Erich Wasicky (born May 27, 1911 in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

– died May 28, 1947 at

Landsberg Prison Landsberg Prison is a penal facility in the town of Landsberg am Lech in the southwest of the German state of Bavaria, about west-southwest of Munich and south of Augsburg. It is best known as the prison where Adolf Hitler was held in 1924, a ...

Landsberg am Lech Landsberg am Lech (Landsberg at the Lech) is a town in southwest Bavaria, Germany, about 65 kilometers west of Munich and 35 kilometers south of Augsburg. It is the capital of the district of Landsberg am Lech. Overview Landsberg is situated o ...

Allied-occupied Germany Germany was already de facto occupied by the Allies from the real fall of Nazi Germany in World War II on 8 May 1945 to the establishment of the East Germany on 7 October 1949. The Allies (United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and France ...

) was a pharmacist at the

Mauthausen concentration camp Mauthausen was a Nazi concentration camp on a hill above the market town of Mauthausen, Upper Austria, Mauthausen (roughly east of Linz), Upper Austria. It was the main camp of a group with List of subcamps of Mauthausen, nearly 100 further ...

in charge of gassing victims. Wasicky was a physician. He joined the

NSDAP The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...

and was a member of the SS. Between 1941 and 1944, he worked as a pharmacist at Mauthausen

concentration camp Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply ...

. It was his duty to select victims to die in the

gas chamber A gas chamber is an apparatus for killing humans or other animals with gas, consisting of a sealed chamber into which a poisonous or asphyxiant gas is introduced. Poisonous agents used include hydrogen cyanide and carbon monoxide. Histor ...

. The exact number of his victims is not known, but more than 3,100 died in neighboring Hartheim concentration camp, which fell under Wasicky's jurisdiction. After the Nazis started using the poison

Zyklon B Zyklon B (; translated Cyclone B) was the trade name of a cyanide-based pesticide invented in Germany in the early 1920s. It consisted of hydrogen cyanide (prussic acid), as well as a cautionary eye irritant and one of several adsorbents such ...

, Wasicky was put in charge of establishing this process in both Mauthausen and Hartheim. According to witnesses, Wasicky worked closely with SS pharmacist

Aribert Heim Aribert Ferdinand Heim (28 June 191410 August 1992), also known as Dr. Death and Butcher of Mauthausen, was an Austrian ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) doctor. During World War II, he served at the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp in Mauthausen, killin ...

. The two performed gruesome experiments together, such as injecting various solutions into the hearts of Jewish prisoners to see which killed them the fastest. After the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, Wasicky was tried for war crimes by a U.S. military tribunal. On May 13, 1946, he was found guilty and sentenced to death. On May 28, 1947, he was hanged in

References

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Erich Wasicky

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wasicky 1911 births 1947 deaths Mauthausen concentration camp personnel Mauthausen Trial executions SS-Sturmbannführer Aktion T4 personnel Physicians from Vienna Executed Austrian Nazis Waffen-SS personnel Physicians in the Nazi Party Austrian people of Slavic descent Holocaust perpetrators in Austria Executed mass murderers