and Crimes

  • Franz Kofler
    Austrian-born 32-year-old Franz Kofler was executed for the murder of 17 Jewish inmates at Mauthausen in August 1942. Armed with a pistol in one hand and a whip in the other, he forced these men to jump out of their block through an open window into the yard, where he chased them into an electrified fence. Sixteen were killed by electrocution, and the 17th man was shot on Kofler’s orders when the fence malfunctioned. He also killed three more inmates by electrocution in December 1942.
  • Michael Heller
    Michael Heller, a 37-year-old Romanian national and Waffen SS corporal, served as an assistant Block Leader at Mauthausen from 8 August 1943 to 24 February 1945. He was convicted of murdering Allied paratrooper inmates in August 1944 and had participated in other executions.
  • Gustav Petrat
    Twenty-four-year-old Gustav Petrat was a dog leader at Mauthausen from May 1944 until he fled the following May. He was accused of torturing a Polish teenage girl caught stealing a carrot and charged with beating other Polish girls to death.
  • Quirin Flaucher
    Quirin Flaucher, a 32-year-old German national and male nurse at Mauthausen, was convicted of beating a number of inmate patients to death.

Final Executions at Mauthausen

The last hangings for crimes committed at Mauthausen took place on 2 February 1949. Those executed were:

  • Karl Schrögler
    A 42-year-old German national and block elder in Gusen I, Schrögler boasted that he had killed 1,500 inmates. He was convicted of drowning two Yugoslavian and one Polish inmate between March and September 1943. He gave the men a bath in a tank of water to which he had added “chlor” (chlorine). After a few minutes, he pulled the victims out and dropped them on the concrete floor. As block elder of Block 32, he drowned large numbers of inmates in a communal bath large enough to hold 400 people, where the water was 50 cm deep. It is thought approximately 6,000 inmates were killed this way. He also regularly beat inmates with a rubber hose filled with sand.
  • Dr. Helmuth Vetter
    Thirty-seven-year-old Dr. Helmuth Vetter was the camp physician at Gusen. He administered lethal injections of gasoline or peroxide to inmates. Vetter selected prisoners who were then moved to Block 31, known as “the last stop to Heaven,” where the injections took place. In a two-month period in the spring of 1943, about 1,000 inmates were murdered in this manner.

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