Combat group Auschwitz

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The communist and socialist-oriented battle group Auschwitz (KGA) - also international resistance movement , organization or -group called - was created in May 1943 mainly from the merger of an Austrian resistance group and a Polish group of the bearing resistance in the main camp of Auschwitz .

Emergence

At the end of 1942 an Austrian group was formed in the main camp of Auschwitz, along with other resistance groups divided into nationalities. This group, initiated by Hermann Langbein , Ernst Burger , Rudolf Friemel and Ludwig Vesely , initially mainly cooperated with German prisoners. In order to coordinate and strengthen the resistance activities in Auschwitz concentration camp, possibilities of cooperation with the numerically largest group of Poles in Auschwitz concentration camp had been sought since the end of 1942. Hermann Langbein and Ernst Burger from the Austrian group and Józef Cyrankiewicz and Tadeusz Hołuj from a left-wing Polish group finally agreed in the spring of 1943 to form a joint resistance group. At the beginning of May 1943, after a conspiratorial meeting in Block 4 of the main camp, it was decided to set up an international leadership for the new resistance group. At Langbein's suggestion, the resistance group was referred to within the group as the Auschwitz Combat Group , corresponding to Grupa Bojowa Oświęcim (GBO) in Polish .

management

The international leadership of Kampfgruppe Auschwitz initially consisted of the following people with their main functions:

  • Ernst Burger , ( pseudonym Adam ), political leader of Kampfgruppe Auschwitz .
  • Hermann Langbein (pseudonym Wiktor ), officer in charge of influencing members of the SS camp personnel in order to reduce repressive measures.
  • Józef Cyrankiewicz (pseudonym Rot ), liaison officer for cooperation with resistance groups outside the camp.
  • Tadeusz Hołuj (pseudonym Robert ), liaison officer for cooperation with resistance groups within the camp. Mugrauer, on the other hand, states that Hołuj Cyrankiewicz only temporarily represented and Zbigniew Raynoch was also part of the international management.

After Langbein and Hołuj were transferred to other concentration camps in August and October 1944, respectively, and Burger's failed escape attempt at the end of October 1944, the international leadership of the Auschwitz Combat Group received a new occupation, except for the remaining Cyrankiewicz, which lasted until January 1945 - the time the concentration camp was evacuated Auschwitz - remained constant:

composition

This resistance group included in particular communists, socialists, Spanish fighters and partisans, who came mainly from Austria and Poland , but also from France , Germany , Yugoslavia , Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union . There were also many Jewish prisoners among them. Other important members of the Auschwitz Combat Group , in addition to members of the international leadership, were Alfred Klahr , Karl Lill, Franz Danimann and Josef Meisel .

organization

The second level after the international management was the organizational management of the main activity , which was divided into sections for certain areas of responsibility such as news and information gathering. For the main activity , prisoners of the KGA in the satellite camps and work and field detachments were actively involved in the camp resistance. At the bottom were the cells where prisoners from similar detachments were grouped together. In order to protect the group from being completely evacuated , not all members of the Auschwitz Combat Group knew about each other, or only knew their respective contact persons.

activities

The members of the Auschwitz Kampfgruppe were mostly active as prison functionaries in influential positions in the inmate self-administration, where they supported inmates who were sick and threatened with death in particular in the inmate infirmary. Further resistance actions included the curbing of mistreatment by kapos , the removal of criminal prison functionaries from key positions in the inmate self-administration, the organization of escapes, the procurement of food and medicine, and the exposure of SS informants among the inmates. From 1944, the nurse Maria Stromberger was an important liaison of the Auschwitz combat group for the exchange of information with Polish resistance groups outside the camp . Plans for the railway line to Auschwitz-Birkenau and reports on the gas chambers and crematoria of the Auschwitz concentration camp were sent to the Allies with the demand that the killings in the extermination camp be stopped or suspended by bombing the facilities. The political and propaganda work included a. the “fight against anti-Semitism ” and Nazi propaganda within the camp and the promotion of solidarity among the prisoners.

The long-term goal of Kampfgruppe Auschwitz was an armed camp revolt against the SS camp personnel with the support of Polish resistance groups outside the camp. After some members of the Auschwitz Combat Group had already managed to escape from the camp in the summer of 1944, other members of the Auschwitz Combat Group should also be able to escape in order to coordinate the planned liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp from outside. For this purpose, Ernst Burger planned an escape from the main camp together with the Polish prisoners Zbyszek Raynoch, Piotr Piaty, Bernard Swierczyna and Edward Pys from the Auschwitz combat group, which was carried out on October 27, 1944. Czescek Dusel was taken on the run as a substitute for the failed Pys. Two SS men had been bribed to ensure the escape of these prisoners on a truck in boxes to a partisan base outside the camp. However, the escape was betrayed by one of the two SS men. Burger and the four Polish prisoners were brought to the Political Department for questioning, but they did not disclose any information about the Auschwitz Kampfgruppe. Before that, the denounced prisoners tried to poison themselves, from which Dusel and Raynoch died. Burger and the other two Polish prisoners survived the attempted suicide because their stomachs were pumped out. The two surviving Polish prisoners and Burgers, as well as Rudolf Friemel and Ludwig Vesely , who had won the two SS men over as escape helpers, were hanged on December 30, 1944 on the roll call area of the main camp in front of the 15,000 prisoners who stood there.

