There were many evil and brutal SS guards who worked inside of the concentration camps
during the Second World War.
Many of these men and women had come from normal backgrounds, but inside of the Nazi
system they were transformed to become some of the most notorious war criminals in history.
Some men became very senior inside of a number of camps, and they became known for their
torture and execution of innocent people on a daily basis.
One man who was renowned inside of many camps for this was Ludwig Plagge who would make
the lives of the prisoners a complete misery for nothing but his own personal pleasure.
He enjoyed to torture prisoners whenever he could and he Wass a complete sadist.
But he was seen as a member of the SS who could have gone further in the hierarchy of
Heinrich Himmler’s evil organisation, but eventually at the end of the war, justice
would catch up with him.
But what is the story of the execution of the sadist of sachsehnhausen?
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Ludwig Plagge was born on the 13th January 1910 inside of Landesbergen, and he had a
rather normal upbringing.
He left school and then became a farmer for a number of years, but whilst he was in his
early 20s the Nazi Party was beginning to grow and expand with many thousands of people
being captivated by Hitler’s politics and his speeches.
He joined the Nazi party officially on the 1st December 1931, and he would attend meetings
and rallies in his local area, but then in October 1934 he became also a member of the
SS.
It’s believed that Ludwig Plagge remained a member of the SS and in the auxiliary until
the Second World War broke out, whilst he was still working as a farmer.
But then as the Second World War broke out, the SS would become an organisation which
would be written into history as being the perpetrators of one of the worst acts of genocide
the world has ever seen.
Heinrich Himmler would oversee the organisation which would be responsible for the slaughter
of civilians following the territorial gains by the German army, and they would also become
known for their involvement inside of the concentration camps.
The SS would be the guards of the camps, and they would also be the ones who carried out
the torture, execution and extermination’s of millions of people across Europe, carrying
out the evil persecution that the Nazis put into place.
Ludwig Plagge would be then recruited in the SS to go and work inside of the concentration
camps, and he began active service shortly after the conflict broke out and he underwent
a brief period of training before he was assigned to work at Sachsenhausen.
Plagge was only here less than a year but he became known for working as one of the
most brutal guards.
Sachsenhausen was a large concentration camp that opened before the war even broke out,
and 200,000 people would be sent there with around 50,000 being killed at the camp by
either the conditions or the executions and selections of inmates.
It was a camp situated relatively close to Berlin, and as mentioned it was an SS training
centre, but the camp was seen as a place where the guards would experiment to develop the
most effective execution and extermination methods.
Because of this thousands of Soviet Prisoners of War were used in sick experiments to try
and kill as many people as the Nazis could.
At the start of the camps existence the executions at Sachsenhausen were done by putting inmates
in a small room, which was filled with music.
This was known as the neck shooting facility, and they were told they were having their
height measured before behind the measuring device was a hatch with an executioner and
a pistol stood behind.
As the height was taken, the executioner would fire.
But the SS found this to be too time consuming, and they then trialled using trenches to shoot
inmates, but there was too much panic with this, and inmates became harder to control.
Then gas chambers were created at the site.
But it was a site where a huge amount of slave labour was used, and some of these industries
were used to further the German war effort, with prisoners being driven to death to work
creating parts for Luftwaffe aircraft.
But as mentioned it’s believed that up to 50,000 people died from exhaustion, disease,
execution, malnutrition and brutality.
Some were killed by medical experiments, but at Sachsenhausen there was a significant degree
of punishment.
The punishments were evil there, and guards would force the inmates to perform ‘the
Sachsenhausen Salute,’ where a prisoner would squat with their arms out in front,
for long periods of time.
Also some inmates were forced to test military footwear marching 25 miles a day, but the
food rations were poor, and some people were even tortured using medieval methods such
as the manacles or strappado, suspending them in the air with their hands behind their backs.
But public hangings and executions were also very common, and as the war continued further
executions of foreign POWs would continue.
But Ludwig Plagge became notorious at Sachsenhausen and other camps, and he was one of those torturers
who made the lives of inmates awful.
