EXECUTION of Hans Aumeier - Extremely Sadistic NAZI Commandant at Auschwitz & Kaufering Camps
EXECUTION of Hans Aumeier - Extremely Sadistic NAZI Commandant at Auschwitz & Kaufering Camps
Execution of Hans Aumeier - Extremely Sadistic Nazi Commandant at Auschwitz \u0026 Kaufering Camps. Hans Aumeier was born on the 20th of August 1906 in Amberg then part of the German Empire. In August 1929, Aumeier became one of the earliest members of the SS with the identification number 2,700 and soon after joining the organization he belonged to the Munich staff of Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS. The SS – Schutzstaffel or Protection Squads - was originally established in April 1925 to protect Adolf Hitler and other Nazi leaders and speakers and provide security for political meetings. SS officers were directly responsible for the management of concentration camps, where millions of Jews were murdered by poison gas. One such officer became Hans Aumeier whose career in concentration camps began in January 1934 at Dachau situated near Munich. Established in March 1933 it was the first regular concentration camp built by the Nazi government. In April 1936 Aumeier was deployed as a guard in the Esterwegen concentration camp located near the German-Dutch border. In December 1936, Aumeier became an independent commander of the guard company in the Lichtenburg camp. Between 1937–1938 Aumeier held the same position at Buchenwald and in August 1938 he served as camp director and deputy commandant at the Flossenbürg concentration camp. Flossenbürg’s original purpose was to exploit the forced labor of prisoners for the production of granite for Nazi construction projects. Until mid-1943 when the camp became a key supplier of Messerschmitt Bf 109 aircraft parts, the quarry occupied the labor of about half of the prisoner population. In January 1942 Hans Aumeier arrived in Auschwitz becoming Deputy commandant of Auschwitz concentration camp.
On Aumeier’s order, 144 women were shot on the 19th of March 1942, at the execution wall in the courtyard of Blocks 10 and 11. On the 27th of May 1942, he was present at a mass execution of 168 prisoners who were shot in the same way. On that day approximately 400 Polish political prisoners were forced into the penal company. Prisoners were assigned to the penal company for various reasons such escape attempts, contact with civilians or the illegal possession of food, money, additional clothing, or family photographs, or sluggishness at work—in the opinion of the SS supervisors. They performed the hardest labor, usually at double time or on the run and they were liable to be beaten continually by SS men and prisoner functionaries.
Aumeier was known to all the prisoners for beating and kicking them for the slightest fault – for example, failure to march to the pace and rhythm of the orchestra. He was an alcoholic and used to shoot prisoners for no reason when he was drunk.
After the war, Auschwitz survivors testified that whenever Hans Aumeier appeared, the SS men who supervised the work would begin to behave with great cruelty towards the prisoners, yell at them and beat them even more.
Aumeier was also active in the selections on the rail ramp when the arrivals, lined up into two columns, were selected for labor or for work. In December 1944 Aumeier became a commandant of Kaufering which was the common name of a system of eleven subcamps of the Dachau concentration camp system. The conditions in Kaufering were horrible. The prisoners deported to each of the 11 subcamps had to construct the accommodation themselves. The resulting huts, partially buried for camouflage from aerial reconnaissance, were completely inadequate for the weather conditions.
In January 1945, Hans Aumeier took over as commandant of the Grini police prison camp in Nazi-occupied Norway. He treated prisoners here in a completely different way than in previous camps. Aumeier was lenient towards them, collaborated with the Norwegian Red Cross even letting them enter the camp and on the 7th of May 1945, he released the prisoners and closed the camp. In the following year he was extradited to Poland where he was tried at the Auschwitz trial which began on the 24th of November 1947 and lasted one month. On the 22nd of December 1947, the Polish Supreme National Tribunal in Krakow sentenced Aumeier to death by hanging. He was 41 years old when he was executed on the 24th of January 1948
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Content
0.3 -> The 30th of January 1933, Germany. Adolf
Hitler, the leader of the Nazi Party,
7.08 -> is appointed chancellor of Germany and aims
to lead the German “master race” to victory
11.4 -> in the "racial struggle" against those deemed as
“inferior” peoples, especially the Jews. The Nazi
17.76 -> regime quickly begins to restrict the civil and
human rights of the Jewish people and gradually
22.86 -> excludes them from professions, businesses,
and public spaces. The first concentration
28.2 -> camp – Dachau – is established less than 2
months after Hitler became the chancellor.
