Hans Gaier

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Hans Gaier (born February 19, 1902 in Mannheim ; † May / June 1945 in Graz ) was a member of the NSDAP (membership number 662,558), the Sturmabteilung (SA-Obersturmbannführer) and police director of the protective police in Kielce .

Life

After finishing school, Gaier completed an apprenticeship as a toolmaker at Bopp & Reuther , where he then worked in fittings production until the end of 1926. He then went into business for himself with a workshop for gas and water meters and had to file for bankruptcy in 1932. He married in Lampertheim in 1923 . In 1931 he joined the NSDAP and the SA and finally became leader of SA Standard 221. After the National Socialists came to power , he became honorary mayor of the community of Hofheim / Ried, but was relieved of his post at the end of 1935 due to "irregularities in office". whereupon he switched to the police service. From June 7, 1940 he became head of the protective police command in Kielce in German-occupied Poland in the so-called Generalgouvernement . In this function he was co-organizer of the clearing of the Kielce ghetto as part of Aktion Reinhardt and thus deeply involved in the Holocaust .

The sociologist Volker Ochs explains about him in the book series Täter - Helfer - Free rider : “Gaier and his subordinates spread fear and horror in the ghetto. Perverse sexual assaults and spontaneous outbreaks of violence up to and including murder were part of the agenda. ... According to witness statements, he tore off Jews' long beards and skin. ”Gaier and SS-Hauptsturmführer Ernst Thomas had the task of selecting the Jews into three groups . 1500 to 2000 people, including 527 children, including the children from the Jewish orphanage and the residents of the old people's home, old and sick people as well as pregnant women were shot on the spot. Around 15,000 were deported to the Treblinka extermination camp . In the days around the Purim festival on March 21, 1943, the so-called “Purim Action” took place: under Hans Gaier, police in Kielce drove the Jewish doctors with their families - with one exception - under the pretense that they were coming to work abroad, on motor vehicles to the Jewish cemetery. The police shot the Jews there. It is assumed that there were 50 victims in total.

The conclusion of Volker Ochs: "Hans Gaier was probably an offender, a pathological figure with a thirst for recognition, an executioner." Once he had amused himself how two Jewish girls aged 10 and 14 were engaged in sexual acts with the police dogs in the police station forced and then shot. Gaier was described as a sadist by Christoph Weitz, an affected person and eyewitness, in his report on torture in the Gestapo prison in Worms and in the Osthofen concentration camp in 1933. Gaier was assigned to the Ukrainian Schutzmannschaft Battalion 208 (Schuma-Batl. 208) on September 1, 1944 as a company chief and was deployed at the front.

At home, Gaier was considered missing in Russia after the end of the war and was declared dead by a decision of the Mannheim District Court in 1954. In fact, however, Gaier went into hiding in Austria and lived there under a false identity, under a false name in Graz. Gaier was tracked down there by Yanush (Johanan) Peltz from Kielce, a soldier in the Jewish Brigade , whose family was murdered, in late May / early June 1945. When Gaier had opened the front door, Peltz asked him if he was Hans Gaier. After Gaier had said yes, he said: “You are Jews. I can see that! ”Then Peltz executed him wordlessly with a shot between the eyes. Peltz probably obtained information about Gaier's whereabouts and true identity from a British agency.

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Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hans Gaier , Leo-bw. Retrieved January 11, 2020.
  2. ↑ Wolfgang Curilla : The murder of Jews in Poland and the German order police 1939-1945 . Schöningh, Paderborn 2011, p. 483 f.
  3. Jump up ↑ One Who Spread Fear and Dread , Echo Newspapers, May 24, 2018. Retrieved January 11, 2020.
  4. ↑ Friend, Helper, Mass Murderer - Exhibition on Police and the Holocaust , taz, April 23, 2019. Retrieved January 11, 2020.
  5. ^ Karl Klemm, Volker Ochs, Giving names to the memory , DGB Region Südhessen, p. 31. Accessed on January 11, 2020.
  6. ^ I found Dad's Nazi killer - and shot him dead , The Jewish Chronicle, October 2, 2014. Retrieved January 11, 2020.
personal data
SURNAME Gaier, Hans
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Nazi perpetrator, NSDAP member, SA member, police director of the protection police in Kielce
DATE OF BIRTH February 19, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Mannheim
DATE OF DEATH May 1945 or June 1945
Place of death Graz