Otto Kaiser (SS member)

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Otto Heinrich Kaiser (born December 3, 1913 in Eilenburg , † August 17, 1996 in Bergisch Gladbach ) was a German SS Oberscharführer and block leader in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp .

Life

Kaiser was the son of a carpenter. He attended elementary and middle school in Eilenburg, which he left without a degree. In 1932 he completed his locksmith apprenticeship with the journeyman's examination . The Great Depression made him unemployed.

In October 1934 he became a member of the SS . In the same year he joined the SS-Totenkopfverband "Elbe", one of the five Sturmbanne with the task of guarding, in Prettin . This took over the guard duties for the Lichtenburg concentration camp . In 1937 he was posted to the Buchenwald concentration camp and joined the NSDAP in the same year . In June 1938 he was assigned to the SS-Totenkopfverband "Brandenburg" in Oranienburg . From October 1, 1938, he was a member of the command staff of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Here he was appointed block leader in the "small camp". In November 1940 he took part in the murder of 33 Poles and in the autumn of 1941 he was involved in the murder of Soviet prisoners of war. He was one of the most ruthless and brutal SS men in the camp who harassed, abused and killed the prisoners. In October 1942 he was transferred to the Stutthof concentration camp , where he became the first report leader. The second report leader was Arno Chemnitz , who later succeeded Kaiser as the first report leader.

In February 1943 Kaiser was sent to the SS Panzer Replacement Regiment for military training. He then worked with the 10th SS Panzer Division "Frundsberg" on the Eastern Front and shortly before the end of the war on the Western Front and was wounded in Normandy .

In May 1945, Kaiser was taken prisoner by the US . He was then handed over to the British military authorities for internment . In July 1948 he was the denazification in Recklinghausen for membership of the Waffen-SS sentenced to three months in prison. This was counted towards internment so that Kaiser did not have to go to prison. Until his arrest he lived and worked as a fitter in the cast steel works in Bergisch Gladbach.

On May 28, 1965, the Cologne Regional Court sentenced him to 15 years in prison in six cases for attempted murder in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp . In the second trial at the Cologne Regional Court in April 1970, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for eight murder and five attempted murder . He was serving his sentence in the Remscheid correctional facility . He was released on April 4, 1988.

literature

  • Stephanie Bohra: crime scene Sachsenhausen: prosecution of concentration camp crimes in the Federal Republic of Germany . Metropol Verlag, Berlin 2019, ISBN 978-3-86331-460-6
  • Günter Morsch (Ed.): The Concentration Camp SS 1936–1945: Excess and direct offenders in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp . Metropol Verlag, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-86331-823-9

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c d Günter Morsch: The Concentration Camp SS 1936-1945: Excess and direct offenders in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Berlin, 2016, pp. 239-240.
  2. ^ A b Stefan Hördler: Order and Inferno: The concentration camp system in the last year of the war . Wallstein Verlag, 2015, ISBN 978-3-8353-2559-3 , pp. 184 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  3. ^ A b Stephanie Bohra: Tatort Sachsenhausen: Prosecution of concentration camp crimes in the Federal Republic of Germany . Berlin, 2019, p. 438.
  4. ^ Stefan Hördler: Order and Inferno: The concentration camp system in the last year of the war . Wallstein Verlag, 2015, ISBN 978-3-8353-2559-3 , pp. 263 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  5. ↑ a b c d Fritz Bauer: Justice and Nazi Crimes: The criminal judgments issued from August 22, 1969 to May 9, 1970, serial no. No. 716-732 . University Press Amsterdam, 2005, ISBN 90-5356-551-5 , pp. 640 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  6. ^ Anne Klein, Jürgen Wilhelm (ed.): Nazi injustice before Cologne courts after 1945 . Greven Verlag, Cologne 2003, ISBN 978-3-7743-0338-6 , p. 64.
  7. ^ Stephanie Bohra: Tatort Sachsenhausen: Prosecution of concentration camp crimes in the Federal Republic of Germany . Berlin, 2019, p. 551.
  8. ^ Stephanie Bohra: Tatort Sachsenhausen: Prosecution of concentration camp crimes in the Federal Republic of Germany . Berlin, 2019, p. 554
personal data
SURNAME Kaiser, Otto
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kaiser, Otto Heinrich (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German SS Oberscharführer and Blockführer in Sachsenhausen concentration camp
DATE OF BIRTH December 3, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Eilenburg
DATE OF DEATH 17th August 1996
Place of death Bergisch Gladbach