Karl Künstler (SS member)

Karl Künstler (born January 12, 1901 in Zella , † probably in April 1945 near Nuremberg ) was SS-Obersturmbannführer as a camp commandant of the Flossenbürg concentration camp .

Life

Karl Künstler, whose father was a barber, worked after completing his school career against the wishes of his parents from 1915 at a post office in Kassel. From 1919 he became a professional soldier and committed himself to the Reichswehr for 12 years , where, in addition to various training courses, he also attended the Army College for Administration and Economics . His marriage in 1929 had two children. Artist, who rose to the rank of sergeant in the Reichswehr , left the military in 1931. As early as 1931 he joined the SS (SS No. 40.005) and then the NSDAP ( membership number 1.238.648). From 1931 he served full-time with the SS. In the years 1934 to 1935 he was assigned to the SS disposal force in Jüterbog and then briefly to the SS-Totenkopfverband Brandenburg. After completing a course in 1936 at the SS Junker School in Bad Tölz, he was transferred to the SS Totenkopfstandarte Oberbayern and rose to its command in December 1939.

Concentration camp commander

In January 1939, Künstler became camp commandant of the Flossenbürg concentration camp after the previous camp commandant Jakob Weiseborn had committed suicide on January 20, 1939 . Deaths in the camp skyrocketed among artists who were considered arbitrary. He was also responsible for mass executions of Polish and Soviet prisoners and also introduced two-week special leave for guards who shot prisoners while they were fleeing.

In August 1942, Oswald Pohl released artist from his post as camp commandant. He was followed for two months by the protective custody camp leader of the Flossenbürg concentration camp, Karl Fritzsch , before Egon Zill was appointed camp commandant. The reasons for the artist's replacement as camp commandant lay in his dissolute lifestyle and his chronic alcohol abuse. Like other concentration camp commanders and camp personnel, Künstler was targeted by SS judge Konrad Morgen , who investigated crimes and corruption in the concentration camps and brought these criminal offenses to justice. He was then transferred to the Prinz Eugen SS Division and probably died in April 1945 in the Battle of Nuremberg . Artist was declared dead in Erlangen in 1949 .

literature

• Karin Orth : The concentration camp SS. dtv, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-423-34085-1 .
• Tom Segev: The Soldiers of Evil. On the history of the concentration camp commanders. Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1995, ISBN 3-499-18826-0 .
• Karin Orth: The system of the National Socialist concentration camps. Pendo Verlag, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-85-842-450-1 .
• Ernst Klee: The personal lexicon for the Third Reich: Who was what before and after 1945. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2005. ISBN 3-596-16048-0 .