Georg Deffner

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Georg Deffner (* 1910 ; † unknown) was SS-Hauptscharführer and worked in the Dachau concentration camp and its satellite camps . After the end of the Second World War, a US military court sentenced him to three years in prison for prisoner abuse as part of the Dachau trials .

Life

Deffner, a member of the NSDAP , was one of the veterans of the concentration camp system. As early as September 1933 he joined the SS guards "Upper Bavaria" (see SS-Totenkopfverbände ) and served as clerk and accounting officer.

He began his work in the Dachau concentration camp in January 1942 and achieved the post of head of the post office in the main camp, which above all meant the censorship of incoming and outgoing mail from the prisoners.

From August 1943 on he was first a work force leader, then a camp leader in the newly founded Kempten concentration camp external command , whose inmates came from the Dachau concentration camp and had to work to set up armaments factories. From mid-April 1944 he headed the Kottern-Weidach subcamp near Kempten until Edmund Zdrojewski replaced him there in February 1945 . He then took over the concentration camp command Kaufering I as camp leader until the end of the war .  

The process

From February 6 to 11, 1947, a US military court tried Georg Deffner in the Dachau internment camp as part of a subsidiary trial to the Dachau main trial . He was accused of being a guardian and supervisor in the Dachau main camp and the Kempten, Kottern and Kaufering satellite camps between January 1, 1942 and April 29, 1945, and on the death march from Kaufering to Dachau on April 24, 1945 To have subjected civilian prisoners from Lithuania, France, Italy and Russia and prisoners of war to abuse and cruelty.

In the process, Deffner stated that he only slapped prisoners who were caught stealing. Some of the eleven former employees at the post office in Dachau stated that he had treated his subordinates correctly. Deffner said that he had only heard of abuse in Dachau. In one of his subordinate camps, the Kapo team had been expressly requested not to beat prisoners. A former kapo named as a witness for exoneration believed to remember this. At least Deffner admitted that during his activity the working and living conditions in the Kottach-Weiden camp were poor and in Kaufering even worse.

On the other hand, the witnesses reported that Deffner was responsible for punitive actions such as standing bunkers , hanging on stilts and flogging on the beating box . Inmates were also sent back to Dachau for punishment. Deffner didn't need to know what was waiting for them there. Because of the transport of sick prisoners who were no longer able to work back to Dachau and finally the death march from Kaufering to Dachau, during which no prisoners were to fall into the hands of the Allies, Deffner appealed to the emergency.

A remark by Efraim Zuroff in his book Beruf, Nazijäger is striking . He points out that Jewish organizations that were on the trail of Nazi criminals were looking for witnesses for Deffner's activities, with a significantly higher priority than for the more well-known concentration camp doctor Josef Mengele .

In view of the incriminating statements by surviving inmates, the court did not accept Deffner's declaration of innocence and sentenced him to three years' imprisonment for prisoner abuse.

literature

  • Wolfgang Benz , Barbara Distel , Angelika Königseder: The place of terror: History of the National Socialist concentration camps . CH Beck, 2005, ISBN 3-406-52962-3 , Edit Raim: Kapitel Kottern , S. 374 ( Google Books [accessed on December 20, 2009] (Deffner in Kottern), 377–378 (Deffner conviction), 377 (Deffner in Kempten)).
  • Dirk Riedel: Practitioners of violence: The camp staff of Kaufering I, in: Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial (ed.): "They gave us hope again". Pregnancy and childbirth in sub-camp Kaufering I, . Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site, Dachau 2010, ISBN 978-3-9812808-2-1 , p. 16–21 ( Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial [accessed April 4, 2013]).
  • Eva Gruberová, Helmut Zeller: Born in the concentration camp: seven mothers, seven children and the wonder of Kaufering I . CH Beck, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-406-62107-9 , pp. 140, 142, 147, 148, 149, 158, 203, 214 ( Google Books [accessed June 12, 2014]).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ see article Kottern-Weidach subcamp
  2. ↑ see literature Ort des Terrors
  3. ↑ see Georg Deffner in the Polish language Wikipedia
  4. ↑ see web link University of Amsterdam: US vs Georg Deffner
  5. ↑ see web link Yewish Virtual Library: The Dachau Cases
  6. ↑ see literature Efraim Zuroff: Beruf, Nazijäger.
personal data
SURNAME Deffner, Georg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German concentration camp leader, SS-Hauptscharführer
DATE OF BIRTH 1910
DATE OF DEATH after 1947