Arno Lippmann

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Arno Lippmann (* July 25, 1890 - † May 29, 1946 in Landsberg am Lech ) was the camp leader of the Kaufering II and Kaufering VII satellite camps as SS-Obersturmführer . As a war criminal , Lippmann was sentenced to death and executed in the Dachau trials .

Life

Lippmann, a master shoemaker, was a soldier from 1912 to 1919. He joined the SS (membership number 439) in 1927. He was a member of the NSDAP (membership number 8,891). Lippmann was married; the marriage had three children.

After the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists, Lippmann was part of the staff of the Dachau concentration camp for the first time from 1935 , then again from October 1942 as second or third head of the protective custody camp under Michael Redwitz . According to his own later statements, Lippmann was present when 15 concentration camp prisoners were punished in March 1943. The punishment of the prisoners ordered by commandant Martin Gottfried Weiß was carried out by prison functionaries . He was also present at the execution of a Polish prisoner in January or February 1943.

In August 1944 Lippmann was transferred to a satellite camp of the Dachau concentration camp in the Kaufering and Landsberg am Lech area . Eleven satellite camps were set up in this area; the prisoners, mostly Jews, were used as slave labor in the construction of a semi-underground concrete bunker in which fighter planes were to be produced. Lippmann was initially camp manager in the Kaufering II subcamp near Igling with an average of 1200 prisoners, and from January 1945 in the VII subcamp near Erpfting . Between 1,300 and 1,500 prisoners were held in this camp; According to Lippmann's own statements, between 20 and 25 concentration camp prisoners died of typhus every month . The prisoners were poorly fed and insufficiently supplied with clothing, Lippmann said in a statement made after the end of the war. According to prisoners, Lippmann was personally involved in the mistreatment of prisoners: during a selection of sick prisoners, he tore off an inmate who was clinging to his father and beat his son until he was unconscious. Sick prisoners were initially transported to Auschwitz to be gassed , later two of the camps near Kaufering were used as “death camps”. When a camp was cleared in April 1945, Lippmann shot at a group of prisoners who were looking for something to eat in a rubbish pit.

Excerpt from Lippmann's statement of November 4, 1945 (English translation)

After the end of the war, from November 15, 1945, Lippmann and 39 other members of the camp staff were accused in the main Dachau trial, which took place as part of the Dachau trials . The US Military Tribunal was charged with "violating the laws and customs of war" against civilians and prisoners of war alike. The term “ common design ” played a central role in the prosecution : not only the individual acts of the concentration camp personnel were viewed as criminal, but the concentration camp system itself. In the course of the preliminary investigations it had proven difficult to assign individual crimes to the accused, as the concentration camp inmates only partially survived, their statements lacked the necessary precision due to the traumatization and they only partially knew the names of the perpetrators. In the trial, Lippmann's defense attorney referred to the defendant's harmless appearance and brought statements from exonerating witnesses that Lippmann was calm, serious and by no means cruel.

Lippmann was sentenced to death on December 13, 1945, along with 35 other defendants. In his case, the court saw the beating of prisoners as an individual act of excess as proven. The judgment was confirmed on April 5, 1946 by the Commander-in-Chief of the American Armed Forces in Europe , who had received a recommendation from a so-called "Review Board" of the army. Lippmann was hanged in Landsberg War Crimes Prison on May 29, 1946 .

Remarks

  1. ↑ Biographical information on Lippmann in: Review of Proceedings of General Military Court in the Case United States vs. Martin Gottfried Weiss (pdf, 40 MB) at www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org, pp. 75, 125; also Edith Raim: The Dachau concentration camp external commandos Kaufering and Mühldorf. Armaments construction and forced labor in the last year of the war, 1944/45. Landsberger Verlagsanstalt Martin Neumeyer, Landsberg am Lech 1992, ISBN 3-920216-56-3 , p. 160.
  2. ↑ a b Lippmann's statement in the run-up to the Dachau trial on November 4, 1945, quoted in Review (pdf, 40 MB), p. 75f.
  3. ^ Raim, KZ-Außenkommandos , passim. An overview of the locations of the camps at the European Holocaust Memorial Foundation eV (accessed on March 25, 2916)
  4. ↑ Summary of the statements: Review (pdf, 40 MB), p. 75.
  5. ↑ Edith Raim: Das Ende von Kaufering IV. In: Wolfgang Benz, Barbara Distel (Ed.): Dachauer Hefte , Heft 20, Verlag Dachauer Hefte, Dachau 2004, ISBN 3-9808587-4-X , pp. 139–156, here p. 150f.
  6. ↑ On "Common Design": Robert Sigel: In the interest of justice. The Dachau war crimes trials 1945–1948. Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt 1992, ISBN 3-593-34641-9 , p. 42ff.
  7. ↑ “What about this old man, Lippmann? Does he look like a man that would mistreat anyone? " quoted in Sigel, Interest , p. 59.
  8. ↑ Summary of the exonerating statements: Review (pdf, 40 MB), p. 125.
  9. ^ Holger Lessing: The first Dachau trial (1945/46). Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, Baden-Baden 1993, ISBN 3-7890-2933-5 , p. 322.
  10. ↑ Summary of the review on Lippmann: Review (pdf, 40 MB), p. 153. Ibid, p. 164, the recommendation to maintain the death penalty in the case of Lippmann.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Lippmann, Arno
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Camp leader of satellite concentration camps near Kaufering, executed as a war criminal
DATE OF BIRTH July 25, 1890
DATE OF DEATH May 29, 1946
Place of death Landsberg War Crimes Prison