Hans Hüttig

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Hans Hüttig, here SS-Hstf

Hans Benno Hüttig (born April 5, 1894 in Dresden , † February 23, 1980 in Wachenheim an der Weinstrasse ) was a German SS leader and commander of the Natzweiler-Struthof and Herzogenbusch concentration camps .

Career

Hans Hüttig, raised in a strictly Protestant manner, was the eldest son of a carpenter and spent his childhood in an orderly manner in Dresden. After completing his full-time compulsory education in 1908, he attended a school in southern Germany that prepared students without a higher education for a year of military service. However, Hüttig did not pass the final exam there in 1911. He then began training as a druggist, which he broke off in 1913. He then first worked in his father's photo shop, which he had set up in the meantime.

World War One - Soldier in the East Africa Corps

From March 1914 he finally worked as a representative of a company in the import and export sector in the colony of German East Africa . After the outbreak of World War I, Hüttig volunteered for the German East Africa Corps , where he rose to the rank of sergeant . After being seriously wounded in December 1917, he was taken to a military hospital, which was shortly afterwards taken by the British Army. Hüttig became a prisoner of war and was interned near Cairo .

Time of the Weimar Republic

Hüttig returned to Dresden in 1920 and worked in various companies. He married in December 1921, and the marriage, which was divorced in the early 1930s, had two children. Hüttig joined the Stahlhelm in 1924 and set up his own photo shop in 1926, but had to give it up again in 1930 as a result of the global economic crisis . From 1931, Hüttig was the managing director of a Meißen aerial photography service. Hüttig, who always wanted to be an officer, joined the NSDAP (membership number 1.127.620) and SS (membership number 127.673) in 1932 . In the SS, Hüttig rose to SS-Sturmbannführer in 1942 .

Period of National Socialism - camp service in concentration camps

From 1933, Hüttig worked full-time with the SS and was transferred to the SS death's head associations . From 1933, Hüttig was part of the security team at Sachsenburg concentration camp , completed a course in Dachau concentration camp in 1935 , and finally became a platoon leader in Lichtenburg concentration camp in 1937 . In 1938 he became adjutant to the then camp commandant Karl Otto Koch in the Buchenwald concentration camp and in 1939 he became the second protective custody camp leader . In the Buchenwald concentration camp, Hüttig, known as "Soldiermax", is said to have severely mistreated prisoners:

“Hauptsturmführer Hüttig occasionally caused popular amusement. He had the 'Bock', a device used to carry out flogging, brought to the Small Camp, brought up a number of block leaders himself, and randomly had every tenth prisoner 25 lashes with the stick. In one case, when a prisoner wanted to take over the blows for his unfortunate brother, Hauptsturmführer Hüttig showed his appreciation by having both brothers beaten. "

In 1939, Hüttig moved to the Flossenbürg concentration camp as adjutant to the camp commandant and from there in 1940 as the first protective custody camp leader to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp . On April 17, 1941, Hüttig was promoted to camp commandant of the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp . In the spring of 1942, Hüttig was transferred to the Higher SS and Police Leader (HSSPF) in Norway , where he acted as commandant of the guards at the Grini police camp . In February 1944, Hüttig was still camp commandant of the Herzogenbusch concentration camp after the previous camp commandant Adam Grünewald was released from this post due to an incident that cost the lives of ten female prisoners. Until the evacuation of the Herzogenbusch concentration camp in early September 1944, Hüttig was its camp commandant. During this period, Hüttig had, among other things, the Dutch Kapos exchanged for German prison functionaries and took further measures to isolate the camp from the outside world as far as possible and to prevent sabotage. In addition, in late summer 1944, Hüttig had 450 resistance fighters and police prisoners shot in Herzogenbusch. From autumn 1944 until the end of the Second World War, Hüttig served in a police station.

After the end of the war

After the war Hüttig fell into Allied internment. He was sentenced to life imprisonment by a French military tribunal in Metz on July 2, 1954 . In 1956 Hüttig was released from prison and led an inconspicuous life in Wachenheim until his death in 1980. On March 8, 1975, Hüttig was tracked down and interviewed by Tom Segev . Along with Johannes Hassebroek and Wilhelm Gideon, Hüttig was one of the three surviving concentration camp commanders with whom Segev had contact.

literature

  • Tom Segev : The Soldiers of Evil. On the history of the concentration camp commanders . Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1995, ISBN 3-499-18826-0 .
  • Harry Stein, Buchenwald Memorial (ed.): Buchenwald Concentration Camp 1937–1945. Accompanying volume for the permanent historical exhibition. Wallstein, Göttingen 1999, ISBN 3-89244-222-3 .
  • Ulrich Herbert , Karin Orth , Christoph Dieckmann : The National Socialist Concentration Camps - Development and Structure. Volume 1. Wallstein, Göttingen 1998, ISBN 3-89244-289-4 .
  • Coenraad JF Stuldreher: German concentration camps in the Netherlands - Amersfoort, Westerbork, Herzogenbusch. In: Wolfgang Benz (Ed.): Dachauer Hefte 5 - The forgotten camps. Munich 1994, ISBN 3-423-04634-1 .
  • Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich: Who was what before and after 1945. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-596-16048-0 .
  • Ulrich Pfaff: The Soldier Max von Buchenwald. In: Sächsische Zeitung of March 20, 2015, p. 3.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Tom Segev: The Soldiers of Evil. On the history of the concentration camp commanders , Reinbek bei Hamburg 1995, p. 230ff
  2. ↑ a b c d Harry Stein, Buchenwald Memorial (ed.): Buchenwald Concentration Camp 1937–1945. Accompanying volume for the permanent historical exhibition. Göttingen 1999, p. 308
  3. ^ A b Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 274.
  4. ^ Testimony of the former Buchenwald inmate Felix Rausch Quoted in: Hackett (ed.), Der Buchenwald-Report, Munich 1996, p. 310.
  5. ↑ Karin Orth : The system of the National Socialist concentration camps. Pendo Verlag, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-85842-450-1 , p. 85
  6. ↑ Coenraad JF Stuldreher: The concentration camp Hertogenbosch - "A pattern operation of the SS?" . In: Ulrich Herbert, Karin Orth, Christoph Dieckmann: The National Socialist Concentration Camps - Development and Structure. Volume I, Wallstein, Göttingen 1998, p. 337f.
  7. ↑ Entry Huettig, Hans ( Memento from March 2, 2010 on WebCite ) in: A Biographical Dictionary of War Crimes Proceedings, Collaboration Trials and Similar Proceedings Involving France in World War II .
  8. ↑ Tom Segev: The Soldiers of Evil. On the history of the concentration camp commanders , Reinbek bei Hamburg 1995, p. 264f
personal data
SURNAME Hüttig, Hans
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hüttig, Hans Benno (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German concentration camp commander
DATE OF BIRTH April 5, 1894
PLACE OF BIRTH Dresden
DATE OF DEATH February 23, 1980
Place of death Wachenheim on the Wine Route