Fritz Suhren

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Fritz Suhren (born June 10, 1908 in Varel ; † June 12, 1950 near Sandweier ) was a German SS-Sturmbannführer and camp commandant in the Ravensbrück concentration camp .

Education and Nazi career

Fritz Suhren was the son of a textile merchant, he attended middle school and then began an apprenticeship as a businessman. He also completed a school for vocational training and training as a decorator . He then took a job in a cotton weaving mill in Zetel , where he worked in the camp. As a result of the general poor economic situation, he lost his job and returned to his parents in 1931, where he worked in the business. Suhren was married and had at least three children.

He had been a member of the SA since October 1, 1928 , and in December 1928 he joined the NSDAP ( membership number 109,561). On October 29, 1931, he switched from the SA to the SS (SS No. 14,682). At the 24th SS Standard Ostfriesland in Wilhelmshaven he was active in the administration and in the staff. On February 15, 1934, he was employed full-time by the SS. He was accepted into the SS leader corps on June 18, 1934. On July 6, 1935 he was appointed adjutant. He remained in this position until 1937, where he also dealt with personnel matters.

In 1936 and 1937 he performed two military exercises lasting several weeks in the Wehrmacht , which he finally finished as a reserve officer candidate. At the beginning of 1937 he was transferred to Hamburg , where he took over command of an SS Sturmbann for the first time . In 1937 and 1938 he attended a Nazi administration course and the SS Unterführerschule Dachau . His service appraisals during these years were marked by the fact that his poor leadership qualities were criticized. He was classified more as a character to serve in administration.

After the " Anschluss of Austria ", he became XXXV on March 1, 1939 in Graz . SS section moved, where he was active as a staff leader. In the second half of the year, Suhren, who suffered from alcoholism , had to undertake not to consume any alcoholic beverages for the next two years. At the beginning of the war in September 1939 he was released from military service, and in December 1939 he professionally led the SS section.

Sachsenhausen concentration camp

On April 1, 1941, Suhren was officially deployed in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp . Since Suhren was not familiar with the administration of the concentration camps, he was supposed to be used in the accompanying service of the First Protective Custody Camp Leader , Heinrich Forster . Camp commandant was Hans Loritz , whom Suhren knew from Graz and who had brought Suhren to Sachsenhausen. In Sachsenhausen, Suhren met the KPD functionary Harry Naujoks , who had been a prisoner in the camp's self-administration since November 1936 and had been appointed camp elder . Obviously, Suhren saw in Naujoks a prisoner who could give him useful information in the camp service. After a favorable assessment by Loritz, Suhren was confirmed as Second Protective Custody Camp Leader in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp on May 3, 1941 by the SS Personnel Office.

During the first few days in the concentration camp, Suhren immersed himself in the camp's written documents and statistics. SS Oberscharführer Gustav Sorge , who was employed as a block leader at the time, informed him about the camp's facilities. At this time he also met Naujoks and had him show him certain details of the camp. Using the example of hanging window hooks, Suhren demonstrated his toughness towards Naujoks. Any violation of his orders would be ruthlessly prosecuted by him with the severest punishments, Suhren told Naujoks.

Fritz Suhren intensively enforced the order that prisoners with training as skilled workers should be permanently employed in the armaments industry. So he opposed SS actions that squandered the prisoners' labor. These inmates, about 5,000 in total out of 11,000, were given an additional bread ration of 200 grams a day at the time.

A goldsmith's shop was also operated in Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where jewelry and other valuables from arriving prisoners were processed and gold pieces were withheld. Naujoks had to help him on orders to expose such pushes. So Suhren succeeded in arresting some prisoners and also SS men, who were then taken into custody in the cell building.

