Karel Lodewijk Diepgrond

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Karel Lodewijk Diepgrond (born July 11, 1896 in Amsterdam ; died around 1967/1968) was a Dutch war criminal and camp leader of the Kamp Erika prison camp .

Life

Diepgrond was born as the youngest son of a family with eleven children. He attended elementary school in Amsterdam and initially trained as a painter and house painter. From 1916 he was drafted into the military. A year after the First World War , Diepgrond moved to the municipal police in Amsterdam. According to his own statement, he acquired the language skills in self-study. In 1922 Diepgrond married. The marriage resulted in two sons. He himself described the marriage as anything but happy. The marriage ended in divorce in 1931. In the same year Diepgrond was dismissed from the police force and went to Germany with his second German wife, where the couple lived with Diepgrond's in-laws in Bottrop. From this marriage a child was born. After an argument with his brother-in-law, Diepgrond left Germany in 1936 and returned to Amsterdam. Diepgrond writes that his attitude towards National Socialism changed after his stay in Germany. At the beginning of 1937 he brought his wife and child to Amsterdam, where he worked as a security guard. In the same year Diepgrond became a member of the National Socialist Movement .

Camp leader Diepgrond

After the German occupation of the Netherlands , he first worked as an interpreter for the security service . There he met Werner Schwier , a former German horse butcher who headed the International Organizations Department of the Occupying Power and was charged with dissolving organizations that opposed National Socialism. In the liquidation estate of the Order of the Star in the East there was a storage property for which there was initially no use. Difficult appointed Diepgrond as camp leader, who in turn recruited the guards. First of all, a labor camp for Jews was to be built. Then Kamp Erika became a judicial camp for Dutch prisoners and later a labor camp for “anti-social” . Diepgrond kept a camp book and repeatedly documented the mistreatment of prisoners.

During the last two years of World War II , Diepgrond was a member of the thugs that committed crimes such as ill-treatment, murder and pillage in the vicinity of the prison camp. In February 1944 Diepgrond was arrested and detained in Scheveningen for releasing prisoners for unknown reasons. The next day he was released after Schwier intervened and reinstated as camp leader.

post war period

After the war, Diepgrond was imprisoned in the camp he ran. Diepgrond became a latrine troop ("Odeurgroep") and also had to help exhume J. van Putten and D. Webbing, who had been killed by his thugs. On June 9, 1945, the local newspaper "De Vechtstreek" reported that Diepgrond was wearing a suit during interrogation that he had stolen from the property of Mayor Van Oorschot as a member of the thugs. The mayor personally present at the interrogation recognized the suit.

In 1949 Diepgrond u. a. tried in a special court in Arnhem for the murder of Hans Erik Gouwe. De Jong quotes from the court records that Diepgrond generally did not have a bad name with prisoners, but adds that this was only true of non-Jews. The prosecutor's office demanded life imprisonment. Diepgrond was sentenced to twenty years in prison and pardoned by the Queen in 1957.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Louis de Jong: Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden in de Tweede Wereldoorlog, Volume 8: Gevangen en Gedeporteerden, tweede help. The Hague 1978, p. 628.
  2. ↑ Guusta Veldman: Knackers achter prikkeldraad: Kamp Erika bij Ommen, 1941-1945 . Utrecht 1993, p. 54.
  3. ↑ Facsimile of the newspaper article “De Vechtstreek” from June 9, 1945
  4. ↑ Louis de Jong: Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden in de Tweede Wereldoorlog, Volume 8: Prisoners en Gedeporteerden, tweede helft. Staatsuitgeverij, The Hague 1978, p. 631.
  5. ^ Provinciale Zeeuwse Courant, May 5, 1949, p. 5.
  6. ↑ Hans Gouwe vermoord. September 23, 2017, accessed on June 9, 2018 (article on the website of the Stichting Historische Projecten Hardenberg).

Web link

Used literature

  • Guusta Veldman: Knackers eighth prikkeldraad: Kamp Erika bij Ommen, 1941–1945 . Matrijs, Utrecht 1993; ISBN 90-5345-037-8 .
personal data
SURNAME Diepgrond, Karel Lodewijk
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch war criminal and camp leader of Kamp Erika
DATE OF BIRTH July 11, 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH Amsterdam
DATE OF DEATH around 1967