The 6th of June, 1944. Allied infantry and armored divisions begin landing on the Normandy
coast of France. This largest seaborne invasion in history marks a turning point in WW2 and becomes
the beginning of the end of war in Europe . One week later on the 13th of June 1944,
Nazi Germany responds with the first V-1 flying bomb attack carried out on London. More than
2,500 V-1s will reach London killing more than 6,000 innocent civilians. These
terrifying Revenge weapons with which the Nazis would terrorize people in London
until March 1945 are produced thanks to slave labor from Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp.
The camp’s commandant is Otto Förschner, one of the most sadistic Nazi criminals.
Otto Förschner was born on the 4th of November 1902 and spent his early years on his parents'
farm in Bavaria. In 1922 he became a soldier when he enrolled in the Wehrmacht – the German
armed forces. In 1934 Förschner joined the SS and in 1937 he joined the Nazi Party.
WW2 started on the 1st of September 1939
and Otto Förschner participated in combat during the invasion of Poland.
From June 1941 he served as an officer during Operation Barbarossa - the German invasion
of the Soviet Union - but he was wounded in action and declared medically unfit for combat duty.
As a result, he returned to Germany and in the spring of 1942,
he was transferred to the Buchenwald concentration camp. One year later in September 1943
he became a commandant of Mittelbau-Dora which was a subcamp of Buchenwald.
The prisoners at Mittelbau-Dora were treated in a brutal and inhumane manner. The starving
prisoners were forced to work 14 hours a day and did not have access to even basic hygiene.
Out of 60,000 prisoners who were sent to this camp, 20,000 died.
The slave-laborers from Mittelbau-Dora were used not only for production of V-weapons
such as V-1 flying bomb and V-2 rockets which were aimed primarily at London, but also to extend
the nearby tunnels in Kohnstein which is a hill which served as a natural protection against the
Allied bombing for the underground factory named Mittelwerk in which the V-weapons were produced.
In the camp, one of Förschner’s duties was preventing acts of sabotage during
V-weapons production. To ensure that the camp ran smoothly, and such activities did not occur,
Förschner relied on German Communist prisoners as administrators in positions that were not required
to be held by the SS officers. However, after the investigation in autumn 1944, the Gestapo, the
official secret police of Nazi Germany, revealed that his approach, which they criticized as soft,
let to resistance activities inside the camp such as sabotage during V-weapons production and many
of the Communist prisoner administrators chosen by Förschner were involved in these
sabotage activities. After investigations by the Gestapo, several resistance circles were busted,
and this situation caused serious difficulties for Förschner.
Otto Förschner was also the managing director of Mittelwerk factory and as it proved later,
he was also corrupted. In early 1945 Heinrich Himmler found out that Förschner had received a
bonus payment of 10,000 Reichsmarks. However, he had not reported this one-off payment to
the SS administration, who nevertheless found out and demanded a refund. However, Förschner
did not pay it back and soon after, Himmler himself removed Förschner from his position.
In February 1945 Otto Förschner became the commandant of Kaufering concentration camp complex
which was the largest subcamp of Dachau. The conditions in the camp were horrible and Förschner
as a camp’s commandant was responsible for it. Rain and snow leaked through the earthen roofs,
and vermin infested the huts. Prisoners had to sleep on straw that had been spread on the floor.
What little food the prisoners did have, was taken by the SS guards and those who were sick,
were fed even less. There were even incidents of cannibalism, and some prisoners were so desperate
to escape from their horrible reality that they would try to commit suicide,
by throwing themselves into the electrical fencing.
Förschner was also accused of numerous crimes at Kaufering such as mistreating the poor prisoners,
killing one prisoner with an iron pipe and management of prisoner executions.
During Kaufering camp’s existence between June 1944 and April 1945, fifteen thousand
out of 30,000 prisoners died from hunger, disease, executions, or during death marches.
Otto Förschner remained the camp’s commandant until the end of April, 1945.
In the end, justice finally caught up with Förschner when he was arrested by
the allies and tried at the Dachau trials. He was responsible for the brutal conditions at
Kaufering concentration camp and his role in the management of prisoner executions.
On the 13th of December, 1945 the US military tribunal found Otto Förschner
guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity and sentenced him to death by hanging.
He was 43 years old when he was executed on the 28th of May 1946.
There were no tears shed for Otto Förschner.
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