Karl Bischoff (engineer)

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Karl Bischoff (born August 9, 1897 in Neuhemsbach ; † October 2, 1950 in Bremen ) was a German engineer, high-ranking SS member and head of the SS Central Construction Office in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp for the construction of the concentration camp and crematoria with gas chambers Involved at the time of the German occupation of Poland between 1941 and 1944.

Professional background

Bischoff initially worked on railway construction sites , was a war participant in World War I and was deployed there in the Air Force in 1917. After the war, he continued his studies as a civil and civil engineering continued. He then worked as an independent expert .

From 1932, Bischoff was a member of the NSDAP ( membership number 26.281) and a member of the SS (SS number 419.197). From 1935 he worked as a civilian in the “Main Office for Building Construction of the Air Force” and after the beginning of the Second World War he was significantly involved in the construction of airfields in German-occupied Belgium and northern France. When his superior, SS-Oberführer Hans Kammler , became head of the SS Main Office for Households and Buildings (SS-HHB) in mid-1941, he offered Karl Bischoff a “lightning career” in the rank of SS-Hauptsturmführer and on October 1, 1941, gave him the title Management function of the special construction management (later central construction management) for the construction of a planned prisoner-of-war camp in Auschwitz, which later became the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp with its participation as an extermination camp .

In October 1941, Bischoff met Kurt Prüfer from the Topf & Sons company for the first time and commissioned plans for a large new crematorium with a morgue. Bischoff reported the imminent completion of "Crematorium II" to his superior Kammler in a letter dated January 29, 1943 with the following words:

“The ovens were inspected in the presence of the chief engineer examiner of the executing company, Topf u. Sons, Erfurt, cheered and work [sic] perfectly. The reinforced concrete ceiling of the morgue could not be removed due to the frost. However, this is insignificant because the gas cellar can be used for this. " 

This document comes from the archive of the Central Construction Office, which was dissolved in 1944 and had been forgotten. The documents escaped destruction by the retreating National Socialists and were transferred to the Moscow State Archives. The construction documents contain orders for gas testing devices and special doors, the purpose of which is clear.

During his interrogation in Krakow, Rudolf Höß described Bischoff as a “tough, stubborn and stubborn construction specialist”, but praised his organizational talent. In 1943, Bischoff was promoted to SS-Sturmbannführer.

From the beginning of November 1943 to January 1945 he worked as a building inspector for the Waffen SS and police based in Katowice . On January 30, 1944, Bischoff was awarded the War Merit Cross, First Class with Swords, for “his commitment to winning construction projects” .

Bischoff died in 1950 without being prosecuted by an authority.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Ernst Klee: Auschwitz. Perpetrators, accomplices, victims and what became of them. Lexicon of persons. Frankfurt am Main 2013, p. 49.
  2. ↑ http://www.holocaust-history.org/auschwitz/19430129-vergasungskeller/
  3. ^ Robert-Jan van Pelt / Deborah Dworak: Auschwitz . Pendo Verlag, Zurich 1998, ISBN 3-7632-4897-8 , pp. 233/236.
  4. ^ Jean Claude Pressac: The Auschwitz Crematoria . P. 179.
personal data
SURNAME Bischoff, Karl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German engineer
DATE OF BIRTH August 9, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH Neuhemsbach
DATE OF DEATH October 2, 1950
Place of death Bremen