Richard Baer

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Richard Baer (1944)

Richard Baer (born September 9, 1911 in Floß , Upper Palatinate ; † June 17, 1963 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German Sturmbannführer of the Waffen SS and the last commandant of the Auschwitz and Mittelbau-Dora concentration camps .

After the beginning of the Second World War he took part in the campaign in the west and the attack on the Soviet Union with the SS division "Totenkopf" . As a result of a war injury, he returned to the previously provided service in a concentration camp and in the spring of 1942 rose to the position of adjutant to the camp commandant in the Neuengamme concentration camp . In November he moved - also as adjutant - to head of the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office, Oswald Pohl . Shortly after leaving there in May 1944, he took over the position of camp commandant in the Auschwitz concentration camp until its dissolution in January 1945. After that, he headed the Mittelbau concentration camp from the beginning of February to the beginning of April 1945. After the war he was able to dive at first, but was in 1960 in the course of the investigation for the first Frankfurt Auschwitz trial as a sought war criminals in custody taken. Baer, ​​who was scheduled to serve as the main defendant in this trial, died before the main trial.

Origin, education and profession

Richard Baer was the son of Karl Baer and his third wife Anna, nee Meierhöfer. His parents ran an eight hectare farm and ran a grocery store. His father's two previous marriages resulted in two half-sisters and one half-brother. He was raised as a Protestant. From 1917 to 1924 he attended primary school in his hometown, where he showed mediocre performance. After finishing school, he left his parents' house in 1925 and did a three-year apprenticeship as a confectioner in Weiden in the Upper Palatinate with the local confectioner and café owner Fritz Stark, while also attending vocational training school. After completing his apprenticeship, he went on a journey of several years as a journeyman in Bavaria. He last returned to his apprenticeship in the winter of 1932 and resigned from his position in March 1933.

Joined the NSDAP and SS

Baer joined the NSDAP at the beginning of February 1931 ( membership number 454.991); In post-war interrogations he named December 18, 1930 as the date of entry. According to Baer's statement, the reason for joining the party at the end of December 1960 was the funeral of a National Socialist who had been the father of a school friend. He would have been fascinated by the parade of uniformed party members armed with flags. On July 1, 1932, he became a member of the Allgemeine SS (SS no. 44.225). In the local SS he met the later concentration camp commandant Martin Gottfried Weiß . The ten to twelve members of the SS storm in Weiden initially met once a week during their free time for military sports exercises. Under the direction of Weiß, the small SS troop offered speaker protection at party meetings on weekends in the surrounding villages . Baer later stated in interrogations after his arrest that he had not joined the General SS for political reasons. He liked the "soldier discipline" and the "joy of playing soldiers" there, "that was fun back then". His membership in the SS initially played no role in everyday life; so Baer put on his SS uniform only in the club room.

Promotion in the concentration camp SS

After the seizure of power by the Nazis, most men of Weiden SS-storm served to the local party as an auxiliary policeman and patrolled together with regular police officers by pastures. Together with some auxiliary police officers, Baer was transferred to the Dachau concentration camp on April 19, 1933 , where, under Theodor Eicke, he was taught military drill, ideological training and systematic terrorism against prisoners to enable him to do camp service. During later interrogations he described the training for guard duty in the Dachau concentration camp as "very strict" and he and his comrades had been "sharply polished" there: "The more we were polished, the more proud we were of it". In the course of 1934, Baer was assigned to the Brandenburg Guard in Oranienburg and performed security duty in the Columbia-Haus concentration camp , a Gestapo prison , from December 20, 1934 to March 31, 1935.

From 1937 he was a platoon leader in the security team of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp . From the 2nd SS-Totenkopfstandarte Brandenburg he was assigned at the beginning of March 1938 after a course for the 3rd SS-Totenkopfstandarte Thuringia, where he was deployed as a platoon leader and instructor in the security team of the Buchenwald concentration camp . Most recently he was company commander of the 4th Police Reinforcement Company. In the meantime, in September 1938, he was promoted to SS-Untersturmführer within the SS. From the end of 1938 he was in charge of the guard in the newly established Neuengamme concentration camp , which at that time was still a satellite camp of Sachsenhausen concentration camp. The guards who were subordinate to him supervised a detainee detachment of 100 people who had to do forced labor in a brick factory .

