Hans Bothmann or Hans Johann Bothmann (November 11, 1911 – April 4, 1946)
[IPN]
Hans Bothmann
''Concentration camps' functionaries - biographical notes and witness' account.'' Institute of National Remembrance
The Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation ( pl, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej – Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu, abbreviated IPN) is a Polish state resea ...
2012. was the last commandant of the
Chełmno extermination camp
, known for =
, location = Near Chełmno nad Nerem, ''Reichsgau Wartheland'' (German-occupied Poland)
, built by =
, operated by =
, commandant = Herbert Lange, Christian Wirth
, original use =
, construction =
, in operatio ...
from 1942 on (
SS card number 117630); leader of the ''SS Special Detachment Bothmann'' conducting the
extermination of Jews from the
Łódź Ghetto
The Łódź Ghetto or Litzmannstadt Ghetto (after the Nazi German name for Łódź) was a Nazi ghetto established by the German authorities for Polish Jews and Roma following the Invasion of Poland. It was the second-largest ghetto in all of ...
and other places. He committed suicide in British custody in April 1946 while in
Heide
Heide (; Holsatian: ''Heid'') is a town in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is the capital of the ''Kreis'' (district) Dithmarschen. Population: 21,000.
The German word ''Heide'' means "heath". In the 15th century four adjoining villages decided ...
.
Career
Bothmann was born in
Lohe-Rickelshof
Lohe-Rickelshof is a municipality in the district of Dithmarschen, in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe ...
village in the
Dithmarschen
Dithmarschen (, Low Saxon: ; archaic English: ''Ditmarsh''; da, Ditmarsken; la, label=Medieval Latin, Tedmarsgo) is a district in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is bounded by (from the north and clockwise) the districts of Nordfriesland, Schle ...
district of
Holstein
Holstein (; nds, label=Northern Low Saxon, Holsteen; da, Holsten; Latin and historical en, Holsatia, italic=yes) is the region between the rivers Elbe and Eider. It is the southern half of Schleswig-Holstein, the northernmost state of German ...
(northern Germany) in November 1911. He joined the paramilitary
Hitler Youth
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. ...
(''Hitlerjugend'', HJ) in 1932.
Soon, he got a full-time job with the
Gestapo
The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one orga ...
office ''Stapoleitstelle Berlin'', and in 1937 became a ''Kriminalkommissar'' there. He was 27 years old at the time of the German
invasion of Poland
The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week aft ...
.
During the summer of 1942, after replacing ''
Hauptsturmführer
__NOTOC__
(, ; short: ''Hstuf'') was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank that was used in several Nazi organizations such as the SS, NSKK and the NSFK. The rank of ''Hauptsturmführer'' was a mid-level commander and had equivalent seniority to a ...
''
Herbert Lange
Herbert Lange (29 September 1909 – 20 April 1945) was an '' SS-Sturmbannführer'' and the commandant of Chełmno death camp until April 1942; leader of the ''SS Special Detachment Lange'' conducting the murder of Jews from the Łódź Ghetto. ...
at Chełmno, Hans Bothmann made substantial changes to the camp's killing methods. These alterations were prompted by two incidents in March and April of that year. First, one of the
gas vans
A gas van or gas wagon (russian: душегубка, ''dushegubka'', literally "soul killer"; german: Gaswagen) was a truck reequipped as a mobile gas chamber. During the World War II Holocaust, Nazi Germany developed and used gas vans on a large ...
broke down on the highway while conveying living victims, and exploded. The explosion blew off the locked back door, badly burning the victims inside. Bothmann's modifications to the execution methods included adding poison to the gasoline used (there is evidence that some red powder and a fluid were delivered from Germany by Maks Sado freight company) in order to kill the prisoners more quickly. Another major change was to murder prisoners in parked vans instead of en route to the forest cremation area.
The
Chełmno
Chełmno (; older en, Culm; formerly ) is a town in northern Poland near the Vistula river with 18,915 inhabitants as of December 2021. It is the seat of the Chełmno County in the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship.
Due to its regional impor ...
death factory, which was responsible for the murder of at least 180,000 Jews before the war's end (see
Chełmno Trials
The Chełmno trials were a series of consecutive war-crime trials of the Chełmno extermination camp personnel, held in Poland and in Germany following World War II. The cases were decided almost twenty years apart. The first judicial trial of t ...
for supplementary data),
operated under Bothmann originally between the summer of 1942 and March 1943.
With almost all Jews of the ''
Wartheland
The ''Reichsgau Wartheland'' (initially ''Reichsgau Posen'', also: ''Warthegau'') was a Nazi German ''Reichsgau'' formed from parts of Polish territory annexed in 1939 during World War II. It comprised the region of Greater Poland and adjacent ...
'' District already murdered, the camp was closed in March 1943. Bothmann was sent to Yugoslavia,
but a year later he was summoned back to
Poznań
Poznań () is a city on the River Warta in west-central Poland, within the Greater Poland region. The city is an important cultural and business centre, and one of Poland's most populous regions with many regional customs such as Saint Joh ...
in order to supervise the renewed extermination operations at Chełmno,
because the
Łódź Ghetto
The Łódź Ghetto or Litzmannstadt Ghetto (after the Nazi German name for Łódź) was a Nazi ghetto established by the German authorities for Polish Jews and Roma following the Invasion of Poland. It was the second-largest ghetto in all of ...
continued to take in prisoners not only from
occupied Poland
' ( Norwegian: ') is a Norwegian political thriller TV series that premiered on TV2 on 5 October 2015. Based on an original idea by Jo Nesbø, the series is co-created with Karianne Lund and Erik Skjoldbjærg. Season 2 premiered on 10 Octobe ...
but also from Germany, Bohemia, Moravia and other places. A total of 70,000 Jews were still there. In this final phase of the camp operation, Bothmann supervised the murder of some 25,000 victims before finally, in mid-July 1944, the SS and police began deporting the remaining inhabitants of the Łódź ghetto to
Auschwitz-Birkenau.
