1940s, World War 2, German-occupied territories. A criminal Nazi regime
gives unlimited power to frightenly dangerous and unintelligent individuals. A
power that should have never belonged to them. Influenced by Nazi ideology, these individuals are
willing to commit horrific crimes in the name of what they
believe to be the Aryan master race. One of these torturous monsters is Gerhard Palitzsch.
Gerhard Palitzsch was born on the 17th of June 1913 in the village of Grossopitz near Dresden,
then part of the German Empire.
Palitzsch was a farmer by profession and in 1933 he joined the Nazi Party
and the SS. His criminal career in concentration camps started in 1933 when he became a guard at
Oranienburg and Lichtenburg concentration camps. 3 years later in 1936 he was sent
to Sachsenhausen concentration camp where he worked as a block leader.
When in May 1940 the Nazis established Auschwitz, the most notorious concentration camp located
in German occupied Poland, Gerhard Palitzsch did not come into the camp alone. From Sachsenhausen,
he brought with him 30 German prisoners with green badges. These mandatory colorful badges of shame,
primarily triangles, were used to identify why the inmates had been placed in the camp.
Green badge was set for convicted criminals who were likely of a tough temperament
suitable for kapo duty. The kapos were prisoners in Nazi camps who were selected by the SS
to supervise other camp’s inmates in exchange for better food, clothing and housing and they
were often as brutal as their SS supervisors. At Autschwitz, Palitzsch became the report leader
and together with his kapos, he unleashed a brutal reign of terror in the camp.
His main responsibility in the camp was to carry out executions
at the death wall. He did this job willingly and with smile on his face
and when he was done with the killing, he gave the impression of coming from a successful hunt.
His specialty was to shoot the prisoners in the back of their heads with a small-caliber gun
with a silencer. In the presence of a prisoner who survived the Holocaust, Palitzsch claimed, that he
was responsible for shooting some 25,000 people this way. He was proud of how many prisoners he
shot and would frequently attend the roll call with his boots soaked in his victims’ blood.
He was allegedly paid 5 marks for each executed victim.
Gerhard Palitzsch was a sadistic psychopath who enjoyed torturing his victims before killing them.
He would whip the poor prisoners with 10 to 25 strokes and then chase them in the
“frog” position for a 500 meters distance to the bunker, where they would wait for the execution
for a few hours while being harassed and tortured throughout that time. No matter what time of year,
the naked prisoners would be kicked and spat on before being executed.
He enjoyed beating and killing even small children.
On one occasion Palitzsch ordered little Jewish girls to run around a closed yard.
He would shoot at them, killing them like rabbits.
After he had killed them all, he was seen calmly smoking a cigarette with a smile on his face.
He enjoyed making his victims suffer as much as possible by killing first the children,
and then their parents to ensure that they lived to see their children being murdered.
After the war, one former Polish prisoner testified how Palitzsch executed a family of
five - parents and then their three children. The youngest baby tight to mother’s chest was
killed first with a shot to the head. Then he shot the child standing between his parents.
While the parents stood motionless numbed with their shock, Palitzsch threw the eldest child
onto the ground. As the child tried to fight for his life, Palitzsch stood on his back and shot
him in the base of his neck, without any remorse. Finally, he shot the mother and then the father.
Shooting was not the only way how Gerhard Palitzsch used to kill the prisoners.
On one occasion, he killed the parents of a child that had been left somewhere behind.
When the child was brought to him, he grasped the little boy by his legs
and with all his strength smashed his head against the wall.
Gerhard Palitzsch hated Poles and used to kill them without any reason.
Once he shot several Polish officers who had reached the camp with a transport in August,
1940. The reason for their killing was their refusal to kiss his boots.
At Auschwitz, Palitzsch was one of the main participants
in the first mass killing of prisoners using Zyklon B. On the 3rd of September 1941,
he participated in the first tentative mass gassing in block 11 of the main camp,
in which around 600 Soviet commissars and 250 sick Polish prisoners were killed with Zyklon B.
Palitzsch was also active in selections on the ramp. When his colleagues escorted poor
victims to the gas chambers, they used to tell them that they would be given hot soup
and a cup of tea or coffee. However, Gerhard Palitzsch greeted the newcomers differently
saying ″We Germans have no sympathy for the enemies of the Third Reich, like you.
With joy we will hound you all through the chimneys of the crematoria.
Forget your wives, your children, your families. You will die here like dogs.″
Gerhard Palitzsch lived in the town of Auschwitz together with his wife
and their children. In the summer of 1942, his wife Luise fell ill during a typhoid epidemic
and died only a few months later as a result of her illness.
After her death, Palitzsch became increasingly addicted to alcohol.
In June 1943 he was sent to the Gypsy family camp which was a part of Auschwitz. Romani
families deported to the Gypsy Family Camp were held together, instead of being separated as was
typical at Auschwitz. Palitzsch’s passion after the death of his wife was not only alcohol,
but also women, including female Romani and Jewish prisoners. When he was caught with a Romani female
inmate, it was the beginning of his end. It was deemed unacceptable for a member of
superior Aryan race to have a sexual relationship with someone deemed
inferior and Palitzsch was accused of Race Defilement. However, he was also
accused of theft having enriched himself to a considerable extent by plundering the possessions
of murdered Jews. These stolen possessions were considered the property of the Nazi Party.
For his crimes, Gerhard Palitzsch was sentenced to several years in prison by the SS and police
court. However, he was subsequently pardoned and expelled from the SS in June 1944.
In the end, justice finally caught up with Palitzsch. When in late October
1944 the Soviet and Romanian armies started its offensive against Budapest,
Palitzsch belonged to the 33,000 German soldiers defending the city together with Hungarian troops.
On the 1st of December 1944, Adolf Hitler declared Budapest a fortress city which was to be defended
to the last man. There was no escape for Palitzsch as the Führer also forbade any withdrawal attempt.
Gerhard Palitzsch was 31 years old when he was killed in Budapest on the 7th of December,
1944. The man who literally walked over bodies to satisfy his hunger for power,
was finally dead. There were no tears shed for Gerhard Palitzsch
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