Military service, wounding and marriage

During the Second World War he was transferred to the SS Totenkopf Division in Korbach in May 1940 and took part in the Western campaign. He then belonged to the occupation troops in France and acted there briefly as site commander . Since November 9, 1940 he was SS-Obersturmführer. After a company commanding course and the transfer of his unit to East Prussia in June 1941, he headed a company of the SS Death's Head Division during the attack on the Soviet Union . On November 17, 1941, he was shot through the thigh while fighting in Demyansk . In December 1941 he was transferred back to Neuengamme concentration camp, where he cured his war injury in the officers' hospital and then stayed.

On January 6, 1942, he married the saleswoman Maria L. (* 1922) from Hamburg-Bergedorf , the daughter of a master painter, whom he had known since the winter of 1938/39. The couple remained childless. At the beginning of 1942 he sold his inheritance from his parents' farm and leased further land there to the nearby Flossenbürg concentration camp . A prisoner detachment from the Flossenbürg concentration camp had to set up a trout farm on the pond property.

Adjutant and deputy of the camp commandant in Neuengamme concentration camp

Martin Weiß, already known to him from the SS storm Weiden and now acting as camp commandant of the Neuengamme concentration camp, made Baer his adjutant in the spring of 1942. Although the protective custody camp leader was formally the deputy of the camp commandant, Baer took over this function in the Neuengamme concentration camp. Baer was listed as a member of the SS Totenkopfdivision until the beginning of April 1942 and then with an SS replacement battalion. He officially belonged to the SS-Sturmbann Neuengamme as an adjutant only from July 1, 1942. After Weiß had taken over the camp command in the Dachau concentration camp at the beginning of September 1942, Baer was in charge of the Neuengamme concentration camp for two months until the arrival of the new camp commandant Max Pauly . In the Neuengamme concentration camp, according to statements by concentration camp survivors, he took part in the selection of sick and incapacitated prisoners as part of the 14f13 campaign . At the end of September 1942, 197 Soviet prisoners of war were murdered with poison gas in the detention bunker of the camp .

Adjutant to Oswald Pohl

At the beginning of November 1942, Baer was transferred to the Auschwitz concentration camp, where he was supposed to be adjutant to camp commandant Rudolf Höß . After a few days he was posted from there again and on November 13, 1942, he was appointed adjutant to Oswald Pohl, head of the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office (WVHA). This was the decision made by Pohl Richard Glücks , Gerhard Maurer , Baer's acquaintance Weiss and Höß. According to Baer's testimony in December 1960, he had expressed astonishment to Glücks, the head of the inspection of the concentration camps , that he had been selected as a soldier and without knowledge as administrative manager for this post. Glücks then informed him that Pohl was “just looking for a front officer as an adjutant”. Baer was extremely ambitious in this function, visited the various concentration camps and was informed about the conditions there and the Holocaust .

In April 1944, Baer personally presented the camp commandant Arthur Liebehenschel with a letter written by Pohl in Auschwitz , in order to persuade him to separate from his partner Anneliese Hüttemann. Liebehenschel had divorced his wife in December 1943 because of Hüttemann and left the family. His new partner was considered inappropriate by an SS leader, as she had been taken into protective custody in 1935 for “ racial disgrace ” . In May 1944, Liebehenschel was finally transferred to the Majdanek concentration camp , which had already been cleared, as camp commandant . This affair probably only offered the occasion for the transfer, but this was probably motivated by Liebehenschel's abolition of several “measures to control the camp”.

