Josef Niedermayer (SS member)

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Josef Niedermayer (born April 11, 1920 in Salzburg , † May 28, 1947 in Landsberg am Lech ) was an Austrian SS-Unterscharfuhrer and head of cell construction in Mauthausen concentration camp .

Life

Josef Niedermayer was the son of the Federal Railroad employee Friedrich Niedermayer. After his father died in 1926, he and his four siblings were raised alone by their mother Anna. After attending primary, secondary and advanced training schools, he completed an apprenticeship as a plumber for gas, water and central heating in Salzburg. In 1938 he became unemployed and after the annexation of Austria he volunteered for the SS (SS-No. 318.991). On April 4, 1938, he began his service with the 1st SS-Totenkopfstandarte "Upper Bavaria" in the Dachau concentration camp , with which he took part in the invasion of Czechoslovakia in the autumn of 1938 . After the beginning of the Second World War, Niedermayer was used with the SS-Totenkopf-Infanterie-Regiment 1 in the western campaign . In the summer of 1941 he marched into the Soviet Union with the regiment . He was wounded at the front.

In April 1942 he was transferred to the Mauthausen concentration camp. There he initially worked as a block leader before he became a detention supervisor in the camp prison. In autumn 1942 he became the deputy head of the cell construction Max Seidl . After Seidl was transferred to the front on March 1, 1943, he became head of the cell construction. Former prisoner Albert Tiefenbacher said that he saw Niedermayer murder around 200 people. During an interrogation in 1946, Niedermayer himself admitted that he had “participated in approximately 400 executions in the cell construction as ordered”. From November 1944 he was also block leader of Block 20, the so-called death block.

On May 6, 1945 he was captured in Steyr and finally brought to Dachau , where he was indicted in the main Mauthausen trial . In his statement, he tried to invoke an order emergency. On May 13, 1946, he was sentenced to death by hanging . The sentence was carried out on May 28, 1947 in the Landsberg War Crimes Prison .

literature

  • Gregor Holzinger (Ed.): The second row: perpetrator biographies from the Mauthausen concentration camp . new academic press, Vienna, 2016 ISBN 978-3700319788 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Gregor Holzinger: The second row: perpetrator biographies from the Mauthausen concentration camp , Vienna, 2016, p. 119.
  2. ^ A b Gregor Holzinger: The second row: perpetrator biographies from the Mauthausen concentration camp , Vienna, 2016, p. 120.
  3. ↑ a b c Gregor Holzinger: The second series: perpetrators biographies from the Mauthausen concentration camp , Vienna, 2016, p. 121.
personal data
SURNAME Niedermayer, Josef
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian SS-Unterscharfuhrer and head of cell construction in Mauthausen concentration camp
DATE OF BIRTH April 11, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH Salzburg
DATE OF DEATH May 28, 1947
Place of death Landsberg am Lech