Arthur Dietzsch

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Photo from 1947

Arthur Dietzsch (born October 2, 1901 in Pausa ; †  August 26, 1974 in Burgdorf ) was a German prisoner functionary and inmate nurse responsible as Kapo in Block 46 of the Buchenwald concentration camp .

Life

Dietzsch attended the Realgymnasium in Plauen . After the end of the First World War , before the end of his school career, Dietzsch became a member of the paramilitary organization Stahlhelm and took part in the street fights against the communists as a "temporary volunteer" of the Reichswehr . After graduating from high school in 1920 , Dietzsch signed up for twelve years as an officer candidate for the Reichswehr . During the Reich execution against Saxony in 1923, Dietzsch warned his girlfriend's father, who was a KPD activist, of the imminent arrest. Dietzsch then deserted and surrendered to the Leipzig police headquarters after five days. Because of the 1923 were made in Dresden passing secret "information about the impending invasion of the army (imposition of Reichsexekution) in Saxony" was Dietzsch on May 26, 1924 because of state and high treason by the Supreme Court in Leipzig to 14 years in prison convicted of the 1925 Custody were converted.

Imprisonment in concentration camps

After the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists , Dietzsch was transferred to the Sonnenburg concentration camp in March 1933, shortly before his release from prison in Gollnow . From there he was probably transferred to the Esterwegen concentration camp in 1934 and then to the Lichtenburg concentration camp. From February 1938 Dietzsch was a prisoner in the Buchenwald concentration camp .

In January 1942 he took up work as a prisoner nurse at the newly created experimental station in Block 46 and worked under the camp doctors Erwin Ding-Schuler and his temporary deputy Waldemar Hoven . Dietzsch, however, had no medical knowledge; He only acquired these in the context of nursing. By mid-1943 at the latest, he became the chief inmate nurse there as a Kapo and was involved in the typhus tests carried out by the camp doctor Ding-Schuler in Block 46 . Dietzsch was responsible for caring for both the trial victims and those suffering from typhus who had become infected naturally. He worked together with the illegal camp management and removed prisoners who were at risk from the access of the SS by placing them in Block 46 .

“It was also known in the camp that an iron discipline was being kept in block 46 by Kapo Arthur Dietzsch. The beating really reigned there. Everyone who came to Block 46 as a test subject not only had to reckon with death, and possibly a very protracted and terrible death, which he imagined, but also with torture and a complete elimination of the last bit of personal life Freedom."

- Eugen Kogon : Testimony at the Nuremberg medical trial on January 7, 1947.

Dietzsch was the senior inmate attendant in Block 46 until the beginning of April 1945. At that time, Dietzsch learned from Ding-Schuler that he was on a list of 46 named inmates whom the SS wanted to execute shortly before the camp was liberated. With three other prisoners threatened with death, Dietzsch hid under a barrack of the prisoner infirmary. Since this hiding place was only safe for a short time, Dietzsch had two inmates connected to him dig him in near the insulation block at a shallow depth and cover him with leaves. This is how he spent the last three days until the Buchenwald concentration camp was liberated on April 11, 1945.

After the end of the war

Nuremberg Document NO-265: Diary of the typhus station in Buchenwald concentration camp, page 23

After the end of the Second World War , Dietzsch was arrested in December 1946. He was a witness of the defense in the Nuremberg doctors trial , in which the tropical medicine doctor Gerhard Rose and Waldemar Hoven who were involved in the typhus experiments in the Buchenwald concentration camp were also indicted. Dietzsch described Ding-Schuler's diary, cited as evidence , which his former prisoner clerk Eugen Kogon handed over to American troops after the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp, as a forgery. Dietzsch stated that on the orders of Ding-Schuler he published the original at the beginning of April 1945, which he burned in the oven with other incriminating documents.

As part of the Dachau trials in the main Buchenwald trial , Dietzsch and 30 other accused were indicted before an American military court. Dietzsch was accused of infecting Allied prisoners with typhoid fever through injections on the instructions of the responsible camp doctor, with the result that several infected people died of typhoid fever. A number of exonerating witnesses testified for Dietzsch. Dietzsch had saved the lives of three prisoners sentenced to death, two British officers and the later diplomat Stéphane Hessel by giving them the identity of the deceased. Another inmate testified that he took good care of the inmates in Block 46 and looked after them and never mistreated them. On August 14, 1947 Dietzsch was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment for "helping and participating in the operations of the Buchenwald concentration camp".