Camp commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp

In May 1944, Pohl ordered a change of personnel for the camp commanders deployed there at Auschwitz, only Heinrich Schwarz remained at his post as camp commandant of the Auschwitz-Monowitz concentration camp . On May 11, 1944, Liebehenschel was followed by Pohl's confidante Baer as camp commandant of the main camp . According to a letter from Pohl, Baer had "received one of the most responsible positions [...] in the KL. Being". Three days earlier Josef Kramer in the concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau his predecessor Fritz Hartjenstein replaced in this function. At the same time as Kramer took office, Höss became senior site officer in Auschwitz and thus the superior of the camp commanders deployed there. From this point on, Höß organized the so-called Hungary Action , the mass murder of Hungarian Jews, in Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp for almost three months . In addition, he was involved in training the newly appointed camp commanders. On July 29, 1944, after Höß left, Baer became the site elder in Auschwitz. Previously, on June 21, 1944, Baer had been promoted to SS-Sturmbannführer of the Waffen-SS , his highest rank within the SS. After the Auschwitz concentration camp's area of ​​interest had become an independent district in June 1943 , Baer, ​​as the commander of the main camp, like his predecessors Liebehenschel and Höß, was appointed official commissioner. Since May 1944, his aide was Karl hump , in the Auschwitz Album of the camp SS at Auschwitz included footage of Baer and other SS officers.

Under Baer's camp leadership, the instruments of camp control, weakened by Liebehenschel, were tightened again considerably, for example, instead of political prisoners, prisoners classified as criminals were now entrusted with functional posts. Baer also took part in selections in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. The camp terror against the prisoners, which intensified in the course of the second half of 1944, was also related to increased attempts to flee and increased resistance activity inside and outside the camp. The execution, suspended under his predecessor, of prisoners who had been picked up after attempting to flee or after they had escaped, was practiced again.

In the course of a renewed restructuring of the Auschwitz camp complex, on November 25, 1944, Baer became the commandant of Auschwitz-Birkenau, which was merged with the main camp and now known as KL Auschwitz . Shortly beforehand, as a result of the unfavorable course of the war for the Nazi German Reich, Himmler had ordered the cessation of the gassings in Auschwitz-Birkenau, and the camp SS then dismantled the crematoria and gassing facilities there . These measures were related to the imminent evacuation of the entire camp area, which was organized from autumn 1944 because of the advancing Red Army . Baer was involved in the planning and execution of the prisoner evacuation, which was not completed until January 1945, when fighting was imminent. According to a post-war statement by Obersturmführer Wilhelm Reischenbeck , Baer personally selected SS men to lead prison columns and instructed them to shoot prisoners who were fleeing or who were staying behind during the march .

In the course of the liquidation of the camp, Baer himself first drove with his command staff to the Groß-Rosen concentration camp , which was intended as a destination for the evacuation of prisoners from Auschwitz.

Camp commandant of the Mittelbau concentration camp

On February 1, 1945, Baer replaced Otto Förschner as camp commandant of the Mittelbau concentration camp, who had been transferred to Bavaria as a camp leader because of allegations of corruption and the growing influence of political prisoners in the Mittelbau concentration camp. In contrast to his predecessor, Baer was not a member of the management of Mittelwerk GmbH . Baer occupied most of the positions within the camp management with former leaders of the Auschwitz concentration camp. So again, Eduard Wirths was on-site physician and labor deployment leader Maximilian Sell as well as protective custody camp leader and thus his deputy Franz Hößler . Hans Schurz and Karl Höcker again became Baer's adjutant as head of the political department . As a result of this personnel change, there was an increase in the camp terror against the prisoners under Baer's leadership. Many of them were also hanged because of sabotage in armaments production or membership in the camp resistance. Many Soviet forced laborers were among those executed, but also some prison functionaries who were assigned to the camp resistance. According to the historian Jens-Christian Wagner , these executions were carried out by the “commander of the security police z. b. V. “ Helmut Bischoff ordered. Under Baer's camp commandant, the Boelcke-Kaserne subcamp became the death camp of the Mittelbau camp complex through the transfer of sick and exhausted prisoners.

As of February 1945, the Mittelbau concentration camp was the destination of concentration camps evacuated during the war. In particular, over 9,000 prisoners from the Auschwitz and Groß-Rosen concentration camps arrived in the camp, most of them completely exhausted due to hunger and illness. In the final phase of the camp, the death rate among the prisoners rose considerably. In the first quarter of 1945 alone there were about 6,000 fatalities.

