Johann Altfuldisch (born November 11, 1911, Brückenau,

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

— died May 28, 1947,

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 ...

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

) was SS-

Obersturmführer __NOTOC__ (, ; short: ''Ostuf'') was a Nazi Germany paramilitary rank that was used in several Nazi organisations, such as the SA, SS, NSKK and the NSFK. The rank of ''Obersturmführer'' was first created in 1932 as the result of an expa ...

and a guard at

Mauthausen-Gusen 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 ...

where temporarily he was vice-chief of its central part. Altfuldisch was a member of 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 later on he joined the SS. In 1936 he began working at

Sachsenhausen concentration camp Sachsenhausen () or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a German Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used from 1936 until April 1945, shortly before the defeat of Nazi Germany in May later that year. It mainly held political prisoners ...

. In 1938 he joined the

Waffen-SS The (, "Armed SS") was the combat branch of the Nazi Party's ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) organisation. Its formations included men from Nazi Germany, along with Waffen-SS foreign volunteers and conscripts, volunteers and conscripts from both occup ...

. Between 1938 and 1945 he held the second highest-ranking position at Mauthausen concentration camp, where he ordered and personally participated in many executions.

Hans Altfuldisch, second
Schutzhaftlagerführer ''Schutzhaftlagerführer'' (head of the "preventive detention camp") was a paramilitary title of the SS, specific to the concentration and extermination camps '' Totenkopfverbande'' ("Death's-Head units"). A ''Schutzhaftlagerführer'' was in ch ...
in Mauthausen, was accused by the witnesses to beat prisoners and that he was present when certain groups, for example allied prisoners of war were killed.

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 ...

, he was charged by the U.S. military court at Dachau to have participated in "executions of special ethnic groups or war prisoners". On May 13, 1946, he was found guilty of committing the above-mentioned crimes. He was hanged on May 28, 1947 at the prison for war criminals 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 ...

. His last words had been: "I die for Germany!"Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich: Wer war was vor und nach 1945., Frankfurt am Main 2007, S. 13.

Literature

Ernst Klee Ernst Klee (15 March 1942, Frankfurt – 18 May 2013, Frankfurt) was a German journalist and author. As a writer on Germany's history, he was best known for his exposure and documentation of medical crimes in Nazi Germany, much of which was concer ...

: ''Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich: Wer war was vor und nach 1945''. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2007. .

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Altfuldsich, Johann 1911 births 1947 deaths Mauthausen Trial executions Holocaust perpetrators in Austria Mauthausen concentration camp personnel Sachsenhausen concentration camp personnel SS-Obersturmführer Waffen-SS personnel People from Bad Kissingen (district) Executed mass murderers