Walter Schenk

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Walter Schenk (born June 27, 1891 in Altena , † after 1954 ) headed the fire brigade and crematorium command of the Ravensbrück concentration camp as a commando .

Life

Walter Schenk, a bricklayer by profession, had been a member of the SS and the NSDAP since 1933 . In 1941 Schenk volunteered for the camp staff at the Ravensbrück concentration camp and was initially employed there as a clerk. Later he also headed the fire department and the sewer network. Schenk had the rank of SS-Unterscharfuhrer . From May 1944 he was also in charge of the crematorium command , where he supervised the cremations . But he was not involved in the gassing processes: "I was never interested in knowing how the people I had to burn had perished."

After the end of the Second World War , Schenk had to answer for his crimes committed in the Ravensbrück concentration camp before a British military tribunal in the fifth of the seven Ravensbrück trials . On July 15, 1948, Schenk was sentenced to twenty years imprisonment for participating in the killing of Allied prisoners. After the verdict was confirmed on August 10, 1948, Schenk was arrested.

He was released from prison on August 3, 1954 on a pardon. Nothing is known about his further life.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Note in: Eugen Kogon, Hermann Langbein and Adalbert Rueckerl (eds.): Nazi Mass Murder: A Documentary History of the Use of Poison Gas, pp. 186-190
  2. ^ Statement by Schenk on September 20, 1947, quoted from Schäfer, Silke: On the self-image of women in the concentration camp. The Ravensbrück camp. Berlin 2002, p. 37
personal data
SURNAME Schenk, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Head of the fire brigade and crematorium command in the Ravensbrück concentration camp
DATE OF BIRTH June 27, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Altena
DATE OF DEATH after 1954