Following the end of the Second World War, there were a huge number of war crimes trials
that saw many defendants sentenced to death.
Despite trials taking place, there were thousands of ex concentration camp guards and workers
who were responsible for atrocities who escaped justice, and there were also many more who
who committed atrocities on the battlefield who escaped any form of punishment.
The sentence for those guilty of crimes against humanity and war crimes was death in many
cases, and hundreds of Germans went to to the gallows.
One of those was Erich Muhsfeldt, who was found guilty at the Auschwitz Trial for his
involvement in mass murder inside of Auschwitz.
He was a man who participated in many other atrocities.
So join us today as we look at ‘The Compelling Execution Of Erich Muhsfeldt.’
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Erich Muhsfeldt was bon in February 1913, and it’s assumed that he had a normal early
life and joined the Nazis as Hitler came into power.
In his civilian life before he became involved in the military and the war effort, he was
a baker and worked inside of a bakery.
He was married and had one son, however it’s believed that his wife was killed during an
air raid, and his son was sent away.
He signed up to become a member of the SS and saw service as the Second World War waged
on.
He saw service with the German SS Sonderkommando inside of Auschwitz I in 1940.
At this time, Auschwitz was only a very small concentration camp compared to what it became
as more prisoners were transferred there, and as Commandant Rudolf Hoess expanded the
camp to a colossal size, capable of the mass murder of thousands on a daily basis.
Muhsfeldt was then transferred to work at Majdanek Concentration Camp on the 15th November
1941, and it was here where he was involved in mass murder and execution on a huge scale.
He was involved in the mass murder of Jews at Majdanek, Poniatowa and Travniki Concentration
Camps.
Following a number of uprisings in Ghettos and Extermination camps, Himmler commanded
the murder of the remaining Jewish forced labourers in the district of Lublin.
Thousands of SS and Gestapo personnel were transferred to Lublin to oversee the mass
murder and killing, and Muhsfeldt was one of these officers sent to carry out the killings.
On the 3rd November 1943, the killings began.
The operation was called Operation Harvest Festival, and at 5am on the 3rd November the
prisoners of Majdanek were awoken, and the camp had been surrounded by 500 soldiers.
Different groups were separated, and Jews were sent to the infirmary where they were
trucked to a different part of the camp.
Prisoners were forced to undress and then in groups of 100 they were taken to three
trenches in a field behind the camp.
Jews were then further sorted into groups of 10, when they were led into the trench
and then execution squads of between 10-12 SS men were waiting.
They forced the prisoners to lie in the trench, when they were shot in the neck.
More shooting continued at Travniki and Poniatowa camps, and over the course of 2 days, around
40,000 prisoners had been slaughtered, with almost half coming at Majdanek.
Muhsfeldt was one of the men involved in the shooting, and following the liquidation of
Majdanek he returned back to Auschwitz, where he worked as a Supervising SS officer of the
Jewish Sonderkommando inside of Crematoria II and III at Auschwitz Birkenau.
In this, he would be armed with his gun, and he would patrol over the men who were responsible
for cleaning up after the gas chambers.
The Sonderkommando would retrieve the bodies of those gassed to death, and would then burn
them at the crematoria.
Any sight of insubordination in their ranks would lead to guards such as Muhsfeldt executing
them.
As her returned to Auschwitz, shockingly Muhsfeldt struck up a bizarre relationship with a Jewish
Hungarian pathologist named Miklos Nyiszli.
He was forced to work with Josef Mengele, the infamous Angel of Death, the doctor who
was responsible for horrific experiments and cruelty.
Nyiszli would state that the two would talk, and he was one of many who told of the crimes
of Auschwitz after the war.
He said during one incident, that Muhsfeldt arrived to see him in the infirmary following
a mass execution.
He had been involved in the shooting of 80 prisoners in the back of the head, before
they were then cremated.
It was said that his blood pressure was raised, and when asked if this was to do with the
huge mass murder of new prisoners who were arriving at Auschwitz, Muhsfeldt stated ‘It
does not matter to me whether I shoot one person or eighty.’
It was said that his blood pressure was high because he drank too much.
Nyiszli also said that whilst Muhsfeldt was overseeing the gas chambers, a young girl
of 15 was brought to him as she had somehow survived the gas chambers.
When the girl was brought to the infirmary, she was partially recovering and it was asked
whether her life should be spared because of her ordeal.
Muhsfeldt replied stating, ‘There’s no way of getting round it, the child will have
to die.’
After this it was said that, ‘Half an hour later, the girls was led or rather carried
into a furnace room hallway, and there Muhsfeldt sent another in his place to do the job, where
a bullet was place in the back of her neck.’
After the end of the Second World War, Muhslfelt was arrested and was charged by the War crimes
Group, European Command.
However he was then handed over to Poland, and was retried in Krakow as part of the Auschwitz
Trials.
This began on the 24th November 1947, and saw 41 former members of staff at the largest
death camp being placed on trial.
On trial alongside Erich Muhsfeldt was Arthur Liebehenschel, the camps former Commandant,
Maria Mandel an infamous female guards and also SS doctor Johann Kremer.
The trial issued 23 different death sentences and 17 prison terms.
It was said during the verdict that, ‘Torturing of prisoners [of Auschwitz] already tormented
to the extreme [by extrajudicial means], is the evidence of inhuman savagery perpetrated
by those defendants who as a result of the trial were sentenced to death.
The listed violent crimes committed by named defendants, who all took smaller or larger
part in the mass murder of prisoners, also reveal that the accused were involved in the
acts of killing for pleasure, and not pursuant to orders of their superiors.
If it were not for their expressed desire to kill, they would have otherwise displayed
elements of sympathy for the victims, or at least show indifference to their plight, but
not torture them to death.’
Erich Mushfeldt was one of those who was sentenced to death for being involved in crimes against
humanity and mass murder whilst at Auschwitz.
He was responsible for the slaying of thousands of victims personally, and also in disposing
of their bodies and remains inside of the crematoria.
Inside of Krakow’s Montelupich Prison, which was during the Second World War One of the
most brutal German prisons used by the Gestapo, the hangings of those sentenced to death were
carried out.
The hangings conducted inside the prison were rather primitive, inside of the execution
chamber in the prison were a number of hooks.
Erich Muhsfeldt would have been brought into the chamber along with a number of other convicted
war criminals.
He was then placed on a stool where a noose was hanged from the hook, and whilst he was
stood on the stool the noose was placed around his neck.
Following this, a guard kicked the stool out from under him and he would have strangled
to death, taking a number of minutes to die.
The execution of Erich Muhsfledt was one of many at the Auschwitz trial, however only
a fraction of those guards who worked at Auschwitz were ever brought to trial to face up to their
crimes.
He was a man who was involved in the mass murders of thousands, and had intricate knowledge
about the killing process of the Holocaust and in particular Auschwitz.
He enforced the Sonderkommando the group of men who were forced to clean up the gas chambers,
and if any sign of resistance emerged he would have not hesitated to execute and to take
the life of another.
He was a callous murder, and today many of his crimes remain untold.
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