Martin Gottfried Weiss
Martin Gottfried Weiss, alternatively spelled Weiß ( – 29 May 1946), was the commandant of the Dachau concentration camp in 1945 at the time of his arrest. He also served from April 1940 until September 1942 as the commandant of Neuengamme concentration camp, and later, from November 1943 until May 1944, as the fourth commandant of Majdanek concentration camp. He was executed for war crimes. Life Weiss was born in Weiden in der Oberpfalz. His father worked for the Royal Bavarian State Railways. He had two sisters and was raised as a Catholic. After school he continued his education at a mechanical engineering school in Landshut. He finished school in 1924 and worked as intern in an ironworks. Later he worked for about three and a half years for the Upper Palatine electric company. In the summer of 1926 he joined the Nazi Party and founded a chapter of the SA and of the HJ with two friends in Weiden. Later he studied electrical engineering in Bad Frankenhausen, finishing ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Weiden In Der Oberpfalz
Weiden in der Oberpfalz (official name: Weiden i.d.OPf.; Northern Bavarian: ''Weidn in da Owapfalz'') is a district-free city in Bavaria, Germany. It is located east of Nuremberg and west of the Czech border. A branch of the German Army is located here. History Weiden in der Oberpfalz was first mentioned in a document in 1241 as Weiden. It is assumed that the first settlements in Weiden are dated the year 1000. Located at the intersection of two major trading routes (Goldene Strasse and Magdeburger Strasse), Weiden soon became an important trading center with a population of 2,200 in 1531. An economic boom came along in 1863 when Weiden was connected to the railroad network. Some major companies of the glass and china industry settled in Weiden and the population increased. Districts Incorporations into Weiden in der Oberpfalz *January 1, 1914, Moosbürg, district of Moosbürg, Ermersricht, Fichtenbühl, Leihstadtmühle *February 1, 1915, Tröglersricht and Zollhaus *July 1, 1 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Majdanek Concentration Camp
Majdanek (or Lublin) was a Nazi concentration and extermination camp built and operated by the SS on the outskirts of the city of Lublin during the German occupation of Poland in World War II. It had seven gas chambers, two wooden gallows, and some 227 structures in all, placing it among the largest of Nazi concentration camps. Although initially intended for forced labor rather than extermination, the camp was used to murder people on an industrial scale during Operation Reinhard, the German plan to murder all Polish Jews within their own occupied homeland. The camp, which operated from 1 October 1941 to 22 July 1944, was captured nearly intact. The rapid advance of the Soviet Red Army during Operation Bagration prevented the SS from destroying most of the camp's infrastructure, and Deputy Camp Commandant Anton Thernes failed to remove most incriminating evidence of war crimes. The camp was nicknamed Majdanek ("little Majdan") in 1941 by local residents, as it was adjace ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Action 14f13
Action 14f13, also called ''Sonderbehandlung'' (special treatment) 14f13 and Aktion 14f13, was a campaign by Nazi Germany to murder Nazi concentration camp prisoners. Also called ''invalid'' or ''prisoner euthanasia'', the sick, the elderly and those prisoners who were no longer deemed fit for work were separated from the rest of the prisoners during a selection process, after which they were murdered. The Nazi campaign was in operation from 1941 to 1944 and later covered other groups of concentration camp prisoners. Background In spring 1941, ''Reichsführer-SS'' Heinrich Himmler met with ''Reichsleiter'' Philipp Bouhler, head of the Hitler Chancellery to discuss his desire to relieve concentration camps of ''excess ballast'', sick prisoners and those no longer able to work. Bouhler was Hitler's agent for implementation of ''Aktion T4'', the ''euthanasia'' program for the mentally ill, disabled and inmates of hospitals and nursing homes deemed unworthy of inclusion in Nazi socie ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Kapo (concentration Camp)
A kapo or prisoner functionary (german: Funktionshäftling) was a prisoner in a Nazi camp who was assigned by the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) guards to supervise forced labor or carry out administrative tasks. Also called "prisoner self-administration", the prisoner functionary system minimized costs by allowing camps to function with fewer SS personnel. The system was designed to turn victim against victim, as the prisoner functionaries were pitted against their fellow prisoners in order to maintain the favor of their SS overseers. If they neglected their duties, they would be demoted to ordinary prisoners and be subject to other kapos. Many prisoner functionaries were recruited from the ranks of violent criminal gangs rather than from the more numerous political, religious, and racial prisoners; such criminal convicts were known for their brutality toward other prisoners. This brutality was tolerated by the SS and was an integral part of the camp system. Prisoner functionaries wer ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Oswald Pohl
Oswald Ludwig Pohl (; 30 June 1892 – 7 June 1951) was a German SS functionary during the Nazi era. As the head of the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office and the head administrator of the Nazi concentration camps, he was a key figure in the Final Solution, the genocide of the European Jews. After the war, Pohl went into hiding; he was apprehended in 1946. Pohl stood trial in 1947, was convicted of crimes against humanity, and sentenced to death. After repeatedly appealing his case, he was executed by hanging in 1951. Early life and career Oswald Pohl was born in Duisburg-Ruhrort on 30 June 1892 to blacksmith, Hermann Otto Emil Pohl, and his wife Auguste Pohl (née Seifert); he was the fifth of eight children. His parents were financially secure, and he attended a ''Realgymnasium'' where he studied classical Greek and Latin texts. From what Pohl claimed, he always wanted to study science but his father did not have the means to send him straight to university. In 1912, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Arbeitsdorf