At the end of March 1945, armaments production in the Mittelbau concentration camp came to a standstill, and from this point on Baer prepared to clear the camp. According to the second camp doctor, Alfred Kurzke , there should have been a meeting of his commandant staff organized by Baer at the turn of the month, where a plan by Hans Kammler to murder all prisoners in the camp should have been discussed: Before the arrival of the US Army, all prisoners should go to the tunnels of the Kohnsteins and murdered there. According to Wagner, there was probably no such arrangement.

It is certain that Baer and his deputy Hößler drove to nearby Nordhausen to discuss the modalities of transporting prisoners in the course of the evacuation with representatives of the Reichsbahn . During the air raids on the city on April 3, 1945, Baer broke his ankle while trying to take shelter in a house. As a result of this injury, he contacted Glücks and an agreement was reached to hand over the camp management and thus responsibility for clearing the Mittelbau concentration camp to Hößler. Baer was driven to the Flossenbürg concentration camp, where his break was taken care of. Shortly afterwards he visited his wife on the parental estate and let his fracture heal further. Both were ordered to the Dachau concentration camp in mid-April 1945 , where Pohl, his staff and their families also arrived. Due to his foot in plaster, after consulting Pohl von Dachau, he drove to a WVHA estate in Sankt Lambrecht in Styria , where he stayed until the end of the war.

After the end of the war

Acceptance of a false name and forest workers on the Bismarcks estate

After the war he planned to return to his hometown with his wife. On the way there, he was picked up and checked twice by soldiers of the US Army , but was not identified as a member of the SS and released again. After arriving in Weiden, the couple made their way to southern Bavaria, where Baer found work on various farms. The opportunity to use a false name arose as a result of his deregistration from the police in Nabburg, where he last worked on a farm under his real name. He erased the entry made on his de-registration form with a pencil and instead entered the false name Karl Neumann, born on September 11, 1909 in Niederau near Düren . In December 1945 the couple came to Hamburg , where they obtained a release certificate from a Soviet prisoner-of-war on the black market for his false name and registered with the police under this pseudonym . From the beginning of 1946 until the summer of the same year he worked for a farmer in Hohenhorn .

From the summer of 1946, Baer worked almost continuously as a forest worker at Gut Bismarcks in the Sachsenwald , but also for a short time at the same employer as an administrative employee and as a timber seller and caretaker. Living in modest circumstances, he was able to rent a small house in Dassendorf in 1950 , which he acquired in 1959 with financial help from his father-in-law. His wife lived in her parents' house in Hamburg-Bergedorf and at times unofficially with her husband. Due to his exposure to Nazi Germany, Baer avoided contacts with neighbors and colleagues that went beyond the scope of his work. He managed to remain undiscovered for almost 15 years.

Investigation against Baer and arrest

During the preliminary judicial investigations that began in autumn 1955 against Wilhelm Reischenbeck because of the shootings during the evacuation of the Auschwitz concentration camp, Baer also became the focus of investigators. Reischenbeck had indicated during interrogations that these prisoner murders were ordered by the camp commandant "Bär" in the course of the camp's liquidation in January 1945. Despite the confiscation of the post from Baer's wife and a manhunt initiated, his whereabouts were not determined. Also because an Auschwitz survivor had stated that Baer had died almost certainly, the investigations against him initially came to nothing.

In the course of the first Auschwitz trial in Frankfurt, Baer was also investigated and an arrest warrant was obtained from the Frankfurt am Main public prosecutor on October 21, 1960. As part of the manhunt for Baer, ​​the law enforcement agency published his photo in several newspapers in December 1960. In addition, the Frankfurt public prosecutor's office provided a reward of 10,000 DM for relevant information about Baer's whereabouts  . The investigators received more than 200 pieces of information, three of which were useful.

On the morning of December 20, 1960, a representative of the public prosecutor's office, accompanied by two police officers, drove to Baer's place of work, a sawmill in the Sachsenwald. The bear found there allowed himself to be arrested without resistance. He stated that he was Karl Neumann and had appropriate proof of identity. The investigators then drove with Baer to his house, where his wife was also found. After a house search and securing of evidence, Baer was identified by his war wound scar on his right thigh. He immediately admitted that he was the one wanted and asked not to be taken away in handcuffs as a former officer.