In September 1944, the SS brought in new
Commando 1005 to exhume and cremate any remaining evidence of genocide.
[Main Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland]
''German Crimes in Poland'' (Warsaw: 1946, 1947)
, Archive of ''Jewish Gombin Genealogy'', with introduction by Leon Zamosc. ''Note:'' The Main (or Central) Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland ( pl, Główna Komisja Badania Zbrodni Niemieckich w Polsce, GKBZNwP) founded in 1945 was the predecessor of the Institute of National Remembrance
The Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation ( pl, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej – Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu, abbreviated IPN) is a Polish state resea ...
(see also the ). Bothmann took part in the shooting of the last Jewish workers. He fled the forest camp just before the arrival of the Soviet Army. Bothmann also served in the 7th SS-Division Prinz Eugen. His final assignment was in
Flensburg with
SIPO and the Border Police before the war's end.
Suicide
Captured in West Germany by the British, he hanged himself while in custody,
unaware that a life of freedom might have awaited him, similar to other mass murderers (
Strippel,
Reinefarth,
Fiedler)
because ''genocide'' was not in the criminal code of the Third Reich and would not be applied retroactively.
Yet, Hans Bothmann was not alone. He was one of at least a dozen high-profile Nazi German functionaries and
Holocaust perpetrators
This is a list of major perpetrators of the Holocaust.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Holocaust, major perpetrators of
*
Perpetrators
Perpetrators
In law enforcement jargon, a suspect is a known person accused or suspected of committing ...
who committed suicide, including
Theodor Dannecker
Theodor Denecke (also spelled Dannecker) (27 March 1913 – 10 December 1945) was a German SS-captain (), a key aide to Adolf Eichmann in the deportation of Jews during World War II.
A trained lawyer Denecke first served at the Reich Security M ...
('45),
Odilo Globocnik
Odilo Lothar Ludwig Globocnik (21 April 1904 – 31 May 1945) was an Austrian Nazi and a perpetrator of the Holocaust. He was an official of the Nazi Party and later a high-ranking leader of the SS. Globocnik had a leading role in Operation Re ...
('45),
Richard Glücks ('45),
Friedrich Krüger ('45),
Ilse Koch
Ilse Koch (22 September 1906 – 1 September 1967) was a German war criminal who was an overseer at Nazi concentration camps run by her husband, commandant Karl-Otto Koch. Working at Buchenwald (1937–1941) and Majdanek (1941–1943), Koch ...
('67),
Ernst Grawitz ('45),
Karl Jäger
Karl Jäger (; 20 September 1888 – 22 June 1959) was a German mid-ranking official in the '' SS'' of Nazi Germany and '' Einsatzkommando'' leader who perpetrated acts of genocide during the Holocaust.
Early life and career
Jäger was born in Sc ...
('59),
Otto Thierack ('46),
Walter Frank
Walter Frank, also known by the pseudonym Werner Fiedler (12 February 1905 in Fürth – 9 May 1945 in Gross Brunsrode near Braunschweig) was a Nazi historian, notable for his leading role in anti-Semitic research. Judson, Pieter M. and Rosenblit ...
('45),
Robert Ley
Robert Ley (; 15 February 1890 – 25 October 1945) was a German politician and labour union leader during the Nazi era; Ley headed the German Labour Front from 1933 to 1945. He also held many other high positions in the Party, including ''Gaul ...
('45),
Manfred von Killinger
Manfred Freiherr von Killinger (July 14, 1886 – September 2, 1944) was a German naval officer, ''Freikorps'' leader, military writer and Nazi politician. A veteran of World War I and member of the ''Marinebrigade Ehrhardt'' during the Germa ...
('44), and
Hans Jeschonnek
Hans Jeschonnek (9 April 1899 – 18 August 1943) was a German military aviator in the ''Luftstreitkräfte'' during World War I, a general staff officer in the ''Reichswehr'' in the inter–war period and ''Generaloberst'' (Colonel-General) and a ...
('43) among other nationals.
See also
*
Chełmno Trials
The Chełmno trials were a series of consecutive war-crime trials of the Chełmno extermination camp personnel, held in Poland and in Germany following World War II. The cases were decided almost twenty years apart. The first judicial trial of t ...
of the
Chełmno extermination camp
, known for =
, location = Near Chełmno nad Nerem, ''Reichsgau Wartheland'' (German-occupied Poland)
, built by =
, operated by =
, commandant = Herbert Lange, Christian Wirth
, original use =
, construction =
, in operatio ...
personnel, held in Poland and in Germany following World War II.
*
List of people who died by suicide by hanging
Notes
References
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bothmann, Hans
1911 births
1946 suicides
People from Dithmarschen
Chełmno extermination camp personnel
Einsatzgruppen personnel
Gestapo personnel
Holocaust perpetrators in Germany
Holocaust perpetrators in Poland
Nazi concentration camp commandants
Nazis who committed suicide in prison custody
SS-Hauptsturmführer
Nazis who committed suicide in Germany
Suicides by hanging in Germany
People from the Province of Schleswig-Holstein
Hitler Youth members