Alfred Klein (SS member)

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Alfred Klein (born October 2, 1912 in Memmingen , † September 18, 1972 in Berlin ) was a German SS-Hauptscharführer and head of the crematorium in Sachsenhausen concentration camp .

Life

Alfred Klein was the illegitimate child of a spinner . Between 1918 and 1926 he completed elementary school in Memmingen and then did a commercial apprenticeship in a paint wholesaler. After graduating, he got a job as a graphic worker in a newspaper printing company in 1929, which he lost again two years later.

In August 1929 he joined the Hitler Youth . In 1931 he became a member of the General SS and the NSDAP . On April 20, 1933, he joined the SS-Totenkopfverband in Dachau concentration camp . Klein was initially assigned to the security team there, but was able to switch to the command staff in 1936 and was a clerk in the protective custody camp management departmentactive. In September 1938 he was transferred to the command headquarters of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. In early 1940 he was appointed head of the crematorium. During a mass murder campaign that killed over 10,000 Soviet prisoners of war in the autumn of 1941, Klein had to ensure that the corpses were cremated smoothly. From September 1942 to 1945 he was head of the “Oranienburg II registry office”, which took over the registration of deaths in the concentration camp , which had previously been carried out by the administration in Oranienburg .

During the death march in April 1945, Klein left for Hagenow . He lived in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania until the end of 1947 . In 1948 he moved to West Berlin, where he worked as a printmaker at Ullstein AG. In 1964 he was taken into custody . From October 1964 he was on trial in the first Sachsenhausen trial in Cologne , where he was charged with participating in the mass murder of Soviet prisoners of war. On 28 May 1965 he was the Regional Court of Cologne for aid for murder was sentenced to a prison term of one year and ten months. After his early release, he took up a position at Degussa AG .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Günter Morsch: The Concentration Camp SS 1936–1945: Work-sharing perpetrators in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp . Berlin 2018, p. 284.
  2. ^ A b c Günter Morsch: The Concentration Camp SS 1936-1945: Division of labor in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp . Berlin 2018, p. 285.
  3. ^ A b c Günter Morsch: The Concentration Camp SS 1936-1945: Division of labor in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp . Berlin 2018, p. 286.
personal data
SURNAME Small, Alfred
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German SS-Hauptscharführer and head of the crematorium in Sachsenhausen concentration camp
DATE OF BIRTH October 2, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Memmingen
DATE OF DEATH September 18, 1972
Place of death Berlin