Murders

In April 1941 the sick and weak were singled out from a group of 300 to 350 prisoners as part of " Aktion 14f13 ". The selection was made by doctors who were responsible for " Aktion T4 ", the National Socialist murders. On June 3rd, 95, on June 5th, 89 and on June 7th, 1941, 85 prisoners were transported to the killing center in Pirna-Sonnenstein , with SS man Hans Flybauer driving the truck and block leader SS-Hauptscharführer Heinrich Meier taking care of the guard. Loritz, Forster and Suhren were able to gain their first experience of how a murder campaign could be organized.

Several weeks after the attack on the Soviet Union , senior SS officers met in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp: Theodor Eicke , Richard Glücks , Arthur Liebehenschel , Loritz, Forster, Suhren, SS-Untersturmführer Alfred Sorge, SS-Hauptscharführer Hermann Campe, SS-Hauptscharführer Gustav Sorge , the camp doctor SS-Obersturmführer Josef Hattler and an unknown civilian. A strict requirement of silence was imposed on the subject of the discussion. The prisoners soon learned that a murder of Soviet prisoners of war was planned. Alfred Sorge, as site manager, had a shot-in-the- neck system built in a barrack . The witness and Kapo Karl Zander stated on December 18, 1946 that Loritz had instructed Suhren to handle the killing.

The SS block leaders who were supposed to shoot the prisoners of war were divided up by Suhren and Forster. The witnesses Paul Sakowski , Karl Zander, Martin Knittler and Walter Hofmann testified in 1946 that Forster, Suhren and Loritz were involved in the beginning of the shootings. Naujoks reported that the shootings began on August 31, 1941, while Orth gives September 3 or 4. In the following weeks at least 6,500 prisoners of war were shot after Orth. Naujoks reported 10,034 collected dog tags of the shot prisoners of war. But after that, more dog tags could still be found. Naujoks gave a number of around 13,000 prisoners of war shot in autumn 1941. However, about 5,000 more prisoners of war perished in other ways in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. The shootings were interrupted in November 1941 by a typhus epidemic . After the epidemic subsided , no more shootings were carried out.

Suhrenallee

On March 29, 1942, Suhren introduced a new type of haircutting for newly arrived prisoners, which the prisoners called Suhrenallee . Before that, there was no specific method of radically clipping hair. Suhren ordered the haircut to begin with a strip the width of the clippers, from the nape of the neck to the forehead. This type of cutting was repeated until the remaining hair was no more than two centimeters long. Then the cutting of a strip was repeated until the hair was completely cut off. The cut hair was then collected and processed into industrial felt.

Execution order from Suhren to Naujoks

On May 22, 1942 Naujoks, received from the command Suhren the professional criminals Hans troebel public on May 24, on the parade ground to hang , with all prisoners of the camp had to compete. Troebel was accused of stealing clothing and food in the camp. Heinrich Himmler had ordered that the execution should not be carried out by a member of the SS. Naujoks refused to carry out the order. As a camp elder he would have lost all recognition from the prisoners. Naujoks discussed his refusal with Albert Buchmann , who was part of the illegal camp management. Buchmann agreed to his refusal. Suhren then ordered another prisoner, who had to serve a sentence in the cell, to carry out the execution . Due to his refusal, Naujoks did not experience any sanctions on the part of Suhren, which astonished him very much.

On the same day in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp prisoner Leo Sklarek , who with his brother the Sklarek scandal brought about, against the state for resisting shot . Sklarek's skull was prepared and Suhren had the skull handed over to him as an exhibit . In August 1942, Suhren Naujoks announced that he would be transferred to the Ravensbrück concentration camp.

Ravensbrück concentration camp

In his personal file it is reported that Fritz Suhren was transferred to the Ravensbrück concentration camp on September 1, 1942 by Oswald Pohl in the service of a camp commandant . Suhren himself later stated different times when he started to work. From 1943, the mass deaths began in the concentration camp. At the time the camp was taken over, there were about 10,000 women captured. This number rose to more than 70,000 in 1944. A total of 132,000 women were held captive in Ravensbrück, of whom around 20,000 to 30,000 perished, most of them under the command of Suhren. In her book Hell Gate, Anja Lundholm reports on Suhren's brutal approach. After that he was also responsible for the execution of thousands of prisoners shortly before the end of the war.

