Otto Foerschner

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Otto Förschner after his arrest

Otto Förschner (born November 4, 1902 in Dürrenzimmern , † May 28, 1946 in Landsberg am Lech ) was a German SS-Sturmbannführer and camp commandant of the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp .

Life

Otto Förschner spent the first years of his life on his parents' farm in Bavaria. In 1922 he enlisted in the Reichswehr for twelve years and in March 1934, after completing his military service, he joined the SS disposable troops as an SS member . In 1937 Förschner also became a member of the NSDAP . From April 1, 1934 to December 1, 1936, Förschner attended the SS Junker School in Bad Tölz and was then an SS leader in the III./SS-VT -Standarte Germania , initially in Wolterdingen and from July 31, 1937 at the new one Battalion location in Radolfzell , where he remained stationed as company commander of the 12th Company until April 1, 1938. Then he switched to the 12th Company of the SS-VT standard Der Führer . At the beginning of the attack on Poland on September 1, 1939 and until July 1, 1940, Förschner was part of the 4th Company of the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler . In the further course of the Second World War Förschner took part in the attack on the Soviet Union with the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking of the Waffen-SS from June 22, 1941 .

After being injured in the war, Förschner was transferred to the Buchenwald concentration camp in the spring of 1942 as leader of the SS guard tower . From September 1943 he acted as the commanding officer in the Buchenwald subcamp Dora and as managing director and, from the beginning of October 1943, as operations manager of Mittelwerk GmbH , a front company for V-weapons production. Förschner had to give up his position as manager of the Mittelwerk after Georg Rickhey became General Director of Mittelwerk GmbH in April 1944. After the restructuring of the Mittelwerke, his duties as warehouse manager and managing director also included monitoring security, work and confidentiality measures and also preventing acts of sabotage (defense officer) . His temporary adjutant was Heinz Detmers . From October 1944 Förschner became the camp commandant of the now independent Mittelbau concentration camp and remained so until the end of January 1945. His successor in this post was Richard Baer from the beginning of February 1945 .

As Dora-Mittelbau's camp commandant, Förschner relied on cooperation with red prison functionaries right from the start . They were given influential posts in the prisoner administration so that Förschner could use their expertise for the running of a well-functioning camp. In particular, one of the protagonists of the camp resistance, the prison functionary Albert Kuntz , was able to gain Förschner's trust and thus influence the allocation of functional posts. In the autumn of 1944, several resistance circles were exposed after an investigation by the Gestapo , which also caused Förschner difficulties. In addition, he did not pay back to Mittelwerke GmbH a one-time gratuity of 10,000 RM initiated by Rickhey in 1944 . He had not reported this one-off payment to the SS administration, which nevertheless learned of it and demanded repayment. It is not certain whether this doping affair or the uncovered camp resistance caused his replacement as camp commandant. During this time, former prisoners considered him an advantageous exception within the SS leaders because of his understanding of the prisoners' situation.

From February 1, 1945, Förschner was transferred to the Kauferinger sub-camps of the Dachau concentration camp as a camp leader , where he was responsible for the work details and the evacuation of prisoners at the end of April 1945. At the end of April 1945, Förschner was arrested by members of the US Army .

Dock in the main Dachau trial in 1945. Otto Förschner: middle row, far right, next to Claus Schilling

On November 15, 1945, Förschner was tried in the main Dachau trial, which took place as part of the Dachau trials , on charges of war crimes in a US military court . Förschner was on 13 December 1945, thirty-five other co-accused by the US military court to death by the strand convicted. In the judgment, Förschner's individual acts of excess were taken into account as the mistreatment of prisoners, the management of the execution of sentences and the killing of a prisoner with an iron pipe. The sentence was carried out on May 28, 1946 in the Landsberg War Crimes Prison .

Förschner had been married since 1931 and had three children.

literature

  • Tom Segev : The Soldiers of Evil. On the history of the concentration camp commanders. Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1995, ISBN 3-499-18826-0 .
  • Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich: Who was what before and after 1945. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-596-16048-0 .
  • Case No. 000-50-2 (US vs. Martin Gottfried Weiss et al.) Tried 13 Dec. 45 in tight. Language (PDF; 39.00 MB)
  • Holger Lessing: The first Dachau trial (1945/46). Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, Baden-Baden 1993, ISBN 3-7890-2933-5 .
  • Jens-Christian Wagner : Production of Death: The Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp. Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-89244-439-0 .
  • Jens-Christian Wagner (ed.): Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp 1943–1945. Accompanying volume for the permanent exhibition at the Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp Memorial. Wallstein, Göttingen 2007, ISBN 978-3-8353-0118-4 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Jens-Christian Wagner : Production of death: The Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp. Göttingen 2001, p. 301.
  2. ↑ a b Jens-Christian Wagner (Ed.): Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp 1943–1945. Göttingen 2007, p. 100f.
  3. ↑ Tom Segev: The Soldiers of Evil. On the history of the concentration camp commanders. Reinbek near Hamburg 1995, p. 89.
  4. ↑ a b c d Ernst Klee: The personal dictionary on the Third Reich: Who was what before and after 1945. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 158.
  5. ^ Rainer Eisfeld : Moonstruck. Wernher von Braun and the birth of space travel from the spirit of barbarism. Paperback, 2012, ISBN 9783866741676 , p. 125.
  6. ^ Jens-Christian Wagner: Production of death: The Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp. Göttingen 2001, p. 301ff.
  7. ^ Jens-Christian Wagner: Production of death: The Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp. Göttingen 2001, p. 304ff.
  8. ↑ David A. Hackett: The Buchenwald Report. Verlag CH Beck, Munich, ISBN 3-406-41168-1 , p. 63.
  9. ^ Holger Lessing: The first Dachau trial (1945/46). Baden-Baden 1993, p. 319.
personal data
SURNAME Förschner, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German commander of the Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp
DATE OF BIRTH November 4, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Dürrenzimmern (Nördlingen)
DATE OF DEATH May 28, 1946
Place of death Landsberg War Crimes Prison