He was known for forcing prisoners into gruelling punishment in the form of physical exercise.
This was known as making prisoners do sport, and these exercises were brutal considering
the prisoners had hardly any food and nutrition to sustain them on, and they were already
suffering heavily.
Prisoners who were held in quarantine were also forced to do these exercises.
Plagge would bellow orders whipping and beating prisoners, and he was a man who was considered
the one who invented many of these torturous exercises.
But a group of prisoners when Plagge ordered towers forced to walk quickly, sing loudly,
run very quickly, and they were forced to crawl on their elbows and walk on the tips
of their toes, as well as rolling around on the ground which was covered with gravel and
bricks which would be awfully painful.
But Plagge would encourage the prisoners to keep going and he would whip and beat them
driving them forward.
He made prisoners run for hours and hours, and he would watch them with his smoking pipe
in his teeth.
He then if they fell would batter the inmates and he would force them to continue, even
when they collapsed.
But the prisoners nicknamed him ‘The Little Pipe.’
However after a short while at Sachsenhausen, Plagge was then transferred across to Auschwitz
in July 1940, and he was considered one of the founder SS members of the camps staff.
He was one of the first SS guards in a camp which would become the deadliest concentration
camp of them all, with over 1 million killed there.
He stayed at Auschwitz for over 3 years, and he had a number of different roles at Auschwitz,
first serving as the Block Leader inside of Block 11 the death block.
Block 11 was where the torture at the camp was carried out and there were a number of
special torture chambers inside the building, and there were also standing cells where inmates
were locked in for long periods of time with hardly any space.
Plagge was one of those guards who regularly worked inside the torture centre of Auschwitz,
and he then became a Rapport-fuhrer.
He then worked inside of Birkenau as the deputy roll call leader and he would be also responsible
for executions at roll call.
But following being sent to Auschwitz, he then went to Majdanek in Lublin before being
moved on again to Flossenburg concentration camp.
But as the end of the Second World War came around, Ludwig Plagge would be made the commander
of the Regensburg sub camp of Flossenburg.
He had also at some point worked at Theresienstadt, where he had personally been involved in the
gassings of thousands of people.
But at the end of the conflict, the authorities found out about Ludwig Plagge and he was hunted,
but he was then arrested.
He was taken to Poland where he was brought to the Auschwitz Trial in Krakow that sought
to punish former members of the guard force that worked at the deadliest concentration
camp.
But Ludwig Plagge would give the courtroom what he thought they wanted, and he admitted
to some crimes whilst working at the camp.
He admitted that he was a brute who would administer beatings regularly to prisoners,
but claimed that the never killed or executed anyone, and he maintained that he was not
involved inside of the exterminations of thousands.
He wanted the courtroom to see him as a good man who was just following orders, but this
was not the case.
There was a huge amount of evidence against him including his own testimony and during
the Auschwitz Trials he was sentenced to death after being found guilty of crimes against
humanity.
There were many other defendants who had been found guilty of crimes at Auschwitz, and for
this they were executed.
The executions took place on the 24th January 1948 inside of Montelupich Prison.
The women who were condemned were executed first, but then inside of an execution chamber
in the Polish prison, a number of meathooks were found in the ceilings.
Passed over these were ropes which would be used to execute the former guards.
Each of the condemned including Ludwig Plagge were led into the execution chamber in small
groups, and they were quickly led to a stool which was by a noose.
They had their identity’s confirmed and they then were secured with the noose around
the neck by the executioner who then without a seconds hesitation he kicked the stool out
from under the former guards and they were then executed.
This is what happened for Ludwig Plagge and following the deaths many of the condemned
had their remains given to medical science.
Ludwig Plagge was a brutal and barbaric guard who worked inside of a number of concentration
camps.
He created many of the brutal punishments that inmates were forced to carry out on a
daily basis, and he was also a man who was involved in the executions of thousands of
people who died inside of gas chambers.
He was a sadistic torturer and for his crimes he was then executed inside of a polish prison,
and he was linked to the evils of the deadliest concentration camp of the Second World War.
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