Dietzsch was imprisoned in the Landsberg War Crimes Prison and released early from custody there in early December 1950. The prison sentence was not reduced, but retrospectively reduced to zero years and thus practically abolished. Marion Countess Dönhoff and Kurt Schumacher also campaigned for his release . Former Buchenwald prisoners also successfully pursued Dietzsch's early release from prison with reference to his cooperation with the Buchenwald camp resistance and his participation in rescue operations.

Dietzsch exonerated the former Buchenwald prisoners Werner Hilpert and Eugen Kogon as part of the denazification for the purpose of issuing a certificate for those not affected on January 16, 1951. Dietzsch was later neither recognized as a politically persecuted person nor did he receive compensation or reparations. Due to a heart and kidney disease, he was subsequently permanently unable to work. He maintained a lively correspondence with persecuted organizations and former beech forest prisoners. He also testified as a witness in several proceedings involving crimes in the Buchenwald concentration camp. He was married to Lilly, née Endryat.

His life story was processed literarily by Ernst von Salomon in Das Schicksal des AD - A man in the shadow of history and published in 1960. A preprint appeared from 1959 in the weekly newspaper Die Zeit . A case against Dietzsch as part of a collective investigation into the crimes in the Buchenwald concentration camp was discontinued on August 23, 1967. Dietzsch died in Burgdorf in August 1974.

In an interview conducted in 2008, Hessel, rescued by Dietzsch, described this prison functionary as a “type of kapo” who is “both terrible and indispensable”.

literature

Web links

Commons : Arthur Dietzsch  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Wolfgang Röll: Social Democrats in the Buchenwald Concentration Camp 1937–1945. Wallstein, Göttingen 2000, ISBN 3-89244-417-X , pp. 233-234.
  2. ↑ Cf. Institut für Zeitgeschichte München: Nachlaß Arthur Dietzsch - Archive - Holdings ED 112 Volumes 1–18, Preliminary remark (PDF file; 1.3 MB) ( Memento of the original from November 27, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was used automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ifz-muenchen.de
  3. ↑ AStA TU Berlin (ed.): ... from aniline to forced labor - The path of a monopoly through history - On the origins and development of the German chemical industry. A documentation of the IG Farben working group of the Federal Conference of Chemical Student Associations , 1994 (PDF file; 4 , 7 MB); Typhus tests, p. 79 ff.
  4. ↑ Klaus Dörner (Ed.): The Nuremberg Medical Process 1946/47. Verbal transcripts, prosecution and defense material, sources on the environment. Saur, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-598-32020-5 , pp. 2/01205
  5. ↑ cf. Eugen Kogon: The SS state. The system of the German concentration camps ; Frechen: Komet, 2000; P. 175f.
  6. ↑ Cf. Institut für Zeitgeschichte München: Nachlass Arthur Dietzsch, Archive Inventory ED 112, Volume 17: Interview with Arthur Dietzsch, tape recordings by Ernst Thape 1972
    Dietzsch's statement of April 3, 1947 at the Nuremberg Trials Project ( Memento of the original from July 25 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / nuremberg.law.harvard.edu
  7. ↑ Stéphane Hessel: How I survived Buchenwald and other camps. In: FAZ No. 17 of January 21, 2011, p. 35
  8. ↑ See Buchenwald main process (United States of America v. Josias Prince zu Waldeck et al. - Case 000-50-9), p. 43f.
  9. ↑ Cf. Institute for Contemporary History Munich: Arthur Dietzsch estate, archive holdings ED 112, volumes 2–4.14–15 (PDF file; 1.3 MB) ( Memento of the original from November 27, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was used automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ifz-muenchen.de
  10. ↑ Cf. Institute for Contemporary History Munich: Arthur Dietzsch estate - Archive - holdings ED 112 Volume 2 and preliminary remarks
  11. ↑ Jörg Wollenberg: Conversation with Stéphane Hessel from Paris on February 2, 2008 on the art of survival in the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora concentration camps and on the role of prisoner functionaries (PDF; 88 kB), p. 2. on http: // www. stiftung-sozialgeschichte.de/
personal data
SURNAME Dietzsch, Arthur
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Kapo in Block 46 of Buchenwald Concentration Camp
DATE OF BIRTH October 2, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Break
DATE OF DEATH August 26, 1974
Place of death Burgdorf