Oskar Groening

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Oskar Gröning (born June 10, 1921 in Nienburg / Weser ; † March 9, 2018 ) was a German SS member. From 1942 to 1944 he worked in the prisoner property management of the site administration in the concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz , most recently with the rank of SS-Unterscharfuhrer .

On April 21, 2015, legal proceedings against him for complicity in murder in 300,000 cases began before the Lüneburg Regional Court . On July 15, 2015, he was sentenced to four years' imprisonment. Against the judgment laid plaintiffs and defense Revision one. On September 20, 2016, the Federal Court of Justice confirmed the judgment. The Federal Constitutional Court ruled on December 21, 2017 that Groening's old age did not prevent him from serving his sentence. He died in March 2018 at the age of 96 without serving the sentence.

biography

Life and career in the SS

Gröning's father returned from the First World War as an invalid and then ran a fabric shop. His mother died when he was four years old. Gröning initially belonged to the "Scharnhorstbund", a youth organization of the paramilitary association Stahlhelm . In 1933 he joined the Hitler Youth (HJ).

After graduating from secondary school , at the age of seventeen, he began training as a banker at Sparkasse Nienburg . In 1939 he became a member of the NSDAP . During the Second World War in 1940 he voluntarily joined the Waffen SS and initially worked in a salary department of the SS administration in accordance with his civilian training . He resigned from the Protestant Church true to the line, as the Reichsführer SS had advocated this for SS men.

At the age of 21 he was assigned a "special order" by the SS. According to his statement, he had to sign a confidentiality agreement beforehand . He only found out the location of the special assignment (Auschwitz) later, he was only told that the new job was not pleasant, but important. At the end of September 1942 he began his service in the Auschwitz concentration camp. As a result of his banking apprenticeship, he was assigned a post in the prisoner property management department headed by Theodor Krätzer within the site administration . In this role he was responsible for the administration of the money and valuables that the Holocaust victims carried with them. The prisoners' valuables were stored in the concentration camp's effects room. After sorting the money into the various currencies, he secured the foreign exchange in a safe and brought it to the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office (WVHA) in Berlin at certain intervals . In the course of his work, he witnessed industrialized mass murder by gas as well as other barbaric attacks and murders. During his service in Auschwitz concentration camp, he was promoted from SS Rottenführer to SS Unterscharführer . Groening's brother fell in the battle of Stalingrad and left a fiancée behind. Gröning took over his marriage vows. In mid-November 1943 he applied to the SS for a wedding permit. He married the leader of the Bund Deutscher Mädel (BDM) while he was still in service in Auschwitz and had two sons.

According to his own statements, he submitted a total of three requests for transfer to the front in order to escape the unpleasant activity in the Auschwitz extermination camp. On October 17, 1944, the SS finally transferred him to a field unit that was fighting in the Ardennes offensive .

post war period

British troops took Groening at the end of the war caught and interned initially it in Germany. In 1946 he was brought to England and obliged to work. During this time Gröning joined a choir and gave concerts with him in Scotland . In a file dated March 6, 1947, Groening's name appears on a list of the United Nations War Crimes Commission (UNWCC). He is one of 300 Germans who worked in Auschwitz who the government of the People's Republic of Poland wanted to bring to justice for war crimes . The allegations were listed there with the keyword “common design”, which the authorities used to describe a large number of acts such as killing in gas chambers , but also human experiments and general abuse. In Gröning's case, the file bears the handwritten note “complicity in murder and ill-treatment” (German: complicity in murder and abuse). Groening's name also appears on a list drawn up by Marian Muszkat , the Polish representative at the UNWCC, and which was the subject of a court hearing in London on March 20, 1947. Groening was marked as a "suspect" on this list. The court had to decide whether a formal charge should be brought in the listed cases. On April 24, 1947, the British Foreign Office representative at the UNWCC urged that no new cases be opened; building Germany should now have priority. Contrary to the protests of Poland and Yugoslavia, the commission subsequently decided to release all suspected SS members without further proceedings.

After his release from British captivity, Groening returned to Nienburg. He got a job as an accountant in a glass factory in his hometown and later rose there to head of human resources. He also worked as an honorary judge at the labor court in Nienburg for twelve years .

A first case against Gröning was initiated in 1978. In 1985 a new investigation began against him, which the public prosecutor later closed. In the same year he received the Holocaust-denying brochure The Auschwitz Lie by Thies Christophersen from a friend . Gröning replied in writing that he had been there himself and had seen everything - the selections , the gassings and the crematoria - in operation. His statement then appeared in a right-wing neo-Nazi brochure, where it was ridiculed.

In 2005 Gröning gave interviews to the British broadcaster BBC for a documentary about Auschwitz and to Spiegel :

“I felt it was my job to stand by things that I have experienced now, at my age. Because I want to say to the deniers: I've seen the crematoria, I've seen the open fireplaces. […] I was there."

