The largest and deadliest concentration camp of the Second World War was Auschwitz.
What began as a modest Polish ex army barracks became a huge site of execution and killing.
Throughout its time in operation at least 1.3 million prisoners passed through the gates
with over 1.1 million prisoners being killed there.
Many people were sent straight to the gas chambers as soon as they arrived from the
transports, and those who were not gassed often died through disease, starvation execution,
beatings and exhaustion.
The inmates were forced to work incredibly hard and they were given poor rations, and
they also had to contend with brutal and violent SS guards.
Many infamous guards such as Irma Grese and Elisabeth Volkenrath worked at Auschwitz,
and after World War 2 they were sentenced to death and were executed for their crimes.
But there were a number of men who were responsible for the running of the camp and also specific
elements of Auschwitz.
These were known as the Camp Commandants, and many of these are considered today to
have been some of the most evil men who worked inside of the camps.
But who were they, and what happened to them after the war?
One of them was executed on a specially built gallows inside of Auschwitz, as former inmates
petitioned for him to die at the place he inflicted such misery.
Join us today as we look at the compelling executions of the Commandants of Auschwitz,
and remember to support our channel, please make sure to subscribe.
The most infamous name involved in the running of Auschwitz was Rudolf Hoess who was the
longest serving commandant of the site.
He oversaw it’s mass expansion and served in the capacity of the commandant from the
4th May 1940 to November 1943 and then again from the 8th May 1944 to the 18th January
1945.
He was the one who was sent to the specific part of Poland to investigate the creation
of the camp, and he stated he went to Auschwitz to ‘do things differently,’ and his ultimate
goal was to create a camp that was more efficient in its killing and production than other sites
such as Dachau and Sachsenhausen.
Whilst there he lived in a large villa with his wife and 5 children, and it was he who
implemented the brutal regime there.
He ordered the creation of Block 11 the punishment block, and Hoss also created standing cells
to torture inmates, and he would at times condemn numbers of random prisoners to death
by starvation there if one person escaped.
He was told by Himmler to sanction the Final Solution and to carry it out, and Auschwitz
was chosen for the main hub of mass murder.
Hoss said ‘no one was allowed to speak about these matters with any person and that everyone
promised upon his life to keep the utmost secrecy.’
The purpose of Auschwitz was a site of mass murder, and Hoss began to test and perfect
methods of mass killing from September 1941.
His experiments led to Auschwitz becoming the most efficient site of mass murder used
in the final solution, and each day thousands were being killed.
He stated, ‘Technically [it] wasn't so hard—it would not have been hard to exterminate even
greater numbers....
The killing itself took the least time.
You could dispose of 2,000 head in half an hour, but it was the burning that took all
the time.
The killing was easy; you didn't even need guards to drive them into the chambers; they
just went in expecting to take showers and, instead of water, we turned on poison gas.
The whole thing went very quickly.’
He settled on Zyklon B to kill thousands.
It was Hoss who employed many brutal guards who were truly sadistic.
But he had an affair with an inmate in 1942, and she became pregnant but this affair led
to Hoss’ briefly losing command of Auschwitz.
He later returned to oversee Operation Hoss, which saw 430,000 Hungarian Jews transported
to the camp and killed in 56 days.
He was in charge of this brutal mission, and they could not keep up with the killing.
But after the war, he tried to evade capture and managed to do so for a while until he
was arrested on the 11th March 1946.
Hoss tried to bite a cyanide capsule when he was discovered, but this did not work,
and he was beaten badly inside of allied captivity.
Some soldiers battered him with axe handles, and he was taken to testify at Nuremberg,
but later was brought to trial himself.
He spoke openly about his crimes, and claimed he had killed 2 and a half million people,
but he was then brought to trial.
He was sentenced to death on the 2nd April 1947, and the death sentence was carried out
next to the crematoria of the former Auschwitz I camp.
He was taken back to the camp which he oversaw after appeals from former prisoners, and a
gallows had been specially made for him.
He was led up to the gallows by an executioner and other soldiers, before the noose was secured
and the chair was then kicked out from underneath him.
The man who took over from Rudolf Hoss was Arthur Liebehenschel.
He continued the mass murder and executions, and claimed he made some improvements to camp
life for example he removed the standing cells, and also brought a halt to the selections
of regular prisoners to go to the gas chambers.
He was considered a quiet man, who had a very poorly heart, and he was very different the
Rudolf Hoess.
He did not want to disrupt the entire operation of Auschwitz, and he was said to have lived
a relatively quiet life despite being involved in the huge mass murder.
He was seen as a man who was more suited to a desk role also, and despite people considering
things did change for the better under his leadership, Liebehenschel continued the executions
inside Bock 11.
He also called for the removal of the Black Wall where prisoners were executed, and negotiated
with elements of the camps resistance.