After Baer's arrest, the former concentration camp commandant was reported in the German press. Articles appeared in Stern and in the Süddeutsche Zeitung . His employer, Otto Fürst von Bismarck , made no statement on the matter.

Planned main defendant in the first Frankfurt Auschwitz trial and death

Baer was taken into custody and shortly thereafter transferred to Frankfurt am Main as a result of his arrest. There, after consulting with his lawyer as the accused, he provided biographical information to a limited extent during the interrogations, but did not make any detailed statements on the matter. Although Baer, ​​as the camp commandant, was jointly responsible for the murder of Jews in Auschwitz, he denied his involvement in it during the interrogations.

For the first Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial, he was designated as the main defendant. According to the request for a preliminary investigation, he was charged with "orders to kill a large number of people, especially Jews from Hungary" in the context of the Auschwitz concentration camp. Former members of the camp SS also testified as witnesses that Baer, ​​as the camp commandant and site elder, exercised authority over the Auschwitz camp complex and that the “orders in connection with the Auschwitz concentration camp as a mass extermination center originated from the headquarters of the main camp”.

For the Eichmann trial he was questioned as a witness by an Israeli lawyer while in German custody and also stated in this context that the extermination of the Jews was not his area of ​​responsibility. When asked about the reason for his actions, he replied to his lawyer that this had happened as a litigation: “When I was on vacation in Hamburg […], I saw a little girl on the street: she looked like a flame . She was hit by an English bomb. I watched it burn to death. And that was before I came to Auschwitz. So you get used to everything. "

Even before the main proceedings began, Baer died in the Hammelgasse remand prison on June 17, 1963 of cardiovascular failure. A natural cause of death was later questioned by neo-Nazis .

Valuations and effects

Characterization of Baer by concentration camp survivors

Like Höß, survivors in Auschwitz described Baer as "typical concentration camp commanders without human feelings". The former prisoner clerk at the location doctor Hermann Langbein , who stated that he had still “spoken freely about the camp conditions” with Liebehenschel, met a silent Baer during an interview with the camp commandant. The former camp elder in the main camp, Ludwig Wörl , did not succeed in contacting Baer about questions concerning the prisoners, despite repeated efforts, and assessed him as follows: “He was the worst camp commandant in Auschwitz. Höss already led a strict regime, while under Liebehenschel noticeable relief was created [...]. All relief was removed after Baer's arrival. He was a stubborn executor of orders; there was no leeway within which the prisoners, as with Liebehenschel, had certain advantages. He was even more radical than Höss. "

Characterization of Baer by members of the camp SS

Höß, who wrote notes on all camp commanders of the Auschwitz concentration camp except for Kramer, judged Baer very negatively in this context. Höß accused Baer in particular of a lack of diligence and of having put his private interests above official business. Although he also described Baer as an assertive and agile speaker, his position as Pohl's adjutant had made him “greedy and exaggerated”. Baer's refusal to be instructed in official business as the new camp commandant, because he was of the opinion that he already had sufficient experience in camp service, also aroused displeasure with Höss.

Wirth's medical officer wrote a letter to his wife at the end of November 1944 in which he attested Baer a simple and sober lifestyle. The SS men Steinmetz and Kieselbach, who were temporarily active in the site administration of the Auschwitz concentration camp, were able to gain an impression of several camp commanders in Auschwitz through their function and later commented on the Auschwitz proceedings as follows during interrogations: According to Steinmetz, the conditions in the camp worsened after Baer took up service, both for Prisoners as well as for the camp SS. Kieselbach stated that the camp commandant Liebehenschel was more popular with prisoners as well as with SS men.

