Anton Thumann

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Anton Thumann in British internment

Anton Thumann (born October 31, 1912 in Pfaffenhofen , † October 8, 1946 in Hameln ) was a German SS-Obersturmführer and used as a protective custody camp leader in various concentration camps .

Life

Thumann was a trained carpenter. After completing his training, he was unemployed until 1932. From the beginning of April 1932 he was a member of the SS (SS No. 24.444) and from the beginning of May 1933 of the NSDAP ( membership number 1.726.633). From 1933 he was a member of the security team of the Dachau concentration camp at the SS-Totenkopfstandarte "Upper Bavaria". Thumann eventually became block leader and was most recently employed in the office of the commandant's office. From August 1940 he was deployed in the Groß-Rosen concentration camp , which at that time was still a sub-camp of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp . Under camp commandant Arthur Rödl , Thumann became head of the protective custody camp of the now independent concentration camp Groß-Rosen from the beginning of May 1941.

From mid-February 1943 to March 1944 he was also employed as a protective custody camp leader in the Majdanek concentration camp . Because of his sadistic tendencies, the participation in selections, gassings and shootings ( action harvest festival ) he was called by the prisoners the "executioner of Majdanek". From mid-April 1944 until the evacuation of the Neuengamme concentration camp at the end of April 1945, Thumann was the head of the protective custody camp there and replaced Albert Lütkemeyer at this post . Thumann, often accompanied by his dog , was, as before in Groß-Rosen and Majdanek, very feared because of his mistreatment of prisoners in Neuengamme.

Using the Höcker album , Thumann could be identified on several group photos that were taken on July 29, 1944 in Solahütte to mark the farewell to Rudolf Höß . Thumann, who, according to the personnel file, was assigned to Neuengamme concentration camp in April 1944 and never nominally held a post in Auschwitz, supported the course of the "Hungary Action" in Auschwitz-Birkenau on site .

After the evacuation of the Neuengamme concentration camp was already in progress, 58 male and 13 female resistance fighters from the Fuhlsbüttel satellite camp were brought to the Neuengamme concentration camp for execution on the orders of the Higher SS and Police Leader Georg-Henning Graf von Bassewitz-Behr . With the participation of Thumann, they were hanged in the arrest bunker from April 21 to 23, 1945. After some of the doomed to defend themselves, Thumann threw a hand grenade through the cell window. Under the command of Thumann and Wilhelm Dreimann , the last 700 prisoners who were still in the camp and who were used to clean up and remove traces left Neuengamme on a death march on April 30, 1945 with the destination Flensburg.

After the end of the war, Thumann was arrested and on March 18, 1946 charged with participating in crimes in Neuengamme concentration camp. The so-called Neuengamme main process was negotiated in the Hamburg Curiohaus . On May 3, 1946 Thumann was to death by the strand convicted and on 8 October 1946 at the prison Hameln executed .

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Anton Thumann  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Isabell Sprenger: Groß-Rosen. A concentration camp in Silesia . Dissertation 1995 at the University of Stuttgart. Böhlau, Cologne 1996, ISBN 3-412-11396-4 , p. 44
  2. ↑ a b Cf. Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich: Who was what before and after 1945. Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 625
  3. ↑ See Wolfgang Benz, Barbara Distel, Angelika Königseder: The Place of Terror - History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps , Volume 7, 2005, p. 44
  4. ↑ See Hermann Kaienburg: The Neuengamme Concentration Camp 1938–1945. , Bonn 1997, p. 296.
  5. ^ Stefan Hördler et al .: Auschwitz in Pictures - For the critical analysis of the Auschwitz albums. In: Zeitschrift für Geschichtswwissenschaft 63 (2015), H. 7/8, p. 625.
  6. ↑ See Hermann Kaienburg: The Neuengamme Concentration Camp 1938–1945. , Bonn 1997, pp. 259ff.
  7. ↑ See Hermann Kaienburg: The Neuengamme Concentration Camp 1938–1945. , Bonn 1997, p. 278
personal data
SURNAME Thumann, Anton
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German war criminal convicted, leader of the protective custody camp in concentration camps
DATE OF BIRTH October 31, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Pfaffenhofen
DATE OF DEATH October 8, 1946
Place of death Hamelin