However ultimately thousands were dying each day from illness and malnutrition, and selections
still took place with those inmates who came to the camp, and the new arrivals were sent
straight to the gas chambers.
One former inmate stated,’ "Liebehenschel went through the camp, inspecting all barracks
and I cannot recall whether he has ever ordered someone to be beaten or he had beaten someone
himself.
Liebehenschel was a lot softer than the others.
Nonetheless he was a criminal just like the others as he also took part in the selections
on the platform."
But Liebehenshcel was relieved from his position as the camp commandant.
Some claimed it was because he was married to a woman who had been charged with having
links to jews.
But he was transferred to the already emptied Majdaek camp, as it had been evacuated due
to the soviet advances.
However at the end of the war he was arrested, and he was taken prisoner by the Americans
before he was extradited to Poland to stand trials.
Liebehenshcel was tried with crimes against humanity and was condemned to die for this.
Along with 23 other defendants who were sentenced to death, at sunrise on the 24th January 1948
he was hanged inside of Montelupich Prison.
He was led into the execution chamber where a number of ropes hung from the ceiling, and
a noose was tied around his neck.
He was stood on a chair, and then this was kicked out from underneath him, and he was
left strangling.
His final words were ‘Long live Poland.’
Richard Baer was the Commandant of Auschwitz I from May 1944 to January 1945.
He was a virulent SS man, and was seen as a brutal SS guard.
He succeeded Liebenshenchel as Himmler considered him to have been too soft on the prisoners,
and Baer was seen as an experienced commandant who was capable of mass killing.
He had done it before at Neuengamme, but he served for a number of months until the camp
was dissolved at the start of 1945.
He was responsible for mass execution and killing, and he kept Auschwitz as deadly as
it had been previously under the other commandants.
But after the war he was never executed.
He returned to Hamburg and settled working as a forestry worker, but he was arrested
in 1960.
He was confronted and his identity was confirmed, however after admitting his true indentity
he was held in prison awaiting his trial.
As a former camp commandant of not just Auschwitz but other sites, he would most probably have
been executed.
But he died in prison of a heart attack whilst he was awaiting his trial in 1963.
With Auschwitz being split into different complex’s, Auschwitz I, Auschwitz II and
Auschwitz II Monowitz, there were different men in charge of different parts of the camp.
One man who was the commandant of Auschwitz Birkenau, the main extermination element of
Auschwitz was Fritz Hartjenstein.
Here he oversaw the extermination facilities and also the crematoria, and was responsible
for a huge amount of killing.
He was later in 1944 appointed the commandant of the Natzweiler concentration camp, but
after the Second World War he was arrested by the British for specifically being involved
in the execution of four female agents of British Special Operations Executive.
He was also tried for hanging a prisoner of war who belonged to the Royal Air Force, and
he was then sentenced to death but was given the death sentence of a firing squad.
However he was sent to France to then be tried for his crimes at Natzweiler, but then whilst
awaiting his execution he died of a heart attack on the 20th October 1954 in Paris at
the age of 49.
Known as the Beast of Belsen, Josef Kramer’s arrest was covered by the world’s media
when Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was liberated.
Kramer was a former commandant of Natzweiler, and he was then promoted and transferred to
Auschwitz II Birkenau to become the Camp Commander there.
He was involved in the gassings of new transports, and was brought there for that purpose.
There were many witnesses who said he took part in the selections and he himself loaded
people into the trucks and beat them when they refused to get on the convoys.
He was known for being a brute and a savage guard, and he had little remorse for anyone.
He was later transferred to Belsen when the conditions there broke down, and he gained
his nickname the Beast of Belsen for his harsh rule there.
Despite no gas chambers, thousands died from the conditions.
He was sentenced to death at the Belsen Trial and the court was told of his selections and
roles at Auschwitz that inflicted so much death and suffering.
For this he was then hanged by British executioner Albert Pierrepoint on the 13th December 1945.
Initially sent to Asuchwitz to work in the administrative offices of Auschwitz, Heinrich
Schwarz became an adjutant of Rudolf Hoss.
But through different promotions, he was given command of Auschwitz III Monowitz, the huge
slave labour IG Farben factory.
In this role he forced prisoners to work incredibly hard, and he instigated brutal working conditions
that resulted in the deaths of up to 35,000 people.
Those who were not fit enough were then sent to the gas chambers and were killed.
He worked here for two years before he then took command of Mittelbau Dora where the V-2
rocket was being made.
However, he was then arrested after the end of the war, and was convicted of war crimes
and crimes against humanity by French authorities.
He was then sentenced to death and was shot by a firing squad on the 20th March 1947.
All of the men who served as the commandants of Auschwitz ultimately were responsible for
the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people inside of Auschwitz.
They were also responsible for the evil rules and violence that the guards inflicted onto
the prisoners, and for this many were ultimately sentenced to death.
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