The camp doctor in the Mittelbau concentration camp, Alfred Kurzke , put the following facts on record:

“During a visit to the infirmary of KL Dora, [Baer] said to me: Kurzke, you are taking these Muselmen away from me! When visiting the crematorium, around 70 corpses from a transport from Auschwitz to Dora were lying in front of the entrance. Yes, he asked me: when will this shit finally be burned? These sayings characterize his being. "

Assessment of Baer by historians

Tom Segev states that Baer "gradually joined the SS system of values". After being injured in the war, he did not return to the “fighting troops”, but instead made a career in the camp SS. In Neuengamme concentration camp, he began to be responsible for the camp atrocities. As Pohl's adjutant, he had shown himself to be very ambitious and had been informed about the extermination of the Jews. He used Liebehenschel's love affair to his advantage and thus became his successor as camp commandant in the Auschwitz concentration camp. In this position he made a “careful distinction between what is allowed and what is forbidden”, whereby for him the selections were within the scope of what is allowed.

Karin Orth sees the point in time of the Nazi seizure of power as a turning point in Baer's life after he went from being a “soldier-playing” young adult to an auxiliary policeman within a few weeks. After the war, Baer, ​​as the “right hand man” of his friend Weiss and after leasing the land to the Flossenbürg concentration camp, “finally found a more than just political home in the SS concentration camp”. Because of the position of trust with Pohl, he had become a commandant in the Auschwitz concentration camp and thus came into competition with Höß, who feared for his position as an “exemplary” and “irreplaceable” camp commandant. He continued the “hardness” and “callousness” demonstrated in Auschwitz with his command staff in the Mittelbau concentration camp. That Baer succeeded in going into hiding and living undetected for more than 15 years, Orth attributes to the fact that he only became camp commandant in the last year of the war and most of the prisoners did not see the concentration camp commanders. As a result, the concentration camp survivors usually did not remember it.

According to Jens-Christian Wagner , as a camp commandant in the Mittelbau concentration camp, Baer “relied on his subordinates and otherwise let things take their course”. Despite brutalities, his actions were geared towards "economic efficiency". As with his predecessor Förschner, however, the freedom of action as a camp commandant in the Mittelbau concentration camp was restricted by the control of Kammler and his defense officer, Bischoff. Wagner describes Baer there as “passively acting”: Although he was formally responsible for handling prisoners, the camp managers of the subcamps acted largely independently.

literature

  • Karin Orth : The concentration camp SS. Social structural analyzes and biographical studies. dtv 34085, 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 .
  • Raphael Gross , Werner Renz (ed.): The Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial (1963–1965). Annotated source edition. Scientific series of the Fritz Bauer Institute, Volume 1, Campus, Frankfurt 2013, ISBN 978-3-593-39960-7 .
  • Ernst Klee : Auschwitz. Perpetrators, accomplices, victims and what became of them. A dictionary of persons . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2013, ISBN 978-3-10-039333-3 .
  • Jens-Christian Wagner : Production of death: The Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp , Wallstein Verlag, 2nd edition, Göttingen 2004, ISBN 3-89244-439-0 .

