Johann Kantschuster

Johann Kantschuster (born May 20, 1897 in Beuerberg ; † missing after 1945 ) was a German SS man. Kantschuster was, among other things, arrest commandant in the Dachau concentration camp and deputy camp commandant in the Fort Breendonk concentration camp .

Life

Early life

Johann Kantschuster was born into a poor Bavarian family. He only went to school for a short time. At the age of 13 he started working as a laborer on a farm. In 1916 he was drafted into the Bavarian Army and did military service until 1918 .

After the war, Kantschuster was again employed as a worker and became a member of the Wolf Freikorps . In 1928 he joined the NSDAP (membership number 76.941), which at that time was still a small party, and in the same year also the SS. Even at this point in time he showed a tendency to violence, because a court fined him for the use of violence .

From 1931 Kantschuster belonged to the Munich SS (membership number 58,541). In March 1933, he was sent to the first Nazi concentration camp in Dachau near Munich as a guard .

Overseer in Dachau concentration camp (1933 to 1939)

On May 24, 1933, Kantschuster shot and killed Alfred Strauss , allegedly while trying to escape. The public prosecutor's office regarded the act as murder and had an arrest warrant drawn up against Kantschuster, which, however, was removed by the Bavarian Political Police (BPP), which was under the control of SS leader Heinrich Himmler . Prosecutor Josef Hartinger later recalled Kantschuster:

“The SS man who killed Strauss was standing near the body. The SS man's name was Johann Kantschuster. I think I can still remember that he was tall and slim. I remember particularly well that the expression on his face was that of a depraved person. I talked to [coroner] Flamm about him, and we both thought his picture belonged in a criminal album. "

By the turn of the year 1933/1934 at the latest, Kantschuster was appointed commander of the arrest wing (the so-called "bunker") of Dachau. This was a special detention building within the camp in which certain prisoners were kept in solitary confinement for isolation from the rest of the inmates . Under the supervision of Kantschuster, many of the detainees were kept in complete darkness for days or even months or chained to the floor.

Kantschuster was feared among the prisoners of Dachau because of his particular brutality and cruelty and notorious for his participation in numerous murders and abuse. For example, there is evidence that he had newly arriving prisoners beaten with whips and ox pizzle as a “welcoming ritual” to introduce them to camp life, which he described as “doing Catholic”.

It is generally assumed that he shot the former Bavarian State Commissioner Gustav Ritter von Kahr during the wave of political cleansing by the National Socialists (" Röhm Putsch ") on June 30, 1934 , who on that day was kidnapped by the SS to Dachau and there on the instructions of the Camp commandant Theodor Eicke had been taken to the detention area.

Later career (1939 to 1945)

Kantschuster was a heavy alcoholic and repeatedly offended his superiors. Since the late 1930s, this led to frequent transfers: from Dachau he first came to the Ravensbrück concentration camp . In a very intoxicated state, he fell there and suffered a concussion that would cause him problems for a long time. Because he behaved brutally towards women in the camp, he was transferred again, this time to Mauthausen concentration camp . After problems in the camp canteen there - he pointed his pistol at comrades - he was subjected to a neurological and psychiatric examination. Kantschuster was declared “no longer completely sane”. He was given one last chance in Sachsenhausen concentration camp . As a result of his excessive consumption of alcohol, his health deteriorated, and the doctors declared him physically unfit for the Waffen SS . Theodor Eicke declared on January 24, 1941, "that it was a no-good, one should be happy to get rid of."

From then on, Kantschuster did not appear again in official documents until September 1942, when he turned up at the Breendonk reception camp . Here he stayed for seven to eight months. Soon he became the most feared SS member there. Kantschuster was drunk all day and then terrorized the prisoners. In the hospital room, the staff were also afraid of him and had to behave harder towards the sick. Shortly after his arrival, he shot the Polish Jew Oscar Beck at the shipyard. Another night when a prisoner in his isolation cell went half insane, Kantschuster shot through the cell door. The prisoner survived wounded. At the executions he gave prisoners the coup de grace . Kantschuster took pleasure in physically abusing the prisoners, especially with his whip. Once Ilse Birkholz, the wife of the camp commandant Philipp Schmitt , intervened to protect a prisoner from his brutality. Shortly afterwards he was transferred again in April 1943. During the time he was in the camp, the number of prisoners killed rose; 40 victims are known by name. There was a similar number of victims in the last month of the German occupation. Kantschuster lives on in the memories of Breendonk's victims as just as great a flayer as Philipp Schmitt , Arthur Prauss , Fernand Wyss and Richard De Bodt .

Unexplained whereabouts

In April 1943, Kantschuster's trail is lost: after the end of the war, his wife claimed that he was barracked in Berlin-Lichterfelde and then in February, March or July 1945 in Weimar- Berlstedt . After the end of the war, she reported him missing to the Red Cross . Various versions are circulating about his possible whereabouts: For example, entry into the Foreign Legion , an execution in Dachau or hiding under a false name were suspected.

In 1952 a German court issued a first arrest warrant against Kantschuster for murder . In the period that followed, various other Belgian and German courts initiated proceedings against him because of his involvement in murders, ill-treatment and other acts in Breendonk, Dachau, Mauthausen and Ravensbrück. In 1982 the search for him was finally stopped because it was believed that he was no longer alive.

Promotions

• January 1, 1934: Unterscharführer
• April 1, 1935: Oberscharführer
• August 1, 1936: Hauptscharführer
• September 1, 1938: Obersturmführer

Archival material

• Federal Archives Berlin: SS leader personnel file

literature

• Patrick Nefors: Breendonk, 1940–1945 - De Geschiedenis. Standaard Uitgeverij, 2004.
• Hans-Günther Richardi: School of violence. 1993.
• Complaint by the Public Prosecutor of the RA's murder. Strauss (Munich) , printed by: Hans Lamm (Hrsg.): Von Juden in München: a memorial book . Munich: Ner-Tamid-Verl. 1958, p. 339

Individual evidence

1. ↑ United States. Office of Chief of Counsel for the Prosecution of Axis Criminality: Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Volume 3 ( en ). US Government Printing Office, Washington DC 1946.
2. ↑ Richardi: School of Violence, 1998, p. 103.
3. ↑ Reiner Orth: Der SD-Mann Johannes Schmidt, p. 190.