Witness in post-war proceedings

In 1991, Groening was summoned as a witness in a post-war trial before the Duisburg Regional Court against an SS man who was directly involved in the murder of concentration camp prisoners. At the time, Groening himself was considered legally innocent and was not under indictment. The press gave him the nickname "Accountant of Auschwitz". He confirmed the Holocaust as an eyewitness: “I've seen everything. The gassings , the burns, the selections. 1.5 million Jews were murdered in Auschwitz . I was there."

Lüneburg Auschwitz Trial

Legal reassessment of the aid with regard to Auschwitz

In the post-war years there were legal proceedings regarding Aktion Reinhardt . Around 120 SS men were employed in the three extermination camps at Belzec , Sobibor and Treblinka , almost all of whom were convicted of criminal offenses. There was no need to provide legal evidence of individual involvement in the crime, as nothing else was done in these killing sites other than sending deportees to gas chambers immediately after arriving from the railroad track in order to then bury or burn the bodies. Among those convicted at the time was, for example, the SS accountant Alfred Ittner , who received a four-year prison sentence for aiding and abetting the collective murder of at least 68,000 people.

The judiciary of the time made a distinction between “pure” extermination camps and those camps like Auschwitz and Lublin , which had a dual function as concentration camps and extermination camps. At the Auschwitz camp complex, evidence of direct involvement in the murder had to be provided.

After a lengthy debate on the statute of limitations in what was then West Germany, the German Bundestag lifted the statute of limitations for murder and accessory to murder in 1979 with regard to the crimes during the Nazi dictatorship . Most of the Nazi extermination sites were on Polish territory, including the Auschwitz concentration camp. During the time of the Communist People's Republic of Poland, the later Auschwitz memorial was unclear about the number of deaths. After the Cold War eased , a rapprochement between West and East was achieved, and finally the revolutions came in 1989 , including the turning point in Poland , aided by glasnost and perestroika , among other things . Western Holocaust researchers were given better access to archives in Eastern Bloc countries .

In 2011 John Demjanjuk , who as a Trawniki man had been a non-German SS assistant in Sobibor, was convicted of participating in the murder of 28,060 people. However, due to Demjanjuk's death shortly after the verdict was pronounced, the legal form of “functional aid” without direct involvement in individual acts of murder could no longer be examined by an appeal court. The Auschwitz camp complex - and its dual function as a concentration and extermination camp - returned to the legal debate after the Demjanjuk judgment. For more than 60 years, international Holocaust research had extensively researched the Auschwitz camp complex, its clear function as an extermination camp and its role in genocide . Evidence of immediate, direct involvement in individual homicides was no longer necessary even with the SS in Auschwitz. It was now assumed that everyone who worked here had knowingly contributed to the smooth running of the Auschwitz killing factory.

Overview of the Auschwitz concentration camp : In the Birkenau camp area , industrialized mass murder took place by means of gassing. After the end of the war, the term extermination camp was coined for Nazi killing factories .

Procedure

The public prosecutor charged Gröning with complicity in murder in 300,000 legally coinciding cases. 65 joint plaintiffs were admitted to the trial , including Holocaust survivors Éva Fahidi , Eva Kor , Hedy Bohm and Max Tibor Eisen.

The Auschwitz trial began on April 21, 2015 in the Lüneburg Regional Court . The indictment related to the period in the summer of 1944 when, within eight weeks, around 425,000 Hungarian Jews were deported to the extermination camp by 137 railroad trains . The SS had around 300,000 of them murdered within a few weeks.

The accusation of the public prosecutor was that Groening had, through his activities, e.g. B. to loot prisoners' valuables and pass them on to the SS, to support the SS financially and to make an "at least subordinate contribution" to organized mass murder. Gröning also worked on the ramp. He had to take care of the removal of the luggage and the cleaning of the platform so that it looked tidy and the deportees were innocent and no panic broke out on the platform when the next deportation train arrived.

Gröning testified that he had only been on the ramp three times during the deportations from Hungary. During the so-called Hungary Action in Nazi parlance , the SS boasted that they could "dispose of" 5,000 corpses within 24 hours , since the crematoria were in continuous operation and additional cremation pits were built. In the early days of the “Hungary Action”, the SS had sent so-called “ Forest Sea Maps ” from Auschwitz to Budapest in order to appease relatives' suspicions. The arriving trains had 45 to 50 wagons with 80 deportees each; H. an average of around 4,000 people. In order to avoid any unrest on the platform, the wagons were gradually opened, adapted to the current occupancy of the crematoria. The deportees waited in rows of five and then had to march on foot to the alleged disinfection chambers (gas chambers). The process was also controlled by prison functionaries . The sight of living prisoners gave the impression of a normal labor camp and allayed any fears about mass shootings . The mood among those arriving was “inexperienced and completely clueless”, which meant that the Birkenau ramp was quiet and that there was no excess. He also stated that during a search for escaped prisoners, he came closer to the Birkenau killing machinery for the first time and saw gassings and the cremation pits.

