Throughout History there have been hundreds of execution methods used to take the lives
of a condemned person or a victim.
Throughout the Second World War, millions of civilians were killed and many were executed
at the hands of evil death squads such as the Einsatzgruppen.
The Nazis would try to test different methods of killing civilians as quickly as they could
and for a long while they would round them up, force them to dig their own graves whilst
firing squads were stood over them.
It was a conflict that saw horror come to most towns, cities and villages inside of
Europe and the concentration camps also expanded and were made in many Nazi occupied countries.
These camps were notorious for their evil treatment of prisoners, and horrific SS guards
such as Rudolf Hoss the commandant of Auschwitz would test the most efficient way of killing
that did not burden his SS officers with the psychological trauma of having to fire.
He would test the use of gas inside of Auschwitz and across the camps millions of people were
sent to the gas chambers.
But experiments to execute in different ways continued at sites, and one method which was
used was by using freezing cold water, which became known as the ‘death baths,’ or
the ‘death showers.’
But why was this one of history’s most brutal execution methods?
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One of the most barbaric concentration camps used by the SS during World War 2 was Gusen.
It was a sub camp of the huge Mauthausen complex and was located inside of Upper Austria.
To begin with the camp was mostly made up of Polish prisoners, but then following deportations
huge numbers of other prisoners were sent and imprisoned at Gusen.
It was located nearby to a number of granite quarries, and the inmates would be forced
to conduct gruelling and hard back breaking work there mining the granite, which was then
used in the huge Nazi building projects all across Germany.
The inmates were treated terribly by the guards, and because of a lack of food water and good
sanitation, the average life expectancy of an inmate of Gusen was at times just 6 months.
This meant that within half a year of entering the camp, they would be dead.
The prisoners kept arriving at Gusen in a steady stream due to the deaths, and the conditions
were so poor, and if someone did not work hard enough then they could be beaten to death
by capos or guards.
Also each minute of the day they were watched over by guards in watchtowers who would turn
their guns on the workers if they were just walking too slow.
One man, a capo named Wolf was actually a prisoner but was given some power and he executed
prisoners himself by hanging them, and he would then stamp on their bodies.
Anyone with any ounce of power at the site quickly went power mad.
The inmates who arrived at Gusen would have to run to test their fitness and those who
did not pass the test would be executed immediately and killed.
When the first 10,000 prisoners arrived there, it’s believed that 3000 were instantly executed.
But in August 1940 two inmates managed to escape and 800 men in their work detachment
were ordered to run carrying rocks, and they were beaten awfully by guards and were then
forced to stand all night without food in the roll call yards.
14 prisoners died in this incident, and the two men who were captured were beaten to death.
For all of these reasons, Gusen was a terrifying and horrific site of punishment and evil,
but further horror would occur as one SS man developed a new method of execution.
35,000 people died at Gusen but there were also mass executions that were carried out,
and it was the death baths or the Totenbaden which became notorious at Gusen.
SS Commandant SS Hauptsturmfuhrer Karl Chmielski who himself was known for being a brute, would
introduce a new execution method at the camp.
He would introduce the death bath to Gusen, and this was where inmates who were said to
be too sick to work, or were ill were then forced into a bath of ice cold water.
This was either used in a bath-tub, or the men were forced to stand under high pressure
jets of freezing water like a shower.
In winter this was a death sentence, as the temperatures would be below freezing, and
the inmates within minutes would be killed by the cold shock, and then hypothermia.
The death baths it’s believed killed hundreds, as the SS men and guards would force weak
prisoners into the shower blocks.
Many were killed by heart failure caused by the instant hypothermia.
Also the drains of the shower often got blocked very quickly as they could not cope with the
water pressure and the amount of it.
Prisoners would have no escape and they would then drown in the shower.
It’s been debated also that the SS deliberately blocked the drains to make this happen.
Anyone who refused to go in the death baths, would be beaten badly and bludgeoned by the
guards sometimes to death.
This execution method was mostly only used at Gusen, and it was said to have been too
in-efficient.
The nazis were focused on killing as many people as possible, and they decided that
this was not the way to do it.
Some victims it’s believed also survived their time inside the showers, but days later
they would succumb to pneumonia.
But in January 1942, the death baths of gusset stopped being in operation and they took the
lives of around 300 prisoners.
It was an execution method which was aimed to shock the body into shutting down, and
it was one which showed the evil of the SS.
The Guards would utilise the cold weather also to kill prisoners as they would be forced
outside of their barracks in large groups in the freezing cold, and each night dozens
would die with this treatment.
But the death baths were evil and disgusting.
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