32.88 -> Between 1933 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its
European allies would establish more than
40.74 -> 44,000 camps and other incarceration sites,
including ghettos. The perpetrators would use
46.14 -> these locations for forced labor, detention of
people deemed to be "enemies of the state," and
51.06 -> the mass murder of millions. One such perpetrator
is a German Nazi Commandant Hans Aumeier.
57.9 -> Hans Aumeier was born on the 20th of August 1906
in Amberg then part of the German Empire. In 1918,
65.76 -> at the age of 12, he left school without any
qualifications to take up an apprenticeship
70.08 -> as a turner and fitter in a local rifle
factory, following his father’s career.
73.92 -> In 1923 he left the small factory in Amberg
and began to work for a bigger rifle company
79.56 -> in Munich. In 1925 Aumeier tried to join the
Reichswehr – the German Army - but failed. He then
86.22 -> returned to the rifle factory in Munich and until
1926 he worked in similar factories in Berlin,
91.38 -> Bremen and Cologne. Throughout the
period 1926 to 1929, Aumeier moved
97.86 -> from one job to another, taking part-time
work and summer jobs in order to survive.
101.88 -> In August 1929, Aumeier became one of
the earliest members of the SS with
107.22 -> the identification number 2,700 and soon
after joining the organization he belonged
112.56 -> to the Munich staff of Reichsführer
Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS.
116.28 -> The SS – Schutzstaffel or Protection Squads - was
originally established in April 1925 to protect
123.9 -> Adolf Hitler and other Nazi leaders and speakers
and provide security for political meetings. SS
129.96 -> members were subject to strict military
discipline and swore an oath of complete
133.68 -> loyalty to Hitler and those appointed by him. In
January 1929 Heinrich Himmler became the head of
140.22 -> the SS and the organization greatly expanded
in size and strength. By the time Hitler came
145.86 -> into power in January 1933, Himmler had made the
SS the dominant organization within the Reich.
152.34 -> From the beginning of the Nazi regime, Hitler
entrusted the SS first and foremost with the
157.38 -> removal and eventual murder of political
and so-called racial enemies of the regime.
162.42 -> The SS became a virtual state within a
state in Nazi Germany and was staffed by
167.52 -> men who perceived themselves as the
“racial elite” of the Nazi future.
171.66 -> From 1939, the SS assumed responsibility for
“solving” the so-called Jewish Question which
177.72 -> then culminated in 1941, when the leadership
planned, coordinated and directed the so-called
183.6 -> Final Solution. This “solution” was the
genocide of European Jews during World
189.18 -> War II also known as the Holocaust. SS
officers were directly responsible for
194.1 -> the management of concentration camps, where
millions of Jews were murdered by poison gas.
198.36 -> One such officer became Hans Aumeier whose career
202.08 -> in concentration camps began in January
1934 at Dachau situated near Munich.
207.36 -> Established in March 1933 it was the first regular
concentration camp built by the Nazi government.
212.82 -> In October 1933, Dachau’s commandant, Theodor
Eicke, introduced a system of regulations which
219.78 -> inflicted brutal punishments on prisoners for the
slightest offenses. Eicke ensured that the Dachau
224.88 -> camp served as a model for all later concentration
camps. It also became a training center
229.32 -> or a “school of violence” for SS guards who were
deployed throughout the concentration camp system.
233.64 -> Dachau concentration camp was a
place where many Nazi guards such
237.96 -> as Hans Aumeier learned how to torture
the prisoners that they supervised and
241.86 -> how to get a maximum amount of work out
of them whilst they were still alive.
244.98 -> In April 1936 Aumeier was deployed as
a guard in the Esterwegen concentration
250.26 -> camp located near the German-Dutch border.
Most of the prisoners in Esterwegen were
255 -> political prisoners, many of them Communists.
The most famous was Carl von Ossietzky,
259.62 -> a German journalist and political activist
who was sent to Esterwegen in 1933.
264.54 -> For his work in exposing the clandestine German
re-armament, he won the Nobel Peace Prize in
269.1 -> 1935. However, Ossietzky was forbidden from
travelling to Norway and accepting the prize
274.56 -> and after years of starvation, mistreatment and
torture in various Nazi concentration camps,
279.9 -> Ossietzky died 3 years later in 1938 in Berlin.
In December 1936, Aumeier became an independent
287.94 -> commander of the guard company
in the Lichtenburg camp.