The Lüneburg district court evaluated the numerous methods with which the SS brought about the innocence and defenselessness of the victims, which made the very high extermination rate possible, as a criterion of maliciousness in the later grounds of the judgment . The cyanide poisoning by means of Zyklon B caused the doomed to die for up to 30 minutes with internal suffocation and cramps. The inmates were taken to the gas chambers in groups and had to endure not only increased physical agony as they died, but also mental agony, as they also had to endure the agony of their family members. The court rated this as the murder mark of cruelty .

On July 15, 2015, Groening was sentenced to four years in prison. In the judgment, the court recognized his physical and mental efforts. The 93-year-old had held out until exhaustion during the days of the trial. He stood out from the crowd of SS men, who mostly denied or glossed over their deeds in trials: He reported in detail about Auschwitz, admitted to moral responsibility and showed remorse. The court accused him of having contributed to the smooth running of the killing factory through his bookkeeping and tasks during the arrival of deportees. His testimony that as an SS bookkeeper he had a weapon and that he had taken part in the search for an escaped prisoner confirmed the verdict. All SS men had permission or duty orders to shoot, for example, escaped prisoners without warning (see so-called duty to post ).

Attorneys for secondary plaintiffs appealed against the judgment to the Federal Court of Justice (BGH). The defense lawyers of Groening also appealed. With a ruling of September 20, 2016, the BGH confirmed the judgment, which thus became final . The co-plaintiffs welcomed this as an “important correction of the earlier case law”, which had demanded proof of direct involvement in certain acts of killing in Nazi trials against former guards at the extermination camps for assisting murder.

The public prosecutor's office in Hanover held Gröning generally liable . An application by the defense to postpone the sentence for health reasons in accordance with Section 455 of the Code of Criminal Procedure was rejected in August 2017, and a written summons to begin the sentence had not yet been issued.

On November 29, 2017, the Higher Regional Court of Celle decided that the 96-year-old Gröning had to go to prison (AZ 3 Ws 491/17). On the basis of expert opinions obtained, the court ruled that he was fit for execution despite his advanced age. It also does not violate the convicted person's fundamental rights to include him in the prison system. The rule of law prevails over the rights of the convicted person.

