August Schlachter

August Schlachter (born January 25, 1901 in Barabein , Biberach district ; † April 10, 1996 in Biberach an der Riss ) was a German architect who worked as a site manager in several concentration camps .

Activities in World War II

Schlachter, who studied civil engineering, joined the NSDAP at the beginning of April 1933 ( membership number 2,339,579). He eventually became a member of the SS , where he was promoted to SS-Hauptsturmführer in 1944 (SS-No. 128.820). Schlachter initially worked as an architect in Biberach an der Riss until he came to the SS Main Office for Households and Buildings in 1939.

With the rank of SS-Unterscharfuhrer , August Schlachter headed the new SS building department KL Auschwitz / Upper Silesia from May 1940 to November 1941 , which was responsible for setting up the main camp . The construction plans prepared there included the conversion of the building, later designated as Block 11 , in whose basement there were dark cells .

Shortly after Karl Bischoff planning a POW camp , later Auschwitz concentration camp had been transferred, this created in December 1941, the Central Construction of the Waffen-SS and Police Auschwitz O / S . Hans Kammler from the SS main office for administration and economics believed that August Schlachter was not up to the major tasks ahead. Rudolf Höß later characterized Schlachter as a “provincial architect from Württemberg, a limited mind with little drive”. Furthermore, he is a “good guy” who lacks “any generosity”.

At the end of 1941, Schlachter was transferred to Natzweiler as a site manager in order to set up the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp there as head of the construction management of the Waffen-SS and police in Natzweiler / Alsace . He was employed there until December 1942. Schlachter then worked in the building inspection of the Higher SS and Police Leader in Kiev . From 1944 he was head of the B 12 headquarters of the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp .

post war period

August Schlachter was considered missing after the end of the war; a denazification process was not performed. Schlachter initially worked in agriculture and from 1950 as a site manager. He only reappeared as an architect in Biberach in 1954.

Schlachter was questioned in the course of the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials.

literature

• Christian Gerlach, Christoph Dieckmann: Average Offender: Action and Motivation , Verlag Assoziation, 2000.
• Christian Rak, Wolfgang Proske: August Schlachter - The furnace builder of Auschwitz . In: Wolfgang Proske: perpetrators helpers free riders. Volume 4. Nazi victims from Upper Swabia . Kugelberg Verlag, Gerstetten 2015, ISBN 978-3-945893-00-5 , pp. 211-224
• Ernst Klee : Auschwitz. Perpetrators, accomplices, victims and what became of them. A dictionary of persons . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2013, ISBN 978-3-10-039333-3 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Aleksander Lasik: The organizational structure of KL Auschwitz , in: Aleksander Lasik, Franciszek Piper, Piotr Setkiewicz, Irena Strzelecka: Auschwitz 1940-1945. Studies on the history of the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp. , Volume I: Construction and structure of the camp , Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum , Oświęcim 1999, p. 301
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Ernst Klee: Auschwitz. Perpetrators, accomplices, victims and what became of them. Lexicon of persons. Frankfurt / M. 2013, p. 354f.
3. ^ Jean-Claude Pressac : The crematoria of Auschwitz - The technique of genocide. New edition Munich / Zurich 1995, ISBN 3-492-12193-4 , p. 175.
4. ^ Robert-Jan van Pelt , Deborah Dwork: Auschwitz - From 1270 to today. Special edition Büchergilde Gutenberg, o. O. 1999, ISBN 3-7632-4897-8 , p. 192 / note 19 on p. 435 documents the allocation of funds on August 10, 1941.
5. ^ ^{A b} Robert-Jan van Pelt, Deborah Dwork: Auschwitz - From 1270 to today. P. 233.