290.52 -> Housed in a Renaissance castle, Lichtenburg
was among the first concentration camps to be
295.2 -> built by the Nazis and was operated by the
SS from 1933 to 1939. From 1937 to 1939,
303.06 -> it held only female prisoners. One of
the camp’s most notorious guards was
307.5 -> Maria Mandl whose specialty at Lichtenburg
was to strip the prisoners naked, tie them
312.24 -> to wooden posts and beat them mercilessly
until she could no longer lift her arm.
316.44 -> Between 1937–1938 Aumeier held the same position
at Buchenwald and in August 1938 he served
324.42 -> as camp director and deputy commandant
at the Flossenbürg concentration camp.
328.86 -> Flossenbürg’s original purpose was to
exploit the forced labor of prisoners
332.28 -> for the production of granite for Nazi
construction projects. Until mid-1943 when
337.86 -> the camp became a key supplier of Messerschmitt
Bf 109 aircraft parts, the quarry occupied the
342.78 -> labor of about half of the prisoner population.
In his position Aumeier was responsible for the
348.18 -> operation of the camp, maintaining order and
taking care of daily routines and roll calls.
352.98 -> At Flossenbürg, Aumeier created such harsh
living conditions for the prisoners that
357.96 -> they often committed suicide. He often
personally carried out executions,
361.92 -> punished prisoners personally with whipping, and
ordered long and extremely tiring roll calls.
366.84 -> In addition, exclusively for Poles, Aumeier
introduced the punitive standing punishments
372.72 -> in the camp which lasted from 12 to 42
hours. The standing punishment consisted
377.82 -> of standing to attention in ranks, without
food, drink or a chance to go to the toilet
382.38 -> and without making the slightest movement.
One such standing punishment started with 628
387.72 -> people and finished with less than 500. The
rest were beaten to death, and among them 46
394.26 -> people were shot on Aumeier’s orders who selected
them personally and was present at the execution.
399.12 -> In January 1942 Hans Aumeier arrived in
Auschwitz becoming Deputy commandant of Auschwitz
405.6 -> concentration camp. His duties included taking
care of order in the camp, overseeing the food
410.58 -> and clothing of the prisoners and matters related
to their forced labor. Aumeier terrorized the camp
416.28 -> and became known as a cruel sadist with no limits.
He not only signed off on the death sentences,
421.74 -> but also conducted them himself, often with
his fellow Nazi colleague Gerhard Palitzsch.
426.72 -> Even during work, he would beat and torment the
prisoners whenever he could. He claimed that any
431.64 -> prisoner living in the conditions created by him
could not survive for longer than three months.
436.56 -> Aumeier practically became the master of
life and death of the Auschwitz prisoners,
441.24 -> and he gave the kapos and guards far-reaching
power which led to an increase of the terror
445.62 -> in the camp. He once said, "Only a
dead prisoner is a decent prisoner."
451.14 -> He hated Poles and used to
call them “You Polish pigs”.
454.98 -> On Aumeier’s order, 144 women were
shot on the 19th of March 1942,
460.74 -> at the execution wall in the courtyard of
Blocks 10 and 11. On the 27th of May 1942,
466.98 -> he was present at a mass execution of 168
prisoners who were shot in the same way.
472.08 -> On that day approximately 400 Polish political
prisoners were forced into the penal company.
477.42 -> Prisoners were assigned to the penal company for
various reasons such escape attempts, contact
482.58 -> with civilians or the illegal possession of food,
money, additional clothing, or family photographs,
487.98 -> or sluggishness at work—in the opinion of the SS
supervisors. They performed the hardest labor,
493.62 -> usually at double time or on the run and
they were liable to be beaten continually
497.58 -> by SS men and prisoner functionaries.
Of the above mentioned 400 prisoners,
502.38 -> every few days the Germans selected several
prisoners from among the penal company and shot
507.42 -> them. The threat of death hovering over the
prisoners made them think up a plan to flee.
512.28 -> On the 10th of June 1942, Polish prisoners in the
penal company mutinied and attempted to escape
518.94 -> while working on a drainage ditch in Birkenau.
Only 9 of them made it to freedom. In reprisal,
525.24 -> the SS executed 20 prisoners by shooting
and murdered more than 300 Poles from
529.86 -> the penal company in the gas chamber.
Hans Aumeier took part in these reprisals.
534.66 -> Aumeier was known to all the prisoners for
beating and kicking them for the slightest
539.28 -> fault – for example, failure to march
to the pace and rhythm of the orchestra.
