Erich Fuchs (SS member)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Erich Fuchs

Erich Fuchs (born April 9, 1902 in Berlin ; † July 25, 1980 in Koblenz ) was a German SS squad leader and involved in " Aktion T4 " as well as in the context of " Aktion Reinhardt " with the installation of the gasification systems.

Life

Erich Fuchs, the son of a factory inspector, completed an apprenticeship as a car mechanic after attending elementary school and passed the motor vehicle master’s examination in 1928 . Like his father, an active SPD functionary, he was also a member of the SPD from 1927 to 1933. In 1934 he joined the NSDAP and the SA and later also the SS . He worked as a driver for various companies until 1935, when he took up a job as a driver for the National Socialist People's Welfare Association . At the beginning of the war, he worked for a cover organization of the Reich Aviation Ministry , the Aviation Trading Company , and then as a compulsory driver for some companies.

Action T4 and Action Reinhardt

In 1940, Fuchs was signed up for "Aktion T4" as Irmfried Eberl's driver and for supply trips. Initially he was employed in the Nazi killing center in Brandenburg and, after this institution was relocated to Bernburg , there too. After being transferred to "Aktion Reinhardt" with ten other members of the T4 staff from Bernburg, Fuchs was sent to the Belzec extermination camp at the beginning of January 1942 under the direction of Christian Wirth . The eleven men provided the first Belzec camp crew, and during his six-week stay at the camp, Fuchs used his technical skills to install the gasification plants in Belzec. In April 1942, together with Erich Hermann Bauer , he installed a heavy engine from Lemberg in the Sobibor extermination camp for the gassing of the Jewish victims with carbon monoxide-containing exhaust gases . Fuchs, who instructed Bauer in the handling of the gasification plant, was responsible for the test gassing of 30 Jewish women and the subsequent gassing of at least three transports. Fuchs was also entrusted with the installation of the gasification systems in the Treblinka extermination camp, together with Bauer . Fuchs and Bauer were considered the "gas masters" of "Aktion Reinhardt". At the end of 1942, Fuchs was transferred back to Bernburg and from December 1942 to the Wiesloch sanatorium . After a few unsuccessful attempts, through the mediation of an acquaintance, he succeeded in leaving "Aktion T4" in February 1943.

February 1943 - May 1945

In Riga he was drafted into duty as a driver for the Ostland oil company in spring 1943 and remained so until the evacuation of Riga in September 1944. He was then transferred to a Panzerjäger detachment of the Waffen SS in Potsdam and seriously injured during a bombing raid on Hameln . At the end of the war he was in a hospital in Magdeburg .

post war period

After the end of the war, he was first in Russian captivity for four weeks and then in American captivity in West Germany. The British Army employed Fuchs as a driver and mechanic in Bergen-Belsen until 1946. This was followed by activities as a laborer in agriculture, truck drivers, mechanics and car salesmen. He later worked for the TÜV in Koblenz, but left the job in 1962 due to illness and retired. Fuchs is said to have been married four times, two of which were divorced and two wives died.

Belzec process and Sobibor process

In the Belzec trial , Fuchs and seven other defendants were tried before the Munich Regional Court from August 1963. He was acquitted because of the putative emergency , as he was able to make credible that he feared for his physical integrity for fear of Christian Wirth. As early as March 1963, he was arrested as part of the Sobibor trial and sentenced to four years in prison for complicity in the collective murder of at least 79,000 people. This judgment was upheld by the Federal Court of Justice in March 1971. Fuchs died in Koblenz in 1980.

Quote

“Wirth told us that in Belzec 'all Jews should be killed'. For this purpose the barracks were set up as gas chambers. I have installed shower nozzles in the gas chambers. The nozzles were not connected to a water pipe because they were only intended to camouflage the gas chambers. The Jews to be gassed were fooled into thinking that they should be bathed and disinfected. "

literature

  • Information material from Bildungswerk Stanislaw Hantz eV: Belzec , Reader - based on a previously unpublished manuscript by the historian and director of the Belzec memorial, Robert Kuwalek

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "In no case is it certain that it was the engine of a Soviet tank, as is often rumored." Quotation from: Dieter Pohl: Mass killings by poison gas as part of "Aktion Reinhardt" . In: Günther Morsch, Bertrand Perz: New studies on National Socialist mass killings by poison gas. Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-940938-99-2 , p. 192.
  2. ^ Statement by SS-Scharführer Erich Fuchs. Quoted in: Holocaust Reference .
personal data
SURNAME Fuchs, Erich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German gas master of "Aktion Reinhardt"
DATE OF BIRTH April 9, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH July 25, 1980
Place of death Koblenz