Erich Lachmann

Erich Lachmann

Erich Gustav Wili Lachmann (born November 6, 1909 in Liegnitz , † January 23, 1972 in Wegscheid ) was a German SS squad leader and was involved in the " Reinhardt Campaign " in the Sobibor extermination camp . Lachmann was acquitted in the Sobibor trial .

Life

Lachmann, a bricklayer by trade, worked as a bricklayer for various companies until the beginning of the Second World War . From 1933 he belonged to the Stahlhelm , and after this organization was transferred to the SA , he was also a member of the SA for a short time. Lachmann was not a member of the NSDAP.

After the outbreak of war, Lachmann was drafted into the auxiliary police and, despite failing the exam, was promoted to sergeant-major. In September 1941 he was transferred to the Trawniki forced labor camp , where he was responsible as a courier and trainer for the Trawniki men. From June 1942 at the latest he was assigned to the Sobibor extermination camp, where he was in charge of the Trawniki guards until autumn 1942. The new camp commandant Franz Reichleitner , who thought Lachmann was incapable, sent him back to the Trawniki forced labor camp. From there he deserted with his Polish girlfriend in late 1942 / early 1943 and was picked up by the police in Warsaw six weeks later . By the SS and police court in Lublin he was therefore to six years in prison convicted, he spent in various prisons. In March 1945 he was released from the prison camp of the SS and the Dachau police in the Dachau concentration camp and assigned to a penal company. After six weeks of military training, he was deployed in the Brandenburg area as a soldier against the Red Army . After he was captured by the Soviets in May 1945, he was sentenced to 25 years of forced labor for alleged sabotage. In 1950 he was pardoned and released from captivity on May 5, 1950.

character

Erich Hermann Bauer characterized him as an alcoholic and thief. Surviving inmates Margulies and Lichtman saw him raping young girls. According to his statements, he had no hatred of Jews; he even bought his suits from a Jew in Liegnitz. He was characterized by the court as "mentally considerably less well-off".

Investigation and acquittal

In the course of the investigation in the early 1960s, Lachmann was arrested. In 1966 he was finally acquitted in the Sobibor trial on charges of complicity in the collective murder of at least 150,000 people because of putative emergency .

literature

• Information material from Bildungswerk Stanislaw Hantz eV: Schöne Zeiten - Material collection on the extermination camps of Aktion Reinhardt Belzec, Sobibor, Sobibor , Reader
• Barbara Distel : Sobibor. In: Wolfgang Benz , Barbara Distel (eds.): The place of terror . History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps. Volume 8: Riga, Warsaw, Vaivara, Kaunas, Płaszów, Kulmhof / Chełmno, Bełżec, Sobibór, Treblinka. CH Beck, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-406-57237-1 , p. 376 ff.
• Dick de Mildt: In the Name of the people: Perpetrators of Genocide in the Post-War Prosecution in West-Germany - The 'Euthanasia' and 'Aktion Reinhard' Trial Cases . Kluwer law International, Netherlands 1996, ISBN 90-411-0185-3 .
• Jules Schelvis : Sobibór extermination camp. Unrast-Verlag. Hamburg / Münster 2003. ISBN 3-89771-814-6

Web link

• Otto Langels: The Demjanjuk Case - A Henchman of Mass Murder?

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Short biography of Erich Lachmann on www.deathcamps.org
2. ^ ^{A b c} Dick de Mildt: In the Name of the people: Perpetrators of Genocide in the Post-War Prosecution in West-Germany - The 'Euthanasia' and 'Aktion Reinhard' Trial Cases , The Netherlands 1996, pp. 214f.
3. ↑ ^{a b} Schelvis: Sobibór extermination camp. P. 306
4. ↑ Justice and Nazi crimes: Judgment in the Sobibor trial ( Memento of the original from February 23, 2012 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.