543.36 -> He was an alcoholic and used to shoot
prisoners for no reason when he was drunk.
547.56 -> On one occasion during a bread delivery, the
little bits of bread were removed from the
552.06 -> wagon and thrown to the ground. After
the hungry prisoners pounced on them,
555.96 -> Aumeier ran up, began to disperse
the inmates and punched them.
559.8 -> After the war, Auschwitz survivors testified
that whenever Hans Aumeier appeared,
564.48 -> the SS men who supervised the
work would begin to behave with
567.48 -> great cruelty towards the prisoners,
yell at them and beat them even more.
571.32 -> Aumeier was also active in the selections on
the rail ramp when the arrivals, lined up into
576.36 -> two columns, were selected for labor or for work.
Hans Aumeier used to steal the belongings of the
581.58 -> murdered victims including gold and after the
camp’s commandant Rudolf Höss discovered this,
586.2 -> as a punishment in mid-August 1943 he sent Aumeier
to construct and establish Vaivara concentration
591.9 -> camp in Estonia. Since the main purpose of the
camps was the fullest exploitation of the work
596.88 -> capacity of their inmates, no large-scale killings
of the able-bodied took place in the camps.
602.46 -> Prisoners had to work in the nearby forest,
a quarry, or in the oil shale extraction.
606.96 -> Hans Aumeier became the camp’s commandant and
under his supervision the camp’s personnel
612.84 -> carried out selections of the inmates who
were too old or too sick to work. Between
617.4 -> August 1943 and February 1944 when the
camp was operational more than 1,000 men,
623.58 -> women and children were shot
to death in the nearby woods.
627.06 -> In December 1944 Aumeier became a commandant of
Kaufering which was the common name of a system
633 -> of eleven subcamps of the Dachau concentration
camp system. The conditions in Kaufering were
638.34 -> horrible. The prisoners deported to each of the
11 subcamps had to construct the accommodation
643.32 -> themselves. The resulting huts, partially buried
for camouflage from aerial reconnaissance, were
648.9 -> completely inadequate for the weather conditions.
Rain and snow leaked through the earthen roofs,
653.46 -> and vermin infested the huts. Prisoners had to
sleep on straw that had been spread on the floor.
658.98 -> What little food the prisoners did have, was
taken by the SS guards and those who were sick,
663.78 -> were fed even less. There were even incidents of
cannibalism, and some prisoners were so desperate
669.18 -> to escape from their horrible reality that
they would try to commit suicide, by throwing
673.44 -> themselves into the electrical fencing.
At Kaufering, Aumeier abused and
678.24 -> killed the prisoners as well as
willfully neglecting their care.
681.72 -> During Kaufering camp’s existence between June
1944 and April 1945, fifteen thousand out of
689.22 -> 30,000 prisoners died from hunger, disease,
executions, or during death marches.
694.98 -> In January 1945, Hans Aumeier took over as
commandant of the Grini police prison camp in
700.98 -> Nazi-occupied Norway. He treated prisoners here in
a completely different way than in previous camps.
706.68 -> Aumeier was lenient towards them, collaborated
with the Norwegian Red Cross even letting them
711.48 -> enter the camp and on the 7th of May 1945, he
released the prisoners and closed the camp.
717.72 -> Thanks to MI6, the British
secret intelligent service,
720.78 -> he was captured in his SS uniform by the
British forces on the 11th of June 1945.
726.96 -> In the following year he was extradited to
Poland where he was tried at the Auschwitz
731.34 -> trial which began on the 24th of November 1947 and
lasted one month. At the trial he claimed he knew
738.48 -> nothing about the gas chambers and that he had
never killed anyone and neither had any of his
742.74 -> men. He even stated that the evidence against
him was based on witnesses who were haunting
747.6 -> him with their hatred. He also stated that if
he was found guilty and sentenced to death,
752.52 -> he would "die as a scapegoat for Germany". In
addition, Aumeier claimed that he repeatedly
758.16 -> demanded from his superiors to be sent to the
front, but his requests were not met. However,
763.32 -> his lies did not help him escape justice.
On the 22nd of December 1947, the Polish
770.22 -> Supreme National Tribunal in Krakow
sentenced Aumeier to death by hanging.
774.6 -> He was 41 years old when he was
executed on the 24th of January 1948.
781.26 -> There were no tears shed for Hans Aumeier.
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