On the 4th July 1946 in front of a huge crowd of thousands, a number of men and women made
their way to a huge gallows on a hill in Gdansk, and they were greeted by their executioners.
The men and women who were awaiting their date with the executioners were the former
guards of Stutthof Concentration camp, a camp which was infamous for its treatment of prisoners
during the Second World War.
It was a huge camp which was known for its deadly operations in which around 65,000 people
perished within the barbed wire fences.
But one man who was already brought to trial and was executed separately from many of the
guards who worked inside of his camp was the Commandant of Stutthof, Max Pauly.
He was a man who had acted as a commandant of Stutthof during its early years of operation,
but he was known for being a brutal and ruthless man.
Join us today as we look at the execution of the commandant of stutthof concentration
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Max Pauly was born on the 1st June 1907 inside of Wesselburen, and he was the son of a man
who owned a hardware store.
He came from humble beginnings but within the Nazi party he would become a monster like
so many would.
Pauly graduated from elementary school and then worked inside of his father’s store,
and he would work as a salesman.
But his father died in 1928 when he was 21, and Max Pauly then took over control of the
homeware store.
He would then 2 years later marry his wife, who was also from his town and she was the
daughter of a cattle dealer, and the pair would have five children together.
His wife incidentally would die in August 1944 as the Second World War raged on.
But at the end of 1928, Max Pauly then joined the Nazi party and he also then became a member
of the SA, Hitler’s brownshirts and violent thugs who would disrupt political meetings
of their enemies and he would be a part of these.
The SA would become very powerful and they would fly too close to the sun as Hitler would
later purge them.
But Pauly was considered a member of the old guard, or an alter kampfe as he was a very
early supporter.
But he then in May 1930 transitioned to become a member of Himmler’s SS, the Paramilitary
group of the Nazi party who would later be involved in mass executions and slaughter,
and also in running the concentration camps.
Inside of the SS Max Pauly continued to rise throughout the ranks, and before Hitler’s
seizure of power, he was appointed as a SS storm leader in January 1932.
He then became the head of a local group, but at the time there were a number of attacks
carried out by the SS and by Pauly’s group.
In 1932, the Nazis were not yet into power, and Pauly was arrested many times and accused
of breaching the peace, and he would also then go on to serve a 7 month prison sentence.
He was allegedly involved in the destruction of a campaign car used by another political
group, but following his release from prison he was made an SS Hauptstrumfuhrer, and then
an SS Sturmbannfuhrer.
By the turn of 1936, Pauly had also become a full time leader and a paid member of the
SS, and he became a graduate from the Nazi police academy, and he would then attend a
course which first brought him into a concentration camp.
Dachau was the first and earliest concentration camp opened, and Pauly would learn here what
it took to become a concentration camp guard.
He continued to lead detachments of SS men, and he would then take command of the 71st
SS Standard in Danzig-Paust, and the command of this group he held until the end of the
Second World War.
But further promotions came, and following attending and completing another course at
the SS leadership school in Dachau, Max Pauly was then appointed to a new SS battalion where
he worked as a chief of staff.
This group was a special unit which operated inside of the free city of Gdansk, and Pauly
would then take over control of internment camps in the polish corridor.
As the Second World War broke out, he would be involved and also deemed responsible for
the murder of 1400 mentally ill people.
But then in the Gdansk region, he would be given command of the Stutthof Concentration
Camp.
He transitioned to the SS Deaths Head Unit, but he would then oversee Stutthof’s creation
and opening, but it would become a very brutal camp.
Stutthof Concentration camp was created following the invasion of Poland, and it was a place
where many polish people would be housed inside of following the invasion.
It became a concentration camp in 1942, and the original camp was surrounded by barbed
wire and it had 8 barracks filled with inmates.
But then the camp was enlarged heavily and a new site contained 30 new barrack buildings,
and also a crematoria and a gas chamber was added in 1943.
This was to make sure that the executions of prisoners could take place as efficiently
and as quickly as possible.
150 people at a time could be held inside of the gas chamber at the site.
The camps staff was made up of many men but also a number of women who worked there.
Women such as Enra Beilhardt, Hertha Bothe and Jenny Wanda Barkmann would become notorious
for their treatment of inmates at Stutthof.
But as time went on there were huge transports of women and men who were sent from camps
such as Auschwitz.
The conditions there were very harsh, and dozens of thousands of people succumbed to
starvation and the disease epidemics that were sweeping through the site.
Executions were also carried out at Stutthof, and many dozens of prisoners were shot at
the site with thousands being slaughtered also inside of the gas chamber.
But Stutthof’s inmates also suffered at the hands of medical staff who would inject
sick inmates with phenol killing them, and the guards would also violently beat prisoners
to death.
The forced labour that the inmates were made to conduct was also horrific, and the prisoners
were given insufficent rations for the roles they were doing.
But after working at Stutthof for a couple of years, Max Pauly would then be transferred
to Neuengamme Concentration Camp.
Neuengamme was a site where there was also a lot of bloodshed, as almost 43,000 of the
106,000 people held there were killed.
The site was based around the idea of extermination through labour as the prisoners were given
not sufficient food and they were forced to work in horrific conditions.
The medical treatment at the camp was also poor, and many of the people who worked here
were forced to create armaments for the German industry.
Max Pauly whilst here would control the camp until the end of the Second World War, and
during this time he was involved in the slaughter of many children including those who were
sent for medical experiments.
He was also involved in the executions of 58 men and 13 women from other concentration
camp.
He would continue to be promoted, but as the end of the Second World War came around, Max
Pauly would be captured.
Despite living on site with his family, Pauly would try to flee the camp and any form of
justice.
At the end of April 1945, Max Pauly had headed to Flensburg which was considered the last
bastion of the Nazis power following Hitler’s death.
But he would return to his hometown, and he was then caught living with his children and
his sister in law.
But then it came to bringing Pauly to trial for his crimes, and he was a man who was associated
with cruelty inside of Neuengamme and also inside of Stutthof.
He was taken to Hamburg where he was tried in front of a British military court, and
whilst at trial, it was stated that Pauly was a man who was a brute and one of the worst
commandants who had overseen much bloodshed and execution.
Max Pauly was found guilty of war crimes and he was then sentenced to death for this.
He was an experienced man who had worked at different concentration camps.
He would never interestingly be tried for his crimes at Stutthof, but only for what
he did at Neuengamme.
He was sent to Hamelin Prison to await his death sentence which would come 5 days later.
On the 8th October 1946, Pauly was led out of his prison cell into the execution chamber
of the prison, and he had met the executioner Pierrepoint days before who had calculated
his height and weight ready for the drop through the trapdoor.
Max Pauly was led into the execution chamber and up the scaffold, and pierrepoint had also
previously secured his arms and legs.
A black hood and then the noose was placed over his head as Pauly was then shuffled over
the trapdoor, and this was released.
Max Pauly the commandant of Stutthof was instantly executed and he was then buried inside of
Hamelin Prison’s walls, but then he would be exhumed years later and his body would
be moved to a nearby cemetery.
He was a man who was notorious for his brutal actions as the commandant of not just one
but two concentration camps and he became known as a notorious nazi.
But as mentioned he would not be tried for his actions as the commandant of Stutthof,
but what he did as the commandant of Neuengamme would be enough to send him to the gallows
and the hangman’s noose.
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