As the British entered Bergen-Belsen concentration camp they were greeted by a scene of horror,
depravity and hell on earth.
The Holocaust was carried out in these complexes and behind the barbed wire fences the worst
evils of Hitler’s Third Reich occurred.
60,000 people had been abandoned to fend for themselves amongst the dead bodies of prisoners
who had perished to malnutrition and disease.
But within the victims were a number of SS staff who carried out much of the crimes.
Some tried to even hie within the survivors, however some came clean about their activities.
Today we look at Karl Francioh, a SS man who was involved in the kitchens of a number of
different concentration camps.
He was active at Auschwitz and also Belsen, and he after the Second World War was sentenced
to death for his crimes.
So join us today as we look at the justified execution of Karl Francioh, the Evil Cook
of Auschwitz.
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Karl Francioh was born in Brandenburg on the 5th October 1912.
He was married and had four children, and began his adult life working in the mines
as a miner in his local area.
When the Second World War broke out he swapped the mines for the kitchens and became a cook
within the Wehrmacht in April 1940.
He then joined the ranks of the SS as a cook working in an SS kitchen in Poznan.
At some point Francioh was transferred from Poznan to Auschwitz where he first began to
serve as a cook in a concentration camp, working in the officer’s mess.
He said at his trial that he worked in Asuchwitz’ kitchens as a chef in the officers kitchens
along with 50 other officers, and once relayed how he saw other high ranking SS members such
as Franz Hossler and Josef Kramer eating the food he had prepared.
Auschwitz over time transformed into a huge killing and forced labour centre, and as the
camp grew the resources which were needed grew.
There was a large network of different staff needed at Auschwitz, not just guards.
To keep the camp moving and productive there were a large amount of support staff brought
in, including the Cooks and chefs.
Eventually Auschwitz transformed into three main camps, the first Auschwitz I being the
main labour centre, with Auschwitz II Birkenau being the extermination centre with finally
Auschwitz III Monowitz being the slave labour element for IG Farben a huge German Industrial
Conglomerate.
At some point around January 1945, Francioh was arrested and put in a prison inside Auschwitz
for 21 days and was then sent along with a transport of SS men who deserted to the Gross
Rosen concentration camp as Auschwitz was evacuated as the Red Army approached the complex.
He then went to Blechammer a sub camp of Monowitz on another evacuation transport and at some
point he met Ansgar Pichen, another cook who would be executed for his role in the Holocaust.
Following this he was then taken to Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp around March 10th
1945 to go and work.
Many people, staff and prisoners were sent to Belsen as it was closer to the German lines
and the heartland as the advancing Allies and Red Army swamped across different lands
and liberated different camps.
When he arrived at Belsen, initially Karl Francioh did not have a position or a job,
and he initially slept and had his meals in the SS mess hall outside of the camp which
was around 100 metres from the Commandant, Josef Kramer’s office.
He then was told to accompany sick prisoners from Neuengamme Concentration Camp to Belsen,
and when he arrived back he was given a job working in the women’s camp, and then afterwards
arrested again, this time for 12 days for leaving to see his wife without permission.
After his release he began to work inside the kitchens at bergen Belsen.
He said of them, ‘there were about 68 prisoners working in Number 3 cookhouse in two groups,
each did eight hours.
There were one or two more prisoners not counted amongst the real kitchen personnel.
One Aufseherin was in charge.’
He said also how many of the workers saw it as good work and many of them were women,
and his cookhouse he was overseeing fed 16200 people daily, of which the ration was half
a litre of coffee, a litre of soup for lunch and dinner with bread sometimes.
The cookhouse Francioh oversaw fed mostly women, and he said how extra food was sent
for the maternity home and pregnant women, and he claimed how his kitchen gave out the
most food.
Now it’s clear at Bergen Belsen that during the final days of the camp, the situation
was incredibly dire at the camp.
There was very little food if any to go around, disease was rampant and rife and because of
this death surrounded every corner.
Prisoners were forced to share whatever scrap of food they had and things were incredibly
desperate.
Much of the crimes that Francioh was executed for revolved around his actions towards a
number of prisoners who infact were caught stealing food.