Web links

Commons : Richard Baer  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Karin Orth: The Concentration Camp SS , Munich 2004, p. 96.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Source: Judgment of the Frankfurt am Main Regional Court in the criminal case against Mulka and others from 19./20. August 1965 , sheet 14.916 / p. 312. In: Raphael Gross, Werner Renz (ed.): The Frankfurter Auschwitz Trial (1963-1965). Annotated source edition , Scientific Series of the Fritz Bauer Institute, Volume 2, Frankfurt am Main / New York 2013, p. 280.
  3. ↑ a b Karin Orth: The Concentration Camp SS , Munich 2004, p. 97.
  4. ↑ a b c d Karin Orth: The Concentration Camp SS , Munich 2004, p. 98.
  5. ↑ a b Ernst Klee: Auschwitz. Perpetrators, accomplices, victims and what became of them. Lexicon of persons. Frankfurt / M. 2013, p. 25.
  6. ↑ a b Baer's statement in custody. Quoted from: Hermann Langbein: People in Auschwitz. Frankfurt 1980, p. 362.
  7. ↑ a b c Richard Baer in the open archive of the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial
  8. ↑ Karin Orth: The Concentration Camp SS , Munich 2004, p. 161.
  9. ↑ a b c d Karin Orth: The Concentration Camp SS , Munich 2004, p. 187f.
  10. ^ Jörg Skriebeleit: Flossenbürg main camp. In: Wolfgang Benz and Barbara Distel : Flossenbürg: the Flossenbürg Concentration Camp and its satellite camps , CH Beck, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-406-56229-7 , p. 36.
  11. ↑ Karin Orth: The Concentration Camp SS , Munich 2004, p. 186f.
  12. ^ Hermann Kaienburg : The Neuengamme Concentration Camp 1938–1945. Dietz, Bonn 1997, ISBN 3-8012-3076-7 , p. 313.
  13. ^ Hermann Kaienburg : The Neuengamme Concentration Camp 1938–1945. Dietz, Bonn 1997, ISBN 3-8012-3076-7 , p. 314.
  14. ↑ Karin Orth: The Concentration Camp SS , Munich 2004, p. 243f.
  15. ↑ a b Tom Segev: The Soldiers of Evil. On the history of the concentration camp commanders , Reinbek bei Hamburg 1995, p. 225.
  16. ↑ Karin Orth: The Concentration Camp SS , Munich 2004, p. 244f.
  17. ↑ Karin Orth: The Concentration Camp SS , Munich 2004, p. 245f.
  18. ↑ a b c d Karin Orth: The Concentration Camp SS , Munich 2004, p. 247.
  19. ↑ Pohl on Baer in a personal report of June 21, 1944. Quoted from: Karin Orth: Die Concentration Camp SS , Munich 2004, p. 246.
  20. ↑ a b Karin Orth: The system of the National Socialist concentration camps. , Hamburg 2002, p. 256f.
  21. ↑ a b c Source: Judgment of the Frankfurt am Main Regional Court in the criminal case against Mulka and others from 19./20. August 1965 , sheet 14.917 / p. 313f. In: Raphael Gross, Werner Renz (eds.): The Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial (1963–1965). Annotated source edition , Scientific Series of the Fritz Bauer Institute, Volume 2, Frankfurt am Main / New York 2013, p. 281.
  22. ^ Sybille Steinbacher : Auschwitz: Geschichte und Nachgeschichte , Munich 2004, p. 58.
  23. ↑ Uwe Schmitt, Sven Felix Kellerhoff: The relaxed leisure time of the mass murderers . On www.welt-online.de from September 20, 2007
  24. ↑ a b c d Karin Orth: The Concentration Camp SS , Munich 2004, p. 248.
  25. ↑ Karin Orth: The system of the National Socialist concentration camps. , Hamburg 2002, p. 257.
  26. ^ Hermann Langbein: People in Auschwitz. Frankfurt 1980, p. 298.
  27. ↑ Karin Orth: The system of the National Socialist concentration camps. , Hamburg 2002, p. 259.
  28. ^ Andrzej Strzelecki: Final phase of KL Auschwitz - evacuation, liquidation and liberation of the camp. Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, 1995, pp. 95f. and 150f.
  29. ^ A b Jens-Christian Wagner: Production of Death: The Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp , Göttingen 2004, p. 273.
  30. ↑ Karin Orth: The system of the National Socialist concentration camps. , Hamburg 2002, p. 305.
  31. ↑ a b c d Jens-Christian Wagner: Production of death: Das KZ Mittelbau-Dora , Göttingen 2004, p. 308.
  32. ^ Ernst Klee: Auschwitz. Perpetrators, accomplices, victims and what became of them. Lexicon of persons. Frankfurt / M. 2013, pp. 181, 369f.
