The first concentration camp built by the Nazis which opened on the 22nd March 1933
was Dachau.
The site became infamous during the Second World War and before for horrific suffering
and torture, and over 188,000 prisoners passed through the gates but over 41,000 were killed
there by the treatment and the conditions they were forced to live in.
It was opened by Heinrich Himmler, but it became a huge site which operated from Hitler’s
time in power until the end of the Second World War when it was liberated by the Americans.
The liberators found a horrific and terrible site with dozens of bodies being stuffed inside
of trains and then reprisals occurred against the SS Guards who were caught there.
Some troops enacted their own form of justice, taking a machine gun to a number of the guards.
But there was one man who was instrumental in the killing process and the torture of
Dachau, but after the war he was brought to trial and was sentenced to death for his crimes.
Alexander Piorkowski was the commandant between 1940 to 1942, and under his leadership thousands
were killed.
Join us today as we look at his execution, and as always to support our channel, please
make sure to subscribe.
Alexander Piorkowski was born in Bremen in Germany on the 11th October 1904, and as a
young man he was a mechanic and he then worked as a travelling merchant in the aftermath
of the First World War.
He visited different areas, but was then attracted to the politics of the Nazi Party and Hitler.
He became a member of the SA or the brownshirts in June 1929, but then after this he joined
the SS in June 1933.
He also had previously become a member of the Nazi Party, and he was seen as a reliable
and effective leader of men and soldiers.
Because of this he was given charge of the SS-Standarte in Bremen his hometown, and then
he was given command the following year of the SS-Standarte Allenstein.
But despite being involved in the SS, he retired from service with the group for his health
on the 19th September 1936.
But he still was seen as a reliable and useful member of the group, and was then approached
by Himmler to be the commandant of Lichtenburg Concentration Camp.
He accepted this position, and was in control there for only a few months from July 1937
to December 1937, before it was then converted to become a women’s concentration camp.
Lichtenburg was a camp which was housed inside of a Renaissance Castle in Prettin near to
Wittenberg in Saxony.
It was one of the first to be built by the Nazis and was operated by the SS from 1933
to 1939.
Over the years, there had been many different commandants including Theodore Eicke who would
also become a commandant of Dachau, but also Hermann Baranowski who served at Dachau as
a senior guard.
Lichtenburg could hold up to 2000 male prisoners to begin with, and then it underwent a signficiant
transition in 1937 where the male prisoners were moved out and it became an all female
camp, years before Ravensbruck would be opened.
The prison was rather rundown, and as in most of the early camps, the prisoners were referred
to as political prisoners of prisoners in protective custody.
All of the women would later be transferred from this camp to Ravensbruck when it closed
in May 1939, and this then replaced Lichtenburg was the main camp for female prisoners.
It was a site though that over time had become very overcrowded as the Nazis rounded up more
women, and the conditions there were rather poor, and its believed food rations were not
sufficient enough and also disease was spreading there.
Alexander Piorkowski remained here until August 1938, and then he was transferred across to
Dachau.
To begin with he served as a Schutzhaftlagerfuhrer, which was someone who was in charge of the
economic production at the camp.
Piorkowski was seen as an important administrator who was known for mistreating victims and
driving them to work harder to ultimately make more profit for the Nazis.
He was also involved in maintaining order, and would have taken daily roll call and ensured
law and order was maintained.
It was a senior position and underneath him were the Rapportfuhrer and also the Oberaufseherin,
and they were also responsible for the staff in some regards.
However he was then made the commandant of Dachau, which meant he was in charge of the
whole huge site’s operation.
Dachau as mentioned was a huge and colossal concentration camp with over 40,000 people
being killed there.
Many different prisoners found themselves at the camp, including priests and before
Piorkowski came there many deaths had already occurred.
In his time in control, over 4000 Soviet prisoners of war were sent to their deaths by Piorkowski
as he ordered them to be shot dead and executed at a nearby SS shooting range found 2kms from
the camp at Hebertshausen.
These killings were a terrible war crime, and the first executions occurred on the 25th
November 1941.
But during his time in control, the number of prisoners coming to dachau rose heavily,
and many thousands of people came there.
The prisoner enclosure at the camp was heavily guarded to make sure that no one escpaed,
and guards would happily shoot prisoners if they escaped.
It was a site of pure terror and Piorkowski was the one leading the camp, and horrific
torture methods were used there to strike fear into the hearts of the inmates.
Standing cells were found there in which inmates were thrown into a tiny cell and were expected
to be in there for days on end, and they could not sit in these being forced to stand for
24 hours a day.
Also floggings took place in public, with inmates who had infringed on the rules being
whipped brutally, some were even killed by this.
Also tree or pole hangings were used, in which an inmate was suspended from the air.
Also executions took place of prisoners who were not fit enough to work, and as time went
on the conditions at Dachau became worse.
Many died from disease, exhaustion, starvation and violence as time went on, and many would
decide to just simply touch the electrified fence to end their ordeal quickly.
During Piorkowski’s time in charge, hundreds of priests would be transported to Dachau
also, and many were then selected to be used in the horrific nazi medical experiments.
But on the 31st August 1943, Alexander Piorkowski was then sacked at the commandant of Dachau,
as he had been accused of corruption charges, and embezzling money out of the camp.
There were a number of commandants of camps who just couldn’t help themselves, and for
this he was sacked and it’s not known what he did after.
But at the end of the Second World War, he was summoned by the US Army to a trial and
the Americans forced him to answer in front of a judge about the crimes he had committed
as the commandant of Dachau.
His trial took place as part of the Dachau Trials from the 6th to the 17th January 1947.
Previously man former guards had been sentenced to death and executed in the trials there,
and Alexander Piorkowski was then charged with crimes against humanity, deportation,
abduction and ill treatment of prisoners at Dachau.
Many witnesses came forward to testify against him, and he was sentenced to death for his
crimes.
Alexander Piorkowski then tried to overturn his death sentence, and he petitioned a number
of times for a pardon, but regardless he was still taken to Landsburg Prison.
This was a site where hundreds of Nazi War criminals would be executed after the war,
and Piorkowski was held here before he was executed.
On the morning of the 22nd October 1948, after being held at Landsberg for over a year, he
was taken out of his cell into a courtyard where the gallows stood.
He was flanked by US military police officers and a priest, and he was led up the steps
of the gallows after his identity was confirmed.
He was then handed over to the executioner who placed a black cap over his head, and
then the noose.
Following this he was shuffled over the trapdoor, and this was then released and Alexander Piorkowski
the Commandant of Dachau was left hanging.
After death was confirmed, he was placed into a coffin and was then cremated.
Alexander Piorkowski was the Commandant of Dachau who was responsible for the deaths
of thousands inside of one of the most evil concentration camps of them all.
He helped to instil a reign of terror and told the guards to brutally beat and whip
prisoners to make sure they fell into line.
His death sentence at the end of the war was little justice for the people who were imprisoned
there, but there was some debate as to how active Piorkowski was at his time in Dachau,
as he has been accused of being someone who delegated most of the responsibilities that
resulted in crimes to those beneath him.
But ultimately he met his end at the gallows of Landsberg Prison.
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