Erwin Busta

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Erwin Julius Busta (born April 12, 1905 in Leoben ; † 1982 ) was an Austrian SS-Hauptscharführer and camp leader in the Peenemünde satellite camp at the Peenemünde Army Research Center and a senior overseer in the Kohnstein tunnel at the Mittelbau concentration camp .

Life

Busta worked as a bricklayer and carpenter after finishing his nine years of schooling. From 1930 he was temporarily engaged in odd jobs. He joined the NSDAP and SA in 1928 and switched to the SS in 1930 . As a result of the NSDAP ban in Austria, Busta moved to Germany in July 1933 and joined the Austrian Legion in Bavaria , where he received police training. Busta was a member of the guards in the Esterwegen concentration camp from 1934 until the camp was closed. In April 1936 he was transferred to the Dachau concentration camp , where he headed the detention area. In the summer of 1942 he was transferred to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp and from there the following year to the Peenemünde satellite camp as camp leader. From autumn 1943 to April 1945 Busta was employed as a block leader in the Dora labor camp, the Mittelbau concentration camp that was independent from October. In the Mittelwerk he was an overseer in the Kohnstein tunnel.

Among the prisoners working there, Busta, who because of the shape of his head was called "horse head" by the prisoners, was feared as a brutal thug. Under Busta, prisoners were also executed by hanging in the Mittelwerk.

After the end of the war, Busta went into hiding incognito and moved several times between Germany and Austria. In the Dora trial in Essen, which began on November 17, 1967, Busta and Helmut Bischoff were charged with the former KDS of the restricted area Mittelbau and its former employee Ernst Sander . Busta was heavily incriminated by witnesses because of the crimes he had committed in the Mittelbau concentration camp. Busta had badly mistreated inmates and is said to have killed inmates with her own hands. On May 8, 1970, Busta was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison in the Dora trial in Essen . However, he received exemption from custody.

literature

  • Andrè Sellier: Forced labor in the rocket tunnel - history of the Dora camp , zu Klampen, Lüneburg 2000, ISBN 3-924245-95-9 .
  • Jens-Christian Wagner (ed.): Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp 1943-1945 Accompanying volume for the permanent exhibition in the Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp Memorial. Wallstein, Göttingen, 2007, ISBN 978-3-8353-0118-4 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Jens-Christian Wagner (ed.): Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp 1943-1945 , Göttingen, 2007, p. 103.
  2. ^ Andrè Sellier: Forced Labor in the Rocket Tunnel - History of the Dora Camp , Lüneburg 2000, p. 173f.
  3. ^ Andrè Sellier: Forced Labor in the Rocket Tunnel - History of the Dora Camp , Lüneburg 2000, p. 518
personal data
SURNAME Busta, Erwin
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Busta, Erwin Julius (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Austrian SS-Hauptscharführer
DATE OF BIRTH April 12, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Leoben
DATE OF DEATH 1982