Barry (mixed breed dog)

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Barry , also Bari , († 1947 ) became known as the dog of Kurt Franz , the last commandant of the Treblinka extermination camp .

Life

Barry was a black and white spotted mixed breed dog , mostly with the characteristics of a Saint Bernard ; its size is compared to that of a calf. Barry's origins can be traced back to the Trawniki camp : the camp commandant Karl Streibel handed the dog over to Franz Stangl at the end of 1941 or in the course of 1942 . Stangl had been in command of the Sobibor camp since April 1942 . While Trawniki was a forced labor camp, the Sobibor and Treblinka camps were the death camps of Aktion Reinhardt . In September 1942, Stangl was transferred to the Treblinka extermination camp as commandant. During a visit to Sobibor in late 1942 or early 1943, Stangl took Barry to Treblinka.

In Treblinka, Barry entered into a "dog-man bond" with Kurt Franz . Franz, initially Deputy Commandant of Treblinka, allowed Barry to accompany him on his patrols through the camp. A Czech prisoner was commissioned to look after the dog. The dog's food was better than that of the prisoners. After the Treblinka uprising on August 2, 1943, Franz replaced the previous commanding officer, Stangl. In November 1943 the Treblinka camp was closed. Kurt Franz was transferred to northern Italy after a short stay in Sobibor. He gave the dog Barry to Friedrich Struwe, the chief physician of the German reserve hospital in Ostrow , about 15 kilometers north of Treblinka. According to later statements by Kurt Franz, Struwe was “at that time the person I used to go to when I had any worries.” After a while, Barry entered into a new “dog-man bond” with Friedrich Struwe; it usually lay under or next to the desk in the doctor's office. In the Ostrow hospital, Barry was called "the big calf". In 1944 Struwe brought the dog to his wife, who lived in Schleswig-Holstein. Later Struwe's brother took over the dog. Two years after the war, Barry was due to old age euthanized .

Aftermath

The dog Barry was mentioned several times in reports from survivors of the Sobibor and Treblinka extermination camps. When Kurt Franz was arrested in Düsseldorf on December 2, 1959 , a photo album was found on which one page was headed “Schöne Zeiten”. There were also pictures of Barry in the album.

Franz and nine other members of the camp staff were defendants in the Treblinka trial , which took place from October 12, 1964 to August 24, 1965 before the jury court at the Düsseldorf Regional Court . During the trial, nine survivors of the extermination camp reported in testimony of their observations of how Kurt Franz had set his dog Barry on prisoners. Franz used the words "Man, take the dog!" By “human” Barry was meant, by “dog” the prisoner. But Barry also attacked prisoners if Franz only yelled at them. According to his size, Barry often bit into the buttocks or the abdomen of the prisoners, several times also into the genitals of the male prisoners, whereby he bit off some of the genitals. In the case of less strong prisoners, Barry managed to throw them to the ground and "tear them apart beyond recognition." Kurt Franz then shot the prisoners who had attacked Barry or ordered them to be shot. August Miet , who was co-indicted in Düsseldorf , confirmed Barry's attacks on prisoners. In the course of the trial, Miet also admitted to having shot prisoners who were attacked by Barry.

Kurt Franz called the testimony an "infamous lie"; Barry was "good-natured and playful". Other witnesses said that when Kurt Franz was not present in Treblinka, Barry could be petted and teased without the dog harming anyone. Friedrich Struwe, who was also summoned as a witness in Düsseldorf, testified that Barry did not harm anyone in Ostrow. He said he had the dog with him in the hospital when he examined hundreds of naked soldiers standing in a row for their "suitability for the front line", Barry did not attack the soldiers.

In view of the contradicting testimonies, the Düsseldorf court commissioned Konrad Lorenz , then director of the Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Research in Seewiesen, Upper Bavaria, to prepare an expert opinion. Lorenz explained in the report the behavior of the dog Barry , when dogs entered into a "dog-man bond", they could literally guess what the master's intentions were. The dog is "the reflection of the subconscious of its master"; this applies in particular to mixed breed dogs, which are more sensitive than purebred dogs. In what Lorenz called " behavioral physiology ", it is recognized that a dog can be harmless and dangerous at different times. A dog adapts to the moods and moods of its master. The character of a dog can also change completely if he - like Barry - enters into a new "dog-man bond".

In its judgment, the Düsseldorf court saw Kurt Franz's submissions as "completely refuted by the evidence raised". However, it did not consider the suspicion expressed by witnesses that Kurt Franz had trained Barry specifically to bite off prisoners' genitals, as not proven. However, it cannot be ruled out that Franz was “not reluctant” to see such behavior. In 1977, Adalbert Rückerl , head of the Ludwigsburg Central Office , said of the ten pages of the judgment that dealt with Barry's behavior, they "give an impression of the effort and care the judges have put into clarifying individual allegations."

The writer Christian Geissler made reference to Barry in the poem “im Frühhtau”. In 2001 the political scientist Tom Lampert dedicated a chapter of his book One Life to the dog . Eight stories from the war . In 2008, the author Walter Laufenberg referred to Barry in the title of his novel The Dog of Treblinka .

literature

  • Judgment of the Düsseldorf Regional Court of September 3, 1965 (8 I Ks 2/64) in: Adelheid L. Rüter-Ehlermann (arr.): Justice and Nazi crimes. Collection of German criminal convictions for Nazi homicide crimes 1945-1966. Volume XXII, University Press Amsterdam, Amsterdam 1981. ISBN 90-6042-022-5 . Page 1–220.
  • Tom Lampert: An authoritarian personality. In Tom Lampert: A single life. Eight stories from the war . Hanser, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-446-20075-4 , pp. 239-250.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Life and statements in the Treblinka trial, unless otherwise stated: Judgment of the Düsseldorf Regional Court of September 3, 1965 (8 I Ks 2/64) in: Adelheid L. Rüter-Ehlermann (edit.): Justiz und NS-Verbrechen. Pages 56–58. Here also the quotations that are not individually documented.
  2. ↑ On the origin of Barry: judgment of the Düsseldorf Regional Court of December 22, 1970. (8 Ks 1/69) in excerpts from: Universiteit van Amsterdam, Faculteit der Rechtsgeleerdheid ( Memento of the original from August 29, 2006 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 / www1.jur.uva.nl
  3. ^ Statement by Kurt Franz from December 4, 1959, quoted in: Ernst Klee, Willi Dreßen , Volker Rieß: "Schöne Zeiten." Jewish murder from the perspective of the perpetrators and onlookers. S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1986. ISBN 3-10-039304-X . Page 225
  4. ^ The page in the facsimile with Ernst Klee: "Schöne Zeiten." Page 206 f. The word "beautiful" was later erased. Ibid, page 225 a picture of Barry.
  5. ↑ Cf. on the album the essay by Volker Riess: 20 years after "Schöne Zeiten". A look back with pictures. Web resource (pdf, 5847 kB)
  6. ^ Adalbert Rückerl (Ed.): National Socialist Extermination Camps in the Mirror of German Criminal Trials. Belzec, Sobibor Treblinka, Chelmno. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich, 1977. ISBN 3-423-02904-X . Page 234.
  7. ^ Text of the poem on Deutschlandfunk
  8. ↑ Review by Anita Kugler : Digestive Problems: Barbs in the collective memory. in the daily newspaper , August 25, 2001.
  9. ↑ Walter Laufenberg: The dog from Treblinka. Salon Literatur Verlag, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-939321-16-3 .

Web links