Erich Grönke

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Erich Grönke (born September 15, 1902 in Berlin ; † 1968 ) was a German prisoner functionary in Auschwitz and was one of the first 30 prisoners to be transferred from Sachsenhausen to the main camp of Auschwitz .

Life

Grönke was the son of a bricklayer and a trained shoemaker. He was convicted several times, especially for theft and sexual offenses, and was imprisoned in prisons for many years. In a post-war statement he stated that he was emasculated during the Nazi era in 1935 . He was one of the 30 criminal prisoners, so-called professional criminals , who were transferred from Sachsenhausen concentration camp to Auschwitz concentration camp on May 20, 1940, accompanied by report leader Gerhard Palitzsch . These prisoners were used as prison functionaries in the newly established camp . Grönke received prisoner number 11 and became a shoemaker's capo in the leather factory of the Auschwitz concentration camp. On the intervention of the camp commandant Rudolf Höß , Grönke was released in mid-1941 and since then, as a civilian employee of the SS, has been the workshop manager of the camp's leather factory. Grönke later stated that the leather factory housed a blacksmith's shop, a locksmith's shop, a wheelwright and a tailor's shop in addition to a cobbler's shop. He finally passed the examination to become a master shoemaker in Bielitz . After the deportation of Jews to the camp began, according to his statement, a detainee detachment examined the clothes and shoes of people who had been brought in for valuables.

Höss had a special relationship with Grönke, who ultimately organized all kinds of everyday objects for the camp commandant's family. Sometimes he even drove up to Villa Höß several times a day and delivered goods that had been ordered, such as shoes and, according to the former Auschwitz prisoner Stanisław Dubiel, clothes made especially for Höß and his family members from the stolen stocks of Holocaust victims . Grönke also often drove the camp commandant's wife and waited for the horses' saddles. After all, Höss cultivated a friendship with Grönke, they both spoke on terms and went hunting together. He was authorized by Höss to own weapons. Even in post-war statements, former members of the camp SS are amazed that Grönke was a “special favorite of the camp commandant” and that he went in and out of his home. The head of the protective custody camp, Franz Johann Hofmann , later stated that “one of Höß's son did not want to fall asleep before Grönke had said good night to him”.

After the end of the war, Grönke took up residence in Schwerin . In connection with crimes in the Auschwitz concentration camp, he was arrested in April 1947 and sentenced in November 1947 by the Schwerin district court to a prison term of three years and four months for mistreating prisoners. After serving his sentence, he moved to the Federal Republic of Germany, where he set up a shoemaker's workshop in Freiburg im Breisgau in 1955 . The imprisoned former Auschwitz inmate Adolf Rögner , who played a key role in bringing about the first Auschwitz trial in Frankfurt, intended to submit incriminating documents to the court in Frankfurt am Main Grönke. However, this was initially rejected by the General Secretary of the IAC, Hermann Langbein , as he feared that the accused SS members would shift responsibility for violent Nazi crimes committed in Auschwitz to prison functionaries. On the basis of Rögner's and other witness statements, the Frankfurt am Main regional court issued an arrest warrant in November 1963 and Grönke was taken into custody. Grönke, who denied the allegations made against him, remained in custody after a detention test.

In addition to the former prisoner functionaries Windeck and Bonitz , Grönke was to be indicted in the third Frankfurt Auschwitz trial, which took place from August 30, 1967 to June 14, 1968 before the jury court at the Frankfurt am Main regional court . Confronted with the accusation of drowning a fellow inmate in a cesspool, Grönke stated that he could not remember it. The prosecution charged him with murder in at least 212 individual cases. Because of the inability to stand trial, Grönke's proceedings were severed in mid-February 1967 and discontinued in June 1968 after his death.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Ernst Klee : Auschwitz. Perpetrators, accomplices and victims and what became of them. A dictionary of persons. Frankfurt am Main 2013, p. 151
  2. ↑ a b c d Hermann Langbein: People in Auschwitz. Frankfurt 1980, p. 351 f.
  3. ^ Testimony of the former Auschwitz inmate Stanisław Dubiel, who was employed as a gardener in the Villa Höß, on August 7, 1946 in Oświęcim before an examining magistrate of the main commission investigating Nazi violent crimes in Poland. In: State Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau (ed.): Auschwitz in the eyes of the SS. Oświęcim 1998, p. 214
  4. ^ Henry Leide: Auschwitz and State Security - Law Enforcement, Propaganda and Secrecy in the GDR , Berlin 2019, p. 131f.
  5. ^ Henry Leide: The Auschwitz inmate Adolf Rögner. The failed search for recognition in the Federal Republic and in the GDR. BStU.
  6. ^ Henry Leide: Auschwitz and State Security - Prosecution, Propaganda and Secrecy in the GDR , Berlin 2019, p. 133
  7. ^ Contemporary history: Lifelong for Nazi murderers. In: Frankfurter Rundschau . June 14, 2008
  8. ^ Justice and Nazi crimes. ( Memento of the original from October 22, 2008 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. University of Amsterdam @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www1.jur.uva.nl
  9. ^ Henry Leide: Auschwitz and State Security - Prosecution, Propaganda and Secrecy in the GDR , Berlin 2019, pp. 133f.
personal data
SURNAME Grönke, Erich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German prisoner functionary in Auschwitz concentration camp
DATE OF BIRTH September 15, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH 1968