Max Pauly (SS member)

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Max Pauly after his arrest in 1945.

Max Johann Friedrich Pauly (born June 1, 1907 in Wesselburen , † October 8, 1946 in Hameln ) was a German SS leader in the rank of SS standard leader , concentration camp commandant and war criminal .

Life

Max Pauly, the son of a household goods store owner, trained as a salesman in the hardware store in his hometown after graduating from elementary school. After his father died in 1928, he took over his household goods store. Pauly married the daughter of a cattle dealer from Wesselburen in 1930 and had five children. His wife died in August 1944.

Pauly became a member of the SA and NSDAP at the end of 1928 ( membership number 106.204) and switched from the SA to the SS at the beginning of May 1930 (SS number 5448). In the eyes of the National Socialists , he was considered an “ old fighter ”. Even before the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists , Pauly was appointed SS storm leader on January 27, 1932. He was the head of Sturmbanns I / 53 in Rendsburg . He was arrested several times as a result of right-wing extremist attacks and in 1932 had to serve a seven-month prison sentence for a serious breach of the peace. The background was his participation in the destruction of an SPD election campaign vehicle. On June 12, 1933 he rose to SS-Hauptsturmführer; Pauly received his appointment as SS-Sturmbannführer on June 20, 1934 as part of a direct promotion.

From the spring of 1936, Max Pauly was listed as a full-time SS leader in the Schutzstaffel and completed a course with the police and at the SS Unterführerschule Dachau . Afterwards he led the second SS-Sturmbann of the 53rd SS-Standard in Rendsburg . On February 1, 1937, Max Pauly took over command of the 71st SS Standard in the Danzig-Praust district from his predecessor Manfred Körnich. He was to be in command of this standard until the end of the war. On November 9, 1937 Pauly was appointed SS-Obersturmbannführer.

Second World War

After completing the 14th course at the SS driving school in Dachau, Pauly was assigned to the newly founded SS guard Eimann in the summer of 1939 , where he served as chief of staff. A little later he took over the organizational control of all the "internment camps" that were set up in the Polish corridor . He was jointly responsible for the murder of 1,400 mentally ill people and in October 1939 took over the provisional management of the "SS special camp Stutthof" and other detention centers.

On February 20, 1942, Max Pauly also officially took over command of the Stutthof concentration camp and was thus assigned to the notorious SS death's head associations . With this assignment he was taken over as SS-Sturmbannführer of the reserve with effect from January 30, 1942 also in the Waffen-SS .

At the beginning of September 1942 he changed to the Neuengamme concentration camp as a commandant , which he headed until the beginning of May 1945. Numerous war crimes fell during this period , such as the murder of the children from Bullenhuser Damm and the execution of 58 men and 13 women from the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp .

The seniority list of the Waffen-SS with the state of affairs from January 1, 1944 (handwritten up to and including January 30, 1945) noted a promotion for Pauly on November 9, 1944 under the serial number 2871. However, there was no mention of which one Pauly was promoted to the Waffen-SS, especially since this DAL still lists him as Sturmbannführer, although he had already reached the rank of Obersturmbannführer in the General SS. Pauly received his promotion to SS-Standartenführer in the Allgemeine SS on March 1, 1945; this is likely to have been one of the rare direct transports, as otherwise only transports were carried out on "historical memorial days of the Nazi movement" (January 30, April 20 and November 9).

After the end of the war

On April 30, 1945, Pauly fled to Flensburg and was arrested in his hometown the following autumn. Pauly, known for his cruelty in Neuengamme concentration camp, was brought before a British military tribunal in the main Neuengamme trial in Hamburg with thirteen other persons responsible for the Neuengamme concentration camp . Pauly was u. a. accused of poor supplies for prisoners and murders. Max Pauly was sentenced to death with ten other defendants on May 3, 1946 and hanged in Hameln prison on October 8, 1946 .

literature

  • Karin Orth : Education to be a torturer? The example of the concentration camp commandant Max Pauly. In: Tormenting the Body. A Historical Anthropology of Torture. Edited by Peter Burschel, Götz Distelrath, Sven Lembke. Böhlau, Cologne / Weimar / Berlin 2000, 325 pages, ISBN 3-412-06300-2 .
  • Karin Orth: The concentration camp SS. dtv, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-423-34085-1 .
  • Karin Orth: The system of the National Socialist concentration camps. Pendo Verlag, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-85-842-450-1 .
  • Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, p. 452, 2nd edition 2005, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 .
  • Mark C. Yerger : General SS. The Commands, Units and Leaders of the General SS. Schiffer Publishing Ltd. 1997, ISBN 0-7643-0145-4 , p. 203
  • Tom Segev : The Soldiers of Evil. On the history of the concentration camp commanders. Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1995, ISBN 3-499-18826-0 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Tom Segev: The Soldiers of Evil. On the history of the concentration camp commanders. Reinbek near Hamburg 1995, p. 211 ff.
  2. ↑ a b Orth: The Concentration Camp SS . 2004, p. 217 f.
  3. ↑ SS Leadership Main Office: Lists of seniority for the NSDAP's Schutzstaffel. As of December 1, 1938 with the amendment booklet of June 15, 1939, serial number 811.
  4. ↑ On October 15, 1934, renamed SS-Untersturmführer
  5. ↑ Orth: The system of the National Socialist concentration camps. 2002, p. 138
  6. ↑ a b c d Klee: The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. 2007, p. 479
  7. ↑ Orth: The system of the National Socialist concentration camps. 2002, p. 70
  8. ↑ Orth: The system of the National Socialist concentration camps. 2002, p. 138
  9. ^ Meyer: Seniority list of the Waffen SS. 1944, p. 120
  10. ↑ Yerger: Allgemeine SS. The Commands, Units and Leaders of the General SS. 1997, p. 203
personal data
SURNAME Pauly, Max
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pauly, Max Johann Friedrich (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German concentration camp commandant in Stutthof, Hohengemma and Neuengamme
DATE OF BIRTH June 1, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Wesselburen
DATE OF DEATH October 8, 1946
Place of death Hamelin prison