Groening's complaint to the Federal Constitutional Court was not accepted for decision. The third chamber of the Second Senate decided on December 21, 2017 that Groening's old age did not prevent him from serving his sentence. A request for clemency submitted by Gröning in accordance with the Lower Saxony grace order was rejected. In February 2018, Gröning sent a second request for clemency to the Lower Saxony Ministry of Justice. Even before the Justice Minister's decision, Gröning died on March 9, 2018, without starting the sentence.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Former SS man Oskar Gröning is dead. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, March 12, 2018, accessed on March 13, 2018 (source: dpa).
  2. ^ Zeit online, dpa, sk: Former SS man makes confession. In: zeit.de. April 21, 2015, accessed July 17, 2015 .
  3. ^ Claudia von Salzen: Aiding and abetting the murder of 300,000 people. In: zeit.de. April 20, 2015, accessed July 17, 2015 .
  4. ^ Auschwitz Trial: Oskar Gröning sentenced to four years in prison. In: zeit.de. July 15, 2015, accessed on July 17, 2015 (source: ZEIT ONLINE, dpa, AFP, mm).
  5. ↑ Gisela Friedrichsen : A conviction for murder is impossible. Comment on the revision. In: spiegel.de, July 18, 2015, accessed on August 12, 2016.
  6. ↑ Martin Anetzberger: BGH confirms judgment against the "accountant of Auschwitz". In: sueddeutsche.de, November 28, 2016.
  7. ↑ a b bundesverfassungsgericht.de: Unsuccessful constitutional complaint against the refusal to postpone the execution of a prison sentence. Press release no.115/2017 of December 29, 2017, resolution of December 21, 2017, file number 2 BvR 2772/17. In: bundesverfassungsgericht.de, accessed on May 5, 2019.
  8. ↑ Claudia von Salzen: Trial against Oskar Gröning - The "Accountant of Auschwitz" testifies. In: Der Tagesspiegel . April 21, 2015, p. 3 (3rd online subpage).
  9. ↑ a b c Claudia von Salzen: Trial against Oskar Gröning - The “Accountant of Auschwitz” testifies. In: Der Tagesspiegel . April 21, 2015, p. 3.
  10. ↑ Claudia von Salzen : Oskar Gröning: “We were trained to act on orders”. In: Der Tagesspiegel. April 27, 2015, accessed July 18, 2015 .
  11. ^ A b c d Matthias Geyer: Coming to terms with the past: The accountant of Auschwitz . In: Der Spiegel . No. 19 , May 9, 2005, pp. 164–160 ( spiegel.de [accessed March 12, 2018]).
  12. ^ How Nazi guard Oskar Gröning escaped justice in 1947 for crimes at Auschwitz. In: The Guardian . July 16, 2015, accessed July 17, 2015.
  13. ↑ Wiebke Ramm : Judgment in the Auschwitz trial: "You wanted to belong to the dashing, ragged SS troops". In: Spiegel Online . July 15, 2015, accessed July 16, 2015 .
  14. ↑ Gudula Hörr: The man who counted the money of the Jews. In: n-tv.de. April 21, 2015, accessed July 27, 2015 .
  15. ↑ Alexandra Kraft: How Irene Weiss experienced the hell of Auschwitz. In: stern.de. May 6, 2015, accessed July 22, 2015 .
  16. ↑ Auschwitz Trial - Zyklon B and the agony. In: welt.de . May 27, 2015, accessed July 16, 2015 .
  17. ^ Trials: Lüneburg Auschwitz Trial: Zyklon B and the agony. In: Focus Online . May 26, 2015, accessed July 16, 2015 .
  18. ^ Ina Kast: Auschwitz Trial: Witness incriminates Groening. (No longer available online.) In: ndr.de. May 26, 2015, archived from the original on May 26, 2015 ; accessed on July 16, 2015 .
  19. ↑ Werner Renz: The judiciary is sharpening its view of Auschwitz. In: zeit.de, July 21, 2015, accessed on March 12, 2018.
  20. ↑ Per Hinrichs: "He may be old - so are the survivors". In: welt.de. April 20, 2015, accessed March 12, 2018.
  21. ↑ Jörg Diehl: Holocaust: Service on the ramp . In: Der Spiegel . No. April 17 , 2015 ( spiegel.de [accessed March 12, 2018]).
  22. ↑ Auschwitz Trial - Gröning claims to have only helped out in the selection of Jews. In: Zeit-Online . April 22, 2015.
  23. ↑ "There were no excesses on the ramp". (No longer available online.) In: ndr.de. April 22, 2015, archived from the original on April 23, 2015 ; accessed on May 5, 2019 . [Post on ndr.de]
  24. ↑ Gisela Friedrichsen: Oskar Gröning in the Auschwitz trial: “That's the way it is in a concentration camp”. In: Spiegel Online. April 22, 2015, accessed July 22, 2015 .
  25. ^ LG Lüneburg 4th Large Criminal Chamber, judgment of July 15, 2015, 27 Ks 9/14, 27 Ks 1191 Js 98402/13 (9/14) ; ulz / dpa / AFP: Judgment in the Auschwitz trial: Former SS man Oskar Gröning sentenced to four years in prison. In: Spiegel Online . 15th July 2015.
  26. ↑ BGH, decision of September 20, 2016 - 3 StR 49/16 .
  27. ↑ BGH confirms judgment for aiding and abetting Nazi mass murder. ( Memento from December 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) In: Die Zeit , November 28, 2016.
  28. ↑ Gröning and the new BGH case law on Nazi crimes. In: Haufe-Online, November 29, 2016.
  29. ^ Wit / dpa: Former SS man Gröning is to serve prison sentence. In: Spiegel Online , August 2, 2017.
  30. ↑ dejure.org
  31. ↑ zeit.de
  32. ^ Klaus Hempel, SWR: Constitutional complaint rejected. Ex-SS man Gröning has to go to prison. (No longer available online.) In: tagesschau.de. December 29, 2017, archived from the original on December 29, 2017 ; accessed on May 5, 2019 .
  33. ↑ Order of grace. Nds. Rpfl. 1977, 34th Lower Saxony Regulations Information System (VORIS), accessed on January 17, 2018.
  34. ^ Convicted ex-SS man Gröning asks for mercy. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. January 15, 2018, accessed January 15, 2018 .
  35. ^ A pardon from ex-SS man Gröning rejected. (No longer available online.) In: ndr.de. January 17, 2018, archived from the original on January 17, 2018 ; accessed on May 5, 2019 .
  36. ↑ vik / dpa: Convicted ex-SS man. Oskar Gröning asks the Minister of Justice for mercy. In: spiegel.de. March 1, 2018, accessed March 12, 2018.
  37. ↑ Sven Becker, Jörg Diehl and Ansgar Siemens: “Accountants of Auschwitz.” Former SS man Oskar Gröning is dead. In: spiegel.de. March 12, 2018, accessed March 12, 2018.
personal data
SURNAME Groening, Oskar
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German SS-Unterscharführer in Auschwitz concentration camp
DATE OF BIRTH June 10, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH Nienburg / Weser
DATE OF DEATH March 9, 2018