Arbeitsdorf ("work-village") was a Nazi concentration camp in Stadt des KdF-Wagens bei Fallersleben 1942. History and the purpose of the camp In 1936, a Czech engineer by the name of Ferdinand Porsche designed a prototype of a car that would be affordable enough for all Germans to buy. He then showed his idea to the then dictator of Germany, Adolf Hitler. Hitler liked his idea and ordered the manufacture of the car which was known as the KDF-Wagen or later known as the Volkswagen vehicle. With Hitler's approval, Porsche and his business partner Albert Speer set up a factory in Fallersleben, a town northeast of the city of Braunschweig, and because of the war, all production from this camp was to be used for military purposes only. In 1942, Porsche and Speer started a project to see how they could use concentration camp inmates for cheaper, and large-scale production of their cars, in order to benefit their industry. The prisoners of Arbeitsdorf were skilled workforce used for con ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Alexander Piorkowski
Alexander Bernhard Hans Piorkowski (11 October 1904 – 22 October 1948) was a German SS functionary during the Nazi era and commandant of Dachau concentration camp. Following the war, he was convicted and executed. Life Born in Bremen, Piorkowski and was a trained mechanic who worked as a traveling merchant in the 1920s. He joined the SA on 1 June 1929 and moved from there to the SS on 1 June 1933 (member no. 8,737). On 1 November 1929, Piorkowski became a member of the Nazi Party (member no. 161,437). He first led the ''SS-Standarte'' in Bremen on 20 July 1935, and in the following year, the ''SS-Standarte Allenstein''. For health reasons, he retired from the service on 19 September 1936.Johannes Tuchel: ''Konzentrationslager: Organisationsgeschichte und Funktion der Inspektion der Konzentrationslager 1934–1938''. 1991, p. 385 From July 1937 to December 1937, Piorkowski was provisionally commandant of Lichtenburg concentration camp, and after its conversion into a women' ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hans Loritz
Hans Loritz (12 December 1895, Augsburg – 31 January 1946, Neumünster) was an officer in the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) who was the commandant of several concentration camps in Germany and Nazi-occupied Europe. He committed suicide in captivity after the war. Early life After completing primary school, Loritz started an apprenticeship as a baker. In 1914, he volunteered to join the Bavarian 3rd Infantry Regiment. During the war he was wounded several times and was promoted to be a non-commissioned officer. In 1917 he volunteered for the German Air Corps and was accepted as a gunner. He was shot down over France, where he was held as a Prisoner of War until 1920. On his return to Augsburg, he joined local police (where his father worked) transferring subsequently to the motorcycle squad. His first marriage in 1922 produced a son. In 1927, following several disciplinary issues, he was dismissed and became a debt collector for the gas company. His marriage was dissolved in 1935 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bad Frankenhausen
Bad Frankenhausen (officially: Bad Frankenhausen/Kyffhäuser) is a spa town in the German state of Thuringia. It is located at the southern slope of the Kyffhäuser mountain range, on an artificial arm of the Wipper river, a tributary of the Unstrut. Because of the nearby Kyffhäuser monument dedicated to Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, it is nicknamed '' Barbarossastadt''. The municipality includes the villages of Seehausen, Udersleben, (since 2007) Esperstedt and (since 2019) Ichstedt and Ringleben. History Frankenhausen was first attested as a Frankish settlement in the 9th century in deeds of the Abbey of Fulda. It received town privileges in 1282 and from 1340 on was part of the County of Schwarzburg. On 15 May 1525 it was the location of the Battle of Frankenhausen, one of the last great battles of the German Peasants' War, when the insurgent peasants under Thomas Müntzer were defeated by troops of the allied Duke George of Saxony, Landgrave Philip I of Hesse and Duke ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hitlerjugend
The Hitler Youth (german: Hitlerjugend , often abbreviated as HJ, ) was the youth organisation of the Nazi Party in Germany. Its origins date back to 1922 and it received the name ("Hitler Youth, League of German Worker Youth") in July 1926. From 1936 until 1945, it was the sole official boys' youth organisation in Germany and it was partially a paramilitary organisation. It was composed of the Hitler Youth proper for male youths aged 14 to 18, and the German Youngsters in the Hitler Youth ( or "DJ", also "DJV") for younger boys aged 10 to 14. With the surrender of Nazi Germany in 1945, the organisation ''de facto'' ceased to exist. On 10 October 1945, the Hitler Youth and its subordinate units were outlawed by the Allied Control Council along with other Nazi Party organisations. Under Section 86 of the Criminal Code of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Hitler Youth is an "unconstitutional organisation" and the distribution or public use of its symbols, except for educ ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sturmabteilung
The (; SA; literally "Storm Detachment") was the original paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party. It played a significant role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s. Its primary purposes were providing protection for Nazi rallies and assemblies, disrupting the meetings of opposing parties, fighting against the paramilitary units of the opposing parties, especially the ''Roter Frontkämpferbund'' of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and the '' Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold'' of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), and intimidating Romani, trade unionists, and especially Jews. The SA were colloquially called Brownshirts () because of the colour of their uniform's shirts, similar to Benito Mussolini's blackshirts. The official uniform of the SA was the brown shirt with a brown tie. The color came about because a large shipment of Lettow- shirts, originally intended for the German colonial troops in Germany's former East Africa colony, was purcha ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Karin Orth
Karin Orth (born 1963) is a German historian, known for her research into the Nazi concentration camps From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than a thousand concentration camps, (officially) or (more commonly). The Nazi concentration camps are distinguished from other types of Nazi camps such as forced-labor camps, as well as concen .... Works * * * * * References 1963 births Historians of Nazism Living people {{Germany-historian-stub ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |