Theodor Krätzer
Theodor Krätzer (born October 30, 1914 in Nuremberg ; † unknown) was a German SS-Obersturmführer who headed the prisoner property administration (GEV) in the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp .
Life
The bank employee Krätzer belonged to the Hitler Youth (HJ) after the National Socialist seizure of power in September 1933 . From there he switched to the SS in July 1934 (SS number 276.344) and joined the NSDAP in May 1937 ( membership number 4.690.977). From October 1937 he served in the SS disposable troops . In the spring of 1939 he was briefly an officer in the 2nd SS Regiment "Germany". In 1939 he was transferred to the camp SS in the Buchenwald concentration camp , where he was assigned to the administration department. From March 1941 until the evacuation of the camp in January 1945, he was a member of the camp SS in Auschwitz. There he was in charge of the prisoner property administration (GEV), a department of the SS site administration . The task of this department was the storage of the prisoners' property as well as the sorting and further use of clothing and valuables of the Holocaust victims . Krätzer was promoted to SS-Obersturmführer in 1942, his highest SS rank. In April 1943 he was awarded the War Merit Cross, Second Class with Swords. After the Auschwitz concentration camp was cleared, he was transferred to the Dirlewanger SS special unit .
Krätzer was in the Federal Republic of Germany as a government inspector and deputy head of department at the Munich II pension office. In the course of the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials , he was interrogated as follows: "I myself have occasionally been on the ramp and made sure that the effects were properly loaded." describes Krätzer part of his duties in the theft of valuables during the mass murders of Jews; the valuables were later brought to be sorted according to what is known as Canada in camp jargon .
Proceedings were initiated against 62 SS men of the GEV in Frankfurt am Main in 1977, which were discontinued in 1985 without justification. Among the accused were Oskar Gröning and his superior Krätzer. Even a later preliminary investigation against Krätzer at the Munich II district court probably did not lead to an indictment.
literature
- Ernst Klee : Auschwitz. Perpetrators, accomplices, victims and what became of them. A dictionary of persons . Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2013, ISBN 978-3-10-039333-3 .
- Peter Huth (ed.): The Last Witnesses - The Auschwitz Trial of Lüneburg 2015. A documentation . Reclam, Stuttgart 2015, ISBN 978-3-15-017088-5 .
- Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum (ed.): Auschwitz death books . Volume 1: Reports. KG Saur Verlag, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-598-11263-7 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum (ed.): Auschwitz death books . Volume 1: Reports. 1995, p. 286
- ↑ a b c Ernst Klee: Auschwitz. Perpetrators, accomplices and victims and what became of them. A dictionary of persons. Frankfurt am Main 2013, p. 232
- ↑ Peter Huth (ed.): The Last Witnesses - The Auschwitz Trial of Lüneburg 2015. A documentation , Stuttgart 2015
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Krätzer, Theodor |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German SS-Obersturmführer in Auschwitz concentration camp |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 30, 1914 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Nuremberg |
| DATE OF DEATH | 20th century or 21st century |