At the end of the Second World War, a number of war crimes trials were held to bring the
guards and staff of concentration camps to justice.
At camps such as Dachau, Bergen Belsen and Auschwitz, guards would inflict horrific acts
of brutality onto the prisoners there and many became infamous for their terrible actions.
Inside of camps, there would be a commandant who was the one who was at the very top, and
who’s job it was to oversee the whole prison there.
Many of these commandants were the ones responsible for the instilling the reign of fear and terror
there, and one commandant of Auschwitz Rudolf Hoess would actually be executed in his own
camp after the war for his crimes against humanity.
But there was one commandant of Auschwitz who oversaw the horrific death camp in it’s
final days, who was never brought to justice having managed to live out the rest of his
life quietly in Germany after the war.
Join us today as we look at, ‘The Disgusting Crimes of Richard Baer, Auschwitz I’ last
commandant.’
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Despite working as a journeyman travelling around Germany performing different jobs,
Richard Baer signed up to the Nazi Party as a member early in 1930, and two years later
he would join the General SS.
He was based inside of Weiden, and he rubbed shoulders with other SS members of staff including
the commandant of Dachau, Martin Gottfried Weiss.
Baer served underneath Weiss, and his role inside the SS was to act as a bodyguard and
as a protector to those anti-semitic Nazi speakers who would speak at public rallies
and meetings in front of crowds inside of villages in the local area.
Baer would be one of the men tasked with beating any resistance to the Nazi speakers, and in
this was important in spreading the ideology of the Nazis.
Richard Baer would claim that the reason he joined the General SS was because he liked
the idea of being a soldier, and playing this role, and he was also attracted to the discipline
of the group as well as the ideology spread by the Nazis.
Most of the SS men based alongside Baer were auxiliary police officers, and as time went
on they were assigned to serve and work inside of concentration camps.
When Dachau opened in 1933, the SS men were transferred there and would act as the first
guards of Dachau.
Here Baer and the SS would perform many military drills and would learn all about how to terrorise
and brutalise prisoners inside of a concentration camp, to make sure they were scared and would
be productive work wise.
These training sessions were used upon all staff later, and the guards were also indoctrinated
strongly with the Nazi ideologies, to make sure that they were not hesitant to carry
out the persecution of those considered undesirable by the Nazis.
Whilst at Dachau, Baer was taught by Theodore Eicke who would later become the commandant
of Dachau, and it was said that Eicke was the one who set the reign of terror at Dachau,
instigating brutal torture and punishments there.
Baer would stated that he enjoyed his training there, and said that it was very strict, but
also sharply polished and he said, ‘the more we were polished, the more proud we were
of it.’
So Baer was one of the first SS guards, and the fact he was proud of instigating the violent
regime of Dachau shows the sort of human he really was.
But then Richard Baer would be transferred in December 1934 to Columbia Haus in Berlin.
This was a terrifying Gestapo prison, which was known for it’s torture and horror and
inside of here the Nazis would do anything to extract information from Communists, Jews
and others regarded as their enemies.
He then was sent to the SS-Death’s Head unit, who would work inside of the concentration
camps, and he was there when Sachsenhausen was expanded.
But then he took a training course and was then based in Buchenwald Concentration camp,
before he was promoted to the rank of Second leftenant in the SS in September 1938.
He then travelled on again to the Neuengamme concentration camp which had not long been
opened, but then he rose to prominence inside of a camp.
He had become a commando overseer, and Baer would oversee groups of prisoners whilst working
and would be driving the prisoners he was watching to complete more back breaking work.
But at some point, he then had a change of heart and wanted to serve inside of the army
and asked to join the front line of the Wehrmacht’s war effort.
After this was approved he was sent to the Eastern Front to fight in the Soviet Union
where he was injured in December 1941 and after he was then sent back to Nueuengamme.
He then became the adjutant to the Commandant of this camp, and whilst he was at Nueungamme
he was involved in the executions there.
He was responsible for the mass killing of Soviet POWs inside of a has chamber that had
been made.
Overall, inside of this camp 42,000 prisoners would be killed.
Baer was also responsible for the selections here of prisoners who would then be massacred
as part of the Action T4 programme, the euthanasia programme which killed 300,000.
But then, Richard Baer who was seen as a competent assistant and he worked with Oswald Pool the
Chief of the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office.
He then became involved in the concentration camp inspectorate where he would visit different
camps, and would carry out inspections of them to check they were being as brutal as
possible and as efficient in the killing.
But then he would get his promotion to the Commandant of Auschwitz I, the largest killing
centre of the holocaust.
He replaced Arthur Liebehenschel, a man considered by Heinrich Himmler too soft, and Baer was
brought to Auschwitz I to oversee the killing operation there and the work conditions from
the 11th of May 1944 until the camp was dissolved as the Soviets were advancing.
Auschwitz I was the oldest part of the complex, and there was a crematoria here.
It was being used throughout the whole of the camp’s operation, and it was here where
thousands of victims would be gassed and their remains were then burned here.
Baer would be responsible for the killings inside here during his time as the commandant,
despite the fact that Birkenau had become the main killing centre of the camp after
expansion.
However Baer would get one final transfer during the Second World War as following the
closure of Auschwitz as the Soviet’s approached, he was transferred to Mittelbau-Dora where
he served as the commandant there.
Dora was a horrific camp where the conditions were brutal and inhumane, and prisoners were
forced to work hard 14 hour days, and were not given much food and also access to basic
facilities such as toilets and beds.
Inside of here, 20,000 people died as they were forced into manufacturing the V1 and
V2 rocket, but as the war was coming to an end, the prisoners were sent on death marches
by the SS and Baer as the final commandant would be involved in organising these.
But just as the Allies were approaching the camp, Baer was nowhere to be seen.
He had fled the camp, and had ran off to Hamburg under a false identity, and he called himself
Karl Egon Neumann and passed himself off as a forestry worker.
During the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials, which took place in the 60s, there was a warrant
issued to bring in for arrest Richard Baer, and his image was published in many newspapers.
After seeing a picture inside of a newspaper, a worker who worked on the estate of Otto
von Bismarck with Baer confronted him.
Baer still claiming to be Neumann denied everything, however it was said his wife had given her
name as Frau Baer, or Mrs Baer.
However he later confessed his identity, but his lawyer told him to refuse to testify and
this is what he did.
Richard Baer was held in pre-trial detention.
Baer whilst he was held awaiting trial had a heart attack, and he died at the age of
51.
It’s clear that during his time inside of the SS, Richard Baer was complicit in the
brutality of the concentration camps and also in the deaths of thousands.
He was one of the thousands of guards tasked with inflicting such terror onto prisoners,
and as he became a commandant he would be the one who was in charge of his own concentration
camp.
He was a man seen by Himmler as one who would efficiently and violently carry out the work
of a commandant of Auschwitz.
Justice was never brought for the work of Richard Baer, and today many of his crimes
remain untold.
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