Johann Schwarzhuber
Johann Schwarzhuber (born August 29, 1904 in Tutzing , Upper Bavaria , † May 3, 1947 in Hameln ) was a German SS-Obersturmführer (1944) and protective custody camp leader of the men's camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau .
Life
The trained printer Schwarzhuber, married since 1936 and the father of at least two children, joined the NSDAP ( membership number 1.929.969) and the SS (SS number 142.388) in the spring of 1933 . From May 5, 1933, he was a member of the security team in the Dachau concentration camp , where he completed a two-year course under Theodor Eicke . From 1935 he was block leader in Dachau and later report leader . On September 1, 1939, he was transferred to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp and already two months later he was working as a commando in the Klinkerwerk external command .
On September 1, 1941, he moved to the Auschwitz concentration camp , where he was again head of an external command. In September 1942 he was awarded the War Merit Cross II. Class with Swords, which suggests that he was involved in prisoner murders. From November 22, 1943 to November 1944, he was the head of the protective custody camp of the men's camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Schwarzhuber is described as ambivalent by survivors: on the one hand, thousands of prisoners died under his responsibility and, on the other hand, he is said to have saved a group of around 70 children from gassing by transferring them to the men's camp. As a music lover, he sponsored the camp band and often had his favorite songs played. According to Filip Müller , a survivor of Auschwitz , Schwarzhuber took part in the selection of 200 prisoners of the Sonderkommando in Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in February 1944 , who were later murdered in Majdanek concentration camp . According to later statements by members of the Engelschall camp SS, Schwarzhuber participated in the suppression of the Sonderkommando uprising in October 1944.
On November 11, 1944, Schwarzhuber was transferred back to the Dachau concentration camp and headed various Kauferinger subcamps. From January 12, 1945 he was the head of the protective custody camp in the Ravensbrück concentration camp until the camp was closed in April 1945. His responsibility included the gassings that took place in the Ravensbrück concentration camp from February 1945, as well as many executions. In the process after the end of the war , Schwarzhuber made the following statement about the gassings in Ravensbrück:
“Between 2300 and 2400 people were gassed in Ravensbrück. The gas chamber was approximately 9 x 4.5 meters and held about 150 people. The chamber was about five meters from the crematorium. The prisoners had to undress in a small shed, 3 meters from the gas chamber, and were brought through a small room into the gas room. "
Together with the camp commandant of the Ravensbrück concentration camp, Fritz Suhren , Schwarzhuber was finally supposed to set up a reception camp for the evacuated prisoners at the end of April 1945, but this no longer came about due to the course of the war . Before the end of the war, Schwarzhuber was arrested by the British army and sentenced to death in the first Ravensbrück trial in the Hamburg Curiohaus on February 3, 1947. Despite an introduced him clemency was a death sentence by hanging on May 3, 1947 enforced .
literature
- Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum (ed.): Auschwitz in the eyes of the SS. Oświęcim 1998, ISBN 83-85047-35-2
- Karin Orth : The system of the National Socialist concentration camps. Pendo Verlag, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-85842-450-1 .
- 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 .
- Hermann Langbein : People in Auschwitz. Frankfurt am Main, Berlin Vienna, Ullstein-Verlag, 1980, ISBN 3-548-33014-2 .
- Silke Schäfer: On the self-image of women in the concentration camp. The Ravensbrück camp. Berlin 2002 ( dissertation as pdf )
- Bernhard Strebel : The Ravensbrück concentration camp. History of a camp complex , with a foreword by Germaine Tillion, at the same time dissertation 2001 at the University of Hanover under the title The camp complex of the Ravensbrück concentration camp , Paderborn; Munich; Vienna; Zurich: Schöningh, 2003, ISBN 3-506-70123-1 ; Table of contents can be downloaded as a PDF document
Web links
- Short biography of Schwarzhuber on deathcamps.org
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d Silke Schäfer: On the self-image of women in the concentration camp. The Ravensbrück camp. Berlin 2002, p. 177f.
- ↑ a b Ernst Klee: Auschwitz. Perpetrators, accomplices and victims and what became of them. A dictionary of persons. Frankfurt am Main 2013, p. 371f.
- ↑ State Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau (ed.): Auschwitz in the eyes of the SS. Oswiecim 1998, p. 243
- ↑ Short biography on ARC main page
- ^ SS-Hauptsturmführer Johann Schwarzhuber in the JAG-333 trial (1948) before the British Military Court in Hamburg. Quoted in: Holocaust Reference .
- ↑ Karin Orth: The system of the National Socialist concentration camps. , Hamburg 2002, p. 330
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Schwarzhuber, Johann |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German SS-Obersturmführer and Schutzhaftlagerführer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 29, 1904 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Tutzing |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 3, 1947 |
| Place of death | Hamelin |