Human trials

Since July 1942, the doctor and SS group leader Karl Gebhardt had the legs of Polish resistance fighters infected with gas fires or mutilated through severe injuries in the Ravensbrück concentration camp . The first group of doctors who accompanied these human experiments for Gebhardt was appointed by the chief doctor of the concentration camps, SS-Obersturmbannführer Enno Lolling . They were the doctor SS-Hauptsturmführer Gerhard Schiedlausky and the doctor Herta Oberheuser . In March 1943, Suhren had two Polish women who were among the victims of the experiments taken from the infirmary. They were then murdered. In the meantime, other Polish resistance fighters had managed to smuggle reports of these human experiments out of the concentration camp and to obtain confirmation of these reports via hidden messages in received packages. Even the BBC was able to report on it on the radio.

Gebhardt had since found out that Suhren had his two trial victims killed and protested against Heinrich Himmler personally. He assured him that these incidents should not happen again. So had SS brigade leader Richard happiness and Suhren to Gebhardt in the clinic at Hohenlychen come when they were rebuked by Gebhardt. In the meantime, Suhren had received a petition from around 50 Polish women in the concentration camp as a protest against these treatments and murders . Suhren was under pressure from all sides and initially did not dare to take action against the demonstrators. He handed ten of the resistance fighters over to the doctor and SS-Sturmbannführer Richard Trommer for further human experiments. On August 15, 1943, they were supposed to come under a pretext for an investigation, with the supervisor Dorothea Binz in command. But the Polish women learned shortly before what was in store for them. On the spur of the moment, they fled and hid in Barrack 15. But Binz moved up with their guards and criminals and dragged them out. Wladislawa Karolewska, her sister Helena Piasecke and the other eight women were first locked in the bunker for disobeying orders .

The experiments began over the next few days, with some resisting steadfastly and only being able to undergo an operation by force. Five of the women died as a result of these most serious interventions, and the survivors suffered severe after-effects for the rest of their lives. Korolewska was operated on six times. But Suhren had not yet sufficiently satisfied his vengeance and on September 23, 1943 had more Polish resistance fighters executed from the so-called special transports , as well as four test victims on whom experiments with sulfonamides were carried out.

Resistance fighters murdered

Towards the end of 1944, Fritz Suhren began to accommodate the resistance fighters and political prisoners in a separate block, which was called the NN block among the concentration camp members , the abbreviation for night and fog . Furthermore, other prisoners such as criminals and political prisoners who were accused of offenses on the part of the SS were housed in the so-called punishment block. Since by then the normal execution personnel had already been transferred to the front, female guards had to take over the executions. On February 23, 1954, the former supervisor Christel Jankowsky reported in detail to the Gera public prosecutor's office how the massacre took place at night.

In total, human experiments were carried out on over seventy Polish women. Suhren wanted to have this murdered too. The list of Polish women was given to the guards on February 4, 1945 to begin the murder. But again the Polish women found out in good time what Suhren intended with them. Now a one-off campaign for the seventy Polish women began. When the roll call took place on the morning of February 5th, the lights went out in the whole camp, which was brought about by an action by Soviet soldiers who had to take over the technical area of ​​the electricity supply in the camp.

The Polish women immediately hid in the whole camp, and some managed to escape to the subcamp in the next few days. Others hid in a prepared tunnel, in sacks and in attics. Others went to the barracks with the typhus patients, where no camp personnel could go. Some hid among prisoners from the Auschwitz concentration camp . Two Polish women went to Suhren and informed him that a released prisoner would give the public a list of the names of Polish prisoners on whom medical tests had been carried out.