At the Belsen trials he was asked, You were accused of shooting a woman who was bending
down to pick up a few potato peelings on the day before the British arrived.
What have you got to say about that?
He replied, ‘on that day I was not in the camp at all.
I would not dream of shooting a woman, I can explain why this accusation is against me,
because when I prepared food for the hospitals it was standing in front of the kitchens for
hours without being fetched.
Therefore I had lots of arguments with hospital staff, with Dr Bimko being the man who accused
Francioh.
However the accusations against him would get even darker.
He was accused by another prisoner of having shot around 50 prisoners after the British
soldiers arrived, and he said ‘when the British came in I was not in the camp any
more, I went with my wife to Bergen and we made ourselves ready to go away.
I could have gone with her, however did not because of the love for the prisoners.
Further accusations continued as another lady accused him of shooting a friend of hers dead
alon with wounding three further women.
He was also accused of beating prisoners terribly and shooting a Russian Girl dead upon his
arrival.
Further accusations of Francioh’s crimes its his gun emerged, with him also allegedly
shooting workers in his kitchen and shooting a pregnant woman in the arm who later died.
He admitted during his trial that he actually owned a pistol but said he did not carry it
inside of the camp or within the kitchen.
Interestingly he also ended up testifying against other members of staff admitting that
one guard regularly beat prisoners with their held, and also that beatings were a normal
thing within the camps.
He did try to maintain that he tried to stop the shootings of prisoners, however this wasn’t
founded and it was alleged further that he shot prisoners even up until the day of the
liberation.
Francioh was also critisized by others for the malnutrition inside the camp and the sorry
state of affairs, and the prosecution questioned if he actually did any work there in the kitchens
such was the dire situation.
He did admit that the rations he cooked in the kitchens were rather scarce and not sufficient
to cook for all of the prisoners but he did try to turn evidence against the SS doctors
saying that it was possibly the fault of the medical staff that so many people died.
Karl Francioh was arrested whilst inside Bergen Belsen and like all other SS camp staff he
was forced to transport the corprses and to bury them in mass graves.
Following the clean up he was then placed on trial and for his crimes was found guilty
of the crimes he committed at Belsen despite being there a very short amount of time.
It was found he shot prisoners and despite pleading not guilty he was sentenced to death.
Interestingly his friend Ansgar Pichen was also sentenced to death after being found
guilty of shooting prisoners whilst inside Belsen.
Francioh was transferred to Hamelin prison to await his execution, and it would be performed
by Albert Pierrepoint the famous British executioner.
Inside a number of cells the condemned found guilty in the Belsen Trials were held, before
a gallows with a simultaneous drop had been erected a the end of these cells inside an
execution chamber.
Before the execution, Pierrepoint met each of the condemned with his assistant to calculate
the height and weight of them, in order to work out the drop needed to kill the criminals.
Francioh would have walked into the chamber, stepped on the scales and then had his height
measured with Pierrepoint working out the drop needed to kill him.
This method was aimed at quickly and efficiently dispatching of the condemned war criminals.
The execution of Francioh and the other criminals took place on the 13th December 1945 at Hamelin.
The executions of the women were carried out first before the condemned men were killed.
He was led up to the stairs of the gallows, and a cap was placed over his head by Pierrepoint
or his assistant before he was shuffled over to the trapdoor, which pierrepoint had drawn
a chalk X on the floor on.
Within seconds of the noose being secured, he was left hanging with the drop killing
him.
He was then cut, down his remains being cremated.
He was 33 when he was executed.
It was clear that during the Belsen Trials that Karl Francioh had a barbaric and brutal
streak in him, and he displayed the ruthless brutality that many members of the SS would
exhibit within the concentration camps.
He seems a figure that was at times lost within the SS system, being arrested a number of
times for desertion but also being forced to go to many different camps.
As the Second World War was lost for the Germans, it was clear how he wished to still inflict
misery onto people, shooting prisoners who had a chance of survival as liberation loomed
at will in cold blood.
He was a despicable man, and a horrific war criminal who’s execution was certainly justified.
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