Jakob Fries

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Jakob Fries (born May 2, 1913 in Albertshofen ; † October 20, 1974 there ) was a German SS Oberscharführer in concentration camps who was involved in violent Nazi crimes.

Life

Fries was the son of a laborer. After leaving school, he learned to be a painter and made his living as a journeyman painter. After the beginning of National Socialism , he joined the SS and from 1934 was a member of the security team in the Dachau concentration camp . From there he was transferred to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp , where he headed the penal company from 1938. In 1941 he was sent to the Flossenbürg concentration camp , where he was block leader. From May 6, 1942 to December 28, 1943 he was employed as a labor service and report leader in Auschwitz . He then did military service as a member of the Waffen SS .

After the end of the war, Fries was sentenced to 14 years in prison by the Nuremberg-Fürth regional court on January 30, 1952, for violent Nazi crimes committed in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. He was released early on September 29, 1960. As a result of judicial accusations regarding participation in selections on the ramp and execution of shootings on the Black Wall , Fries was taken into custody on June 12, 1961 on the occasion of the 1st Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial. Fries testified that he only took part in executions in the Flossenbürg concentration camp. Before the main hearing began, the proceedings against Fries were temporarily suspended in mid-1963, which, according to Werner Renz, had the following causes:

“Fries could not prove that he had participated in selections on the ramp with decision-making authority. His admission that only craftsmen were selected for work details on the ramp could not be refuted by the accused. The StA assessed Fries' activity on the ramp as aid . As Fries had already been convicted of a Nuremberg trial by jury to [...] prison, a possible further sanction in Frankfurt's method therefore no weight fell, the StA appeared the temporary suspension of the proceedings under § 154 Code of Criminal Procedure offered ". On July 16, 1964, however, Fries testified as a witness in the Frankfurt Auschwitz trial.

The Auschwitz survivor Rudolf Vrba , after being shocked by the suspension of the proceedings against Fries and other accused, decided to publish his experiences during the camp. Vrba met Fries immediately after his arrival at Auschwitz: “Then we were examined by an SS-Oberscharführer, one of the tallest men I had ever seen, a steep mountain from a man about two meters tall, both hands open laid a huge stick. It was Jakob Fries, one of the most brutal men Auschwitz, the mother of so many murderers, ever produced. "

literature

  • Ernst Klee : Auschwitz. Perpetrators, accomplices, victims and what became of them. A dictionary of persons . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2013, ISBN 978-3-10-039333-3 .
  • Wacław Długoborski , Franciszek Piper (eds.): Auschwitz 1940–1945. Studies on the history of the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp. Verlag Staatliches Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau, Oswiecim 1999, five volumes: I. Construction and structure of the camp. II. The prisoners - conditions of existence, work and death. III. Destruction. IV. Resistance. V. Epilog., ISBN 83-85047-76-X .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Ernst Klee: Auschwitz. Perpetrators, accomplices and victims and what became of them. An encyclopedia of persons , Frankfurt am Main 2013, pp. 128f.
  2. ^ Henry Leide : Auschwitz and State Security - Prosecution, Propaganda and Secrecy in the GDR . Federal Commissioner for the Records of the State Security Service of the former GDR, Berlin 2019. ISBN 978-3-946572-22-0 , p. 160
  3. ↑ Werner Renz: Auschwitz in court. The Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial (1963–1965) , Fritz Bauer Institute 2011
  4. ↑ Werner Renz: Auschwitz in court. The Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial (1963–1965) , Fritz Bauer Institute 2011, FN 135
  5. ↑ Tape recordings of the 1st Auschwitz Trial provided by the Fritz Bauer Institute . Transcriptions and tape recordings (to be determined via search function)
  6. ↑ Katharina Stengel: Hermann Langbein. An Auschwitz survivor in the postwar memory-political conflicts. Frankfurt am Main / New York 2012, p. 432
  7. ^ Rudolf Vrba quoted in Ernst Klee: Auschwitz. Perpetrators, accomplices and victims and what became of them. A dictionary of persons , Frankfurt am Main 2013, p. 129
personal data
SURNAME Fries, Jakob
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German SS leaders in concentration camps and war criminals
DATE OF BIRTH May 2, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Albertshofen
DATE OF DEATH 20th October 1974
Place of death Albertshofen