Karl Chmielewski

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Karl Chmielewski

Karl Chmielewski (born July 16, 1903 in Frankfurt am Main , † December 1, 1991 in Bernau am Chiemsee ) was a German SS-Hauptsturmführer (R).

He was the concentration camp commandant of the Gusen concentration camp and built up the Herzogenbusch concentration camp . Chmielewski was considered the "devil of Gusen" and was one of the few concentration camp commanders who were themselves taken to a concentration camp as a prisoner.

Life

Career

In his youth, Chmielewski moved from the Kaiser Wilhelm High School in Frankfurt am Main to the Oberrealschule in Langen , which he left in 1918 without a degree. After moving to Munich , Chmielewski completed an apprenticeship as a wood sculptor and ivory carver, which he completed in 1924 with the journeyman's examination. Chmielewski was self-employed in this trade in Munich for some time, but had to close his business in the 1920s due to the economic crisis.

Nazi career

In 1932 Chmielewski joined the General SS (membership number 63,950) after a long period of unemployment and a few odd jobs and from 1932 also worked actively for the NSDAP , of which he became a member in 1933 (membership number 1,508,254). At the beginning of 1933 Chmielewski served as an auxiliary policeman and orderly between the police headquarters and the SS main office in Munich. Chmielewski was taken over to the staff of the Reichsführer SS (RFSS) in 1933 and promoted to SS-Unterscharführer . Chmielewski moved to Berlin in 1934 when the chief adjutant of the RFSS was relocated as a treasurer . In 1935, Chmielewski served in the command headquarters of the Columbia concentration camp and between 1936 and 1939 as an administrative officer in the command headquarters of KL Sachsenhausen . In 1938 Chmielewski was promoted to SS-Untersturmführer and trained as a protective custody camp leader .

Gusen concentration camp

In 1940 Chmielewski was transferred to the headquarters staff of the Mauthausen concentration camp to set up the Gusen part of the camp and moved with his family to an apartment provided by the Deutsche Erd- und Steinwerke (DEST) in St. Georgen an der Gusen . Chmielewski's wife worked there in the accounting department of the DEST work group St. Georgen / Gusen until the end of the war .

From 1940 to 1942, Chmielewski served as SS-Hauptsturmführer (R) as Protective Custody Camp Leader I of the Gusen concentration camp . While Chmielewski shaped the Gusen concentration camp with extreme brutality, above all as an extermination camp for Polish intellectuals and Red Spaniards, despite numerous excesses of alcohol he tried to make a living in connection with the archaeological finds made in Gusen while building the railway and the establishment of a small museum directly in the concentration camp. He was personally involved in the mistreatment and murder of the concentration camp inmates, so he suggested u. a. Prisoners to death or raped female prisoners Due to the catastrophic hygienic conditions in this extermination camp, Commander Chmielewski also fell ill with neuritis and typhus in early 1942 and was often unable to work and on cure in the first half of this year. From September 1942, Chmielewski was commissioned to build up KL Herzogenbusch , of which he was in command from January 5, 1943, while his family stayed in St. Georgen / Gusen until the end of the war.

End of the SS career

Because of embezzlement was arrested Chmielewski in October 1943 and sentenced in 1944 before an SS court to 15 years in prison. After staying in pre-trial detention in Sachsenhausen and in the SS and police penal camp in Dachau , Chmielewski said he was a camp elder in the Allach subcamp until April 1945 . Chmielewski was able to move away from there during the collapse and, after visiting his family in St. Georgen / Gusen, went into hiding with a farmer in Mettmach ( Upper Austria ) until autumn 1946 . With false papers, Chmielewski subsequently managed to return to Germany , where he made his way with farmers, rabbit breeding (see also Rabbit Breeding Command in KL Gusen I) and egg trading.

Post war justice

Chmielewski was sentenced to one year imprisonment in Munich- Stadelheim by a German court for perjury , double marriage and fraud in 1953 and was in custody before and after these proceedings for murder in Gusen.

In November 1961, Chmielewski was finally sentenced to life imprisonment by a jury of the Ansbach regional court for 282 murders and served his sentence in Straubing . In March 1979, “with regard to the state of health of the convicted person”, a pardon was granted “for the duration of inpatient treatment in a suitable institution”. Chmielewski spent the last years of his life in Bernau am Chiemsee. He was buried there in the cemetery, the grave site was abandoned in spring 2018.

One of his motto as a camp commandant in Gusen was allegedly: "A good prisoner can't stand it for more than 3-4 months in a concentration camp, whoever can stand it longer is a crook."

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c "Sagel-Grande, et.al .: Justice and Nazi crimes - criminal proceedings against Chmielewski Karl (location, structure and staffing of the Gusen camp and living conditions of its prisoners) . Volume XVII. Pp. 160 ff, Amsterdam 1977 . P. 160 ff.
  2. ^ Rudolf Haunschmied : 1938/1945 - To commemorate . In: Marktgemeinde St. Georgen ad Gusen (Hrsg ..): 300 years of extended market law St. Georgen ad Gusen , St. Georgen ad Gusen 1989, pp. 73–112.
  3. ↑ Staffing plan for the DEST work group St. Georgen
  4. ^ Rudolf A. Haunschmied, Jan-Ruth Mills, Siegi Witzany-Durda: St. Georgen-Gusen-Mauthausen - Concentration Camp Mauthausen Reconsidered . BoD, Norderstedt 2008, ISBN 978-3-8334-7440-8 . P. 88
  5. ↑ Schiffkorn Elisabeth: On the research history of the Urnfield time burial ground of Gusen . In: EuroJournal Mühlviertel-Böhmerwald , 2nd year, special issue 1, Linz 1996.
  6. ↑ Culture news from Upper Danube. Office of the cultural representative of the Gauleiter and Reich Governor in Upper Danube. Linz, July 1, 1942, p. 3.
  7. ↑ My father, the mass murderer
  8. ↑ Matthias Köpf: No more cross for the war criminal. In: sueddeutsche.de . February 23, 2018, accessed October 13, 2018 .
  9. ↑ taz of January 6, 2016
personal data
SURNAME Chmielewski, Karl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German SS-Hauptsturmführer and concentration camp commander
DATE OF BIRTH July 16, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Frankfurt am Main
DATE OF DEATH 1st December 1991
Place of death Bernau am Chiemsee