August Bender (SS member)
August Heinrich Bender (born March 2, 1909 in Kreuzau , † December 29, 2005 in Düren ) was a German SS-Sturmbannführer and camp doctor in the Buchenwald concentration camp .
Training and activity as a camp and troop doctor
Bender, a doctor of medicine , was a member of the NSDAP ( membership number 2.087.161) and the SS (SS number 194.671). From 1938 to 1939 he worked as a camp doctor in the Buchenwald concentration camp. After the outbreak of the Second World War , Bender was probably employed as a troop doctor in the SS Totenkopf division in the reconnaissance department and the tank destroyer department. From August 1944 to April 11, 1945, Bender again acted as the second camp doctor in the Buchenwald concentration camp. In addition to his medical work in the prisoner infirmary, Bender was also responsible for selecting prisoners who were fit for work for work and field detachments. In the Buchenwald concentration camp, Bender also selected prisoners for the Buchenwald sub-camp in Ohrdruf , in which prisoners were supposed to build a new " Führer Headquarters " under catastrophic living and supply conditions in the rock complex at the Ohrdruf military training area .
“I had instructions to select only strong and fully capable prisoners for Ohrdruf (S III). I strictly followed this instruction. I can remember that I had to look at a large number of inmates, there may have been 4,000 to 5,000, in order to find about 3,000 prisoners who were fit for work and who met the requirements. The search was accelerated by the fact that when the inmates marched past me, I could immediately see which inmate was out of the question for the command - if only because of his malnourished appearance [...] ”
War Crimes Trial and Detention
After the end of the war, Bender was arrested and interned in the US prisoner of war camp in Bad Aibling together with Hans-Theodor Schmidt , Hans Merbach , Max Schobert , Albert Schwartz and Otto Barnewald , who were also part of the Buchenwald concentration camp .
As part of the Dachau trials , Bender was charged with 30 other accused in the main Buchenwald trial. According to testimony from former inmates, Bender is said to have participated in selections and also mistreated inmates. On the other hand, the inmate nurses of the inmate infirmary, in which Bender worked as a camp doctor, testified that he had never mistreated inmates, but had a good reputation in Buchenwald and, moreover, made no discriminatory differences in the treatment of the inmates. On August 14, 1947, Bender was sentenced to ten years imprisonment for helping and participating in the violent crimes in Buchenwald concentration camp, which was later reduced to three years imprisonment. Bender was released from Landsberg War Crimes Prison in June 1948 .
The time after the Second World War
After his release, Bender made an affidavit in Kreuzau, his birthplace, on November 8, 1948, in which he reported on the intensified methods of interrogation and abuse by US officers from mid-September 1945 to early October 1945.
Bender settled in Kelz in 1949 as a family doctor and practiced there until 1988. From 1954 to 1996 he was a member of the mutual aid community of the members of the former Waffen-SS eV (HIAG). According to his son, he received a menorah from a local farmer in the mid-1960s , which was stolen from the destroyed Vettweiß synagogue during the November pogroms in 1938 . He then had this seven-armed chandelier restored and used it as a decoration on his landing. Shortly before his death, Bender transferred the menorah to the Rhineland Regional Council. Bender died in Düren in December 2005.
See also
literature
- Nico Biermanns: Country doctor and SS-Sturmbannführer. The Kreuzau doctor Dr. med August Bender. A critical biography (critical contributions to local and regional history, Volume 1), Bertram Wieland Archive for the History of the Labor Movement eV , Düren 2019, ISBN 978-3-9818589-0-7
- Ernst Klee : Auschwitz, Nazi medicine and its victims. 3. Edition. S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 1997, ISBN 3-596-14906-1 .
- Beech forest. Reminder and obligation. Documents and reports. Published on behalf of the Fédération Internationale des Résistants, des Victimes et des Prisonniers du Fascisme (FIR) by the International Buchenwald Committee and the Committee of Antifascist Resistance Fighters in the GDR. Röderbergverlag, Frankfurt am Main 1960. 621 pages, with picture part and storage plan, p. 257
- Buchenwald main trial: Deputy Judge Advocate's Office 7708 War Crimes Group European Command APO 407: (United States of America v. Josias Prince zu Waldeck et al. - Case 000-50-9), November 1947 Original document in English (PDF file )
Web links
- Finding aid on August Bender's estate in the Federal Archives
- Literature by and about August Bender in the catalog of the German National Library in Kiel, Diss. Med. 1936
- WDR local time from Aachen, v. November 3, 2012, report on August Bender: Doctor with a dark past
- Article in the Dürener Zeitung from September 20, 2018
Individual evidence
- ↑ Affidavit by August Heinrich Bender after the end of the war before US investigators, quoted by: Geschichts- und Technologiegesellschaft Großraum Jonastal eV Jonastalverein: Headquarters plan attracted the allied bombers . Retrieved November 25, 2019.
- ^ Article in the Aachener Volkszeitung from August 25, 2012
- ^ Rhineland-Palatinate state main archive Koblenz: N 1788/2, estate of August Bender
- ↑ Unique relic from a synagogue . In: Aachener Zeitung of February 4, 2013
- ↑ Buchenwald photo archive: Sig. 026-00.003, contains Bender's life data . Retrieved November 25, 2019.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Bender, August |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Bender, August Heinrich (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German SS-Sturmbannführer and camp doctor in Buchenwald concentration camp |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 2, 1909 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Kreuzau |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 29, 2005 |
| Place of death | Düren |