Walter Ernstberger

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Walter Ernstberger (born August 23, 1913 in Pforzheim ; † June / July 1945 in Sagan ) was a German SS-Obersturmführer and protective custody camp leader in the Groß-Rosen concentration camp .

Life

Ernstberger was the son of a bricklayer foreman. After the end of his school career he began an apprenticeship as a remonteur, which he did not complete. He did his voluntary labor service and joined the SA in 1934 and shortly afterwards the SS (SS no. 270.670). At first he was deployed with a guard force. From 1936 he was a member of the command staff at Sachsenhausen concentration camp and from 1939 to that of Mauthausen concentration camp . From 1940 he was employed as a report leader in the Mauthausen concentration camp. In 1941 he was promoted to SS-Obersturmführer of the Waffen-SS , the highest rank he achieved within this Nazi organization. In 1942 he was employed as a labor deployment leader under the protective custody camp leader Wilhelm Schitli in the Arbeitsdorf concentration camp.

As Anton Thumann's successor , he became the head of the protective custody camp in the Groß-Rosen concentration camp in February 1943. In the course of the advance of the Red Army , the Groß-Rosen concentration camp was evacuated at the beginning of February 1945 and only Ernstberger and around 120 SS men remained in the camp to guard 60 to 70 prison functionaries in order to remove evidence: In addition to the incineration of incriminating files, the remaining prisoners also had to Bury bodies. Shortly before the last SS men left the Groß-Rosen concentration camp, prisoners were discovered who had hidden in the camp during the death marches of concentration camp prisoners . Ernstberger ordered those found to be shot.

After the war Ernst Berger committed in the internment suicide .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Günter Morsch (ed.): From the Sachsenburg to Sachsenhausen. Pictures from the photo album of a concentration camp commandant , Berlin 2007, p. 163
  2. ^ A b Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich: Who was what before and after 1945. Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 139
  3. Karin Orth : The system of the National Socialist concentration camps. Pendo Verlag, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-85-842-450-1 , p. 170
  4. Isabell Sprenger: Groß-Rosen. A concentration camp in Silesia . Dissertation 1995 at the University of Stuttgart. Böhlau, Cologne 1996, ISBN 3-412-11396-4 , p. 98
  5. Karin Orth: The system of the National Socialist concentration camps. Pendo Verlag, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-85-842-450-1 , p. 281