  33. ↑ Jens-Christian Wagner: Production of death: Das KZ Mittelbau-Dora , Göttingen 2004, p. 307.
  34. ↑ Karin Orth: The system of the National Socialist concentration camps. , Hamburg 2002, pp. 305f.
  35. ↑ Karin Orth: The Concentration Camp SS , Munich 2004, p. 259.
  36. ↑ Karin Orth: The system of the National Socialist concentration camps. , Hamburg 2002, p. 306.
  37. ↑ Karin Orth: The system of the National Socialist concentration camps. , Hamburg 2002, p. 306f.
  38. ↑ Karin Orth: The Concentration Camp SS , Munich 2004, p. 264f.
  39. ↑ Karin Orth: The Concentration Camp SS , Munich 2004, p. 273.
  40. ↑ a b c Karin Orth: The Concentration Camp SS , Munich 2004, p. 289.
  41. ^ Andreas Eichmüller: No general amnesty. The prosecution of Nazi crimes in the early Federal Republic , Munich 2012, pp. 304f.
  42. ↑ http://www.auschwitz-prozess.de/index.php?show=M%2003_Angeklracht%20-%20Biographien
  43. ↑ Tom Segev: The Soldiers of Evil. On the history of the concentration camp commanders , Reinbek bei Hamburg 1995, p. 223.
  44. ^ Peter Krause: The Eichmann trial in the German press Frankfurt 2002, ISBN 3-593-37001-8 , p. 84.
  45. ↑ Thomas Frankenfeld: The Bismarcks: Decline of a Dynasty . In: Hamburger Abendblatt from December 10, 2013
  46. ↑ Source: Judgment of the Frankfurt am Main regional court in the criminal case against Mulka and others from 19./20. August 1965 , sheet 14.606 / p. 2. In: Raphael Gross, Werner Renz (ed.): The Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial (1963–1965). Annotated source edition , Scientific Series of the Fritz Bauer Institute, Volume 2, Frankfurt am Main / New York 2013, p. 111.
  47. ↑ a b Karin Orth: The Concentration Camp SS , Munich 2004, p. 290.
  48. ↑ a b c Tom Segev: The Soldiers of Evil. On the history of the concentration camp commanders , Reinbek bei Hamburg 1995, p. 224.
  49. ↑ http://www.auschwitz-prozess.de/index.php?show=M%2006_Angeklracht%20-%20Strafverb%FC%DFung
  50. ↑ Source: Judgment of the Frankfurt am Main regional court in the criminal case against Mulka and others from 19./20. August 1965 , sheet 14.606 / p. 2. In: Raphael Gross, Werner Renz (ed.): The Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial (1963–1965). Annotated source edition , Scientific Series of the Fritz Bauer Institute, Volume 2, Frankfurt am Main / New York 2013, p. 291.
  51. ↑ Quoted from: Tom Segev: The Soldiers of Evil. On the history of the concentration camp commanders , Reinbek bei Hamburg 1995, p. 224.
  52. ↑ Source: Judgment of the Frankfurt am Main regional court in the criminal case against Mulka and others from 19./20. August 1965 , In: Raphael Gross, Werner Renz (eds.): The Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial (1963–1965). Annotated source edition , Scientific Series of the Fritz Bauer Institute, Volume 2, Frankfurt am Main / New York 2013, p. 562.
  53. ↑ Quoted from Karin Orth: Die Concentration Camp SS , Munich 2004, p. 249.
  54. ^ Hermann Langbein: People in Auschwitz. Frankfurt 1980, p. 362f.
  55. ^ Hermann Langbein: People in Auschwitz. Frankfurt 1980, pp. 67, 362.
  56. ^ Statement by Alfred Kurzke, undated, related to the Krakow Auschwitz Trial , archive of the State Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau, quoted from: Karin Orth: Die Concentration Camp SS , Munich 2004, p. 260.
  57. ↑ Tom Segev: The Soldiers of Evil. On the history of the concentration camp commanders , Reinbek bei Hamburg 1995, p. 226.
  58. ↑ Karin Orth: The Concentration Camp SS , Munich 2004, p. 260.
  59. ↑ Jens-Christian Wagner: Production of death: Das KZ Mittelbau-Dora , Göttingen 2004, p. 309.
  60. ↑ Jens-Christian Wagner: Production of death: Das KZ Mittelbau-Dora , Göttingen 2004, p. 310.
This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on December 14, 2016 .
personal data
SURNAME Baer, ​​Richard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German SS leader as well as camp commandant in Auschwitz concentration camp and Mittelbau
DATE OF BIRTH September 9, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Raft (Upper Palatinate)
DATE OF DEATH 17th June 1963
Place of death Frankfurt am Main