After the failed attempt to escape, the Auschwitz Combat Group restricted its activities and tried to secure important original documents about what was going on in the camp in the final phase of the camp in order to preserve them for posterity. The Auschwitz Combat Group did not take part in the failed Sonderkommando uprising in Auschwitz-Birkenau on October 7, 1944 , as they hoped that the Red Army would soon liberate the camp and did not want to risk mass liquidation of the prisoners.

Relationship to the national Poles in the camp

This new organization of the left groups had an important point in the ideological objective that was in line with the current situation on the Eastern Front: "Friendship with the Soviet Union is the guarantee for victory and peace". The Auschwitz Combat Group , however, did not have sufficient influence among the prisoners, as the majority of the Polish prisoners were not Communists. Therefore, an understanding between the KGA and the Witold Pileckis organization , the Związek Organizacji Wojskowej (ZOW) - translated Union of Military Organizations , was essential. Both groups had cooperation talks, which had a positive outcome in the spring of 1944. Then the camp's military council was formed. At the head of the military council were Auschwitz inmates Henryk Bartosiewicz and Bernard Świerczyna from Pileckis ZOW and two from the KGA, Józef Cyrankiewicz and Hermann Langbein. Since the plan existed to take over the camp militarily, the coordination was subordinated to the commander of the Polish Home Army in the Śląsk district (Silesia). Pilecki fled in April 1943 to persuade the Western Allies to intervene in Auschwitz, but ultimately to no avail.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Hermann Langbein: People in Auschwitz. , 1980, pp. 290f.
  2. ^ Henryk Świebocki: The Austrian and the German group . In: Wacław Długoborski, Franciszek Piper (ed.): Auschwitz 1940–1945. Studies on the history of the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp. , Volume III Resistance , Oswiecim 1999, p. 126ff
  3. ^ Henryk Świebocki: The "Kampfgruppe Auschwitz" . In: Wacław Długoborski, Franciszek Piper (ed.): Auschwitz 1940–1945. Studies on the history of the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp. , Oswiecim 1999, III. Band Resistance , pp. 153f
  4. ↑ a b c d e Henryk Świebocki: The "Kampfgruppe Auschwitz" . In: Wacław Długoborski, Franciszek Piper (ed.): Auschwitz 1940–1945. Studies on the history of the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp. , Oswiecim 1999, III. Band Resistance , pp. 154f
  5. ^ Manfred Mugrauer: Ernst Burger (1915–1944). Functional of the Communist Youth Association and leading member of the "Kampfgruppe Auschwitz". In: Documentation archive of the Austrian resistance (ed.): Feindbilder. Yearbook 2015 , Vienna 2015, p. 216.
  6. ↑ a b c d Henryk Świebocki: The "Kampfgruppe Auschwitz" . In: Wacław Długoborski, Franciszek Piper (ed.): Auschwitz 1940–1945. Studies on the history of the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp. , Oswiecim 1999, III. Band Resistance , p. 155.
  7. ↑ The Righteous of Austria - No full-fledged people
  8. ↑ auschwitz information, 67th edition, January 2005, Institute for Social and Economic History, Johannes Kepler University Linz The Liberation of Auschwitz (PDF; 82 kB), p. 3.
  9. ↑ Andreas Eder: Maria Stromberger - In memory of the "Angel of Auschwitz" , p. 11.
  10. ↑ Short biography of Franz Danimann on /www.bildungsverlag-lemberger.at
  11. ↑ Auschwitz was taboo in Austria for a long time. In: science.orf.at. January 22, 2015, accessed December 1, 2017 .
  12. ^ A b Henryk Świebocki: The "Kampfgruppe Auschwitz" . In: Wacław Długoborski, Franciszek Piper (ed.): Auschwitz 1940–1945. Studies on the history of the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp. , Oswiecim 1999, III. Band Resistance , p. 156f
  13. ↑ Harald Walser: "The Angel of Auschwitz" - On the work of the nurse Maria Stromberger , in: Montfort - quarterly journal for the past and present of Vorarlberg, vol. 40, 1988, issue 1, pp. 70–78.
  14. ↑ Andreas Eder: Maria Stromberger - In memory of the "Angel of Auschwitz" , p. 27f.
  15. ^ Hermann Langbein: People in Auschwitz. , 1980, pp. 304f.
  16. ↑ Andreas Eder: Maria Stromberger - In memory of the "Angel of Auschwitz" , p. 28f.
  17. ↑ Detlef Garbe: Self-assertion and resistance. In: Wolfgang Benz, Barbara Distel (eds.): The place of terror. History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps. Volume 1: The Organization of Terror. CH Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-52961-5 , p. 254.
  18. ↑ a b Garlinski: underground in the Auschwitz camp on www.polishresistance-ak.org
  19. ↑ Baum does not use the word "Kampfgruppe" anywhere, he calls the group he describes consistently "Resistance Organization", sometimes also "Gruppe"