Karl Fritzsch
Karl Fritzsch (* July 10, 1903 in Wet Grub; † May 2, 1945; mistakenly written frequently Fritsch ) was a German SS -Hauptsturmführer in function of a protective custody camp leader, who in 1941 in the concentration camp Auschwitz I ( main camp ), the insecticide Zyklon B trial for the gasification of prisoners began.
Life
The son of a furnace manufacturer in Bohemia born, Fritzsch could not undergo orderly school career because of work-related relocation of his father. Fritzsch has seaman of the Danube shipping company. The 1928 contracted marriage, emerged from the three children, was divorced in 1942. He joined the Nazi party in 1930 ( Mitgliedsnr. 261 135 ) and SS ( SS-Nr. 7,287 ) a. From 1934 Fritzsch was used in the Dachau concentration camp as a member of the 1st SS-Totenkopf Regiment " Upper Bavaria " as a company commander. Beginning of September 1939 changed Fritzsch for camp commandant at Dachau concentration camp, where he oversaw postal censorship office. Fritzsch - called motes due to its diminutive stature - was used in the rank of SS - Hauptsturmführer was the first officer in charge of June 14, 1940 to February 1, 1942 at the Auschwitz main camp. His deputy was from June 1940 to November 1941 Franz Xaver Maier and then Fritz Seidler. During the absence of the camp commandant Rudolf Hoess, he ordered probably due to in August 1941, an indefinite number of Russian prisoners to gas for delousing the clothing provided by hydrocyanic acid, insecticide Zyklon B. The end of 1941 - the date mentioned often in early September 1941 controversial - then took place in the main camp a first mass gassing, in which hundreds of Soviet commissars and selected patients were killed with Zyklon B.
Fritzsch accepted the end of July 1941, the offer of the Catholic priest Maximilian Kolbe and let this block instead of the initially selected family father Franciszek Gajowniczek in the " starvation bunker " where Kolbe was killed later.
From February 1942 to March 1944 Karl Fritzsch was the protective custody camp in Flossenbiirg and represented there from August to October 1942, the camp commandant.
Beginning of April 1944 Fritzsch was treated as a camp leader in the satellite camp Harzungen ( " Hans " ) of the concentration camp Dora -Mittelbau and took over, beginning in August 1944 in addition the camp of the outboard bearing Ellrich - Juliushütte ( " Erich" ). By October 1944 he was sent to the front, where he probably fell during the battle of Berlin in the spring of 1945.
Quote
" There are only two ways for a prisoner to get out of this camp. Either he is released [ ... ] or he wanders through the chimney. The latter route, most of you go! "