In the following weeks Suhren and other SS men tried again and again to lure the Polish women into a trap. But these no longer had the intention of surrendering themselves to the SS. It was not until April 22, 1945, when several Red Cross buses took French and Belgian women away from the camp. Various German and Czech women were also released. Again, Suhren assured that no more executions would be carried out. Since the signs of disintegration in the concentration camp could not be overlooked, the Polish women believed this promise.

Escape and arrest

Towards the end of April 1945, parts of the WVHA fled to the Ravensbrück concentration camp. On April 27 or 29, Suhren, SS-Oberscharführer Hans Pflaum , the Oberaufseherin Binz and his adjutant SS-Hauptsturmführer Carl Heimann left the camp with these SS men, accompanied by Polish hostages, in the direction of the north fortress , like parts of northern Germany from the SS were designated. (See special area Mürwik ) They apparently made a stopover in the satellite camp near Malchow . Then he apparently tried to follow the rat line north to get to Flensburg . It is apparently not known for sure whether he succeeded in this. At Ludwigslust he is said to have got rid of his uniform. Later he is said to have turned south with false papers obtained. On June 14, 1945, he is said to have been recognized by a young woman near Gelsenkirchen . He is then said to have been taken to the English internment camp in Neuengamme . Before he could be brought to court, Suhren fled from the Neuengamme internment camp together with Hans Pflaum. Evidence shows that Suhren was in Hamburg on November 17 or 18, 1946.

On November 20, 1946, Suhren arrived in Bavaria. There he settled in the village of Eppenschlag under the name Herbert Pakusch and worked at a brewery. In February and September 1948 he returned to Hamburg twice. By chance he met a former secretary from the Ravensbrück concentration camp in Eppenschlag in October 1948. As a result of this meeting, Suhren and Pflaum were arrested on March 24, 1949, imprisoned at the Grafenau police office and taken to Deggendorf . Here he tried again to escape, but failed.

During his escape from the concentration camp, Suhren had taken prisoners' valuables such as foreign exchange, gold teeth, rings and watches with him. With that he tried to act, but that was his undoing. Therefore, in the summer of 1949, he was charged and convicted of trading in foreign currency, forging documents, bartering and other offenses.

Interrogation and extradition

While in US custody, he denied any crimes in the Ravensbrück concentration camp. In the camp there would have been a strict order with service regulations and instructions. If penalties were imposed, these had a legal justification. Any SS man would have been punished for breaking the rules. When confronted with reports from prisoners, he presented them as untrue statements. He used phrases like “I declare this statement invalid” or “The statements are ridiculous”. Even when he was confronted with former prisoners, he ruled them in the old command tone and wanted to intimidate them and present them as implausible.

After his conviction, he was transferred to Rastatt towards the end of July 1949 as a result of an extradition request from the French occupying power with Pflaum . Details of the following French investigation against Suhren are not known, as the files had not yet been released until 2005.

A military court sentenced Suhren to death on March 10, 1950 . The sentence was at today on June 12, 1950 Baden Baden- district Sandweier enforced .

SS ranks (General SS)

  • October 15, 1933: SS Oberscharführer
  • September 1, 1942: SS-Hauptsturmführer of the reserve
  • April 20, 1939: SS-Sturmbannführer
  • April 20, 1944: SS-Sturmbannführer of the reserve

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lars-Broder Keil, Sven Felix Kellerhoff: Fake news make history. Rumors and false reports in the 20th and 21st centuries , Berlin 2017, p. 62
  2. ↑ Nikolaus Wachsmann : KL: The History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps , Munich 2016, paragraph immediately before the section: Deadly transports
  3. ↑ Karin Orth : The Concentration Camp SS: Social Structural Analyzes and Biographical Studies , Göttingen 2000, Chapter: The Concentration Camp SS after the end of the war. The phase of allied military justice
personal data
SURNAME Suhren, Fritz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German SS-Sturmbannführer and camp commandant in the Ravensbrück concentration camp
DATE OF BIRTH June 10, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Varel
DATE OF DEATH June 12, 1950
Place of death Sandweier