Karl Chmielewski (16 July 1903 – 1 December 1991) was a German '' SS'' officer and concentration camp commandant. Such was his cruelty, he was dubbed ''Teufel von Gusen'' or the Devil of Gusen."Sagel-Grande, et.al.: ''Justiz und NS-Verbrechen - Strafverfahren gegen Chmielewski Karl (Lage, Aufbau und personelle Besetzung des Lagers Gusen und Lebensbedingungen seiner Häftlinge''. Band XVII, Amsterdam 1977. p. 160 ff. Chmielewski joined the SS whilst unemployed in 1932 and joined the

Nazi Party 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 ...

the following year. After initially serving in the office of Heinrich Himmler, he was transferred to the Columbia concentration camp in 1935, before moving to Sachsenhausen concentration camp the following year. He was promoted to

Untersturmführer (, ; short: ''Ustuf'') was a paramilitary rank of the German ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) first created in July 1934. The rank can trace its origins to the older SA rank of ''Sturmführer'' which had existed since the founding of the SA in 1921. ...

in 1938 and attached to the '' Schutzhaftlagerführung"", the '

Protective custody Protective custody (PC) is a type of imprisonment (or care) to protect a person from harm, either from outside sources or other prisoners. Many prison administrators believe the level of violence, or the underlying threat of violence within pri ...

' units of the ''

SS-Totenkopfverbände ''SS-Totenkopfverbände'' (SS-TV; ) was the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) organization responsible for administering the Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps for Nazi Germany, among similar duties. While the ''Totenkopf'' was the univer ...

''. From 1940 to 1942 Chmielewski, by then a '' Hauptsturmführer'', served as ''

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 ...

'' at Gusen concentration camp, and it was there that he developed a reputation for extreme brutality. He then became commandant of the newly established Herzogenbusch concentration camp in the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

, where he further developed a reputation for cruelty. Amongst the claims made against him was that during inspections he ordered the drowning of prisoners in buckets of water. Fellow camp commandant

Franz Ziereis Franz Xaver Ziereis (13 August 1905 – 24 May 1945) was the commandant of the Mauthausen concentration camp from 1939 until the camp was liberated by the American forces in 1945. Early life and SS career Ziereis was born on 13 August 1905 in M ...

claimed after the war that Chmielewski had used the skin of prisoners to make things such as wallets and book bindings, something Ziereis claimed was strictly forbidden by the Nazi authorities. During his reign at Herzogenbusch, Chmielewski gained a reputation for corruption, and he was eventually tried for personally enriching himself through stealing diamonds from prisoners. He was deprived of his position and rank in 1943, being succeeded as commandant by

Adam Grünewald Adam Grünewald (20 October 1902 – 22 January 1945) was a German Schutzstaffel officer and Nazi concentration camp commandant. The son of a carpenter who died when he was 8, Grünewald apprenticed as a baker but found work difficult to come b ...

. In 1944, an SS court sentenced Chmielewski to 15 years in prison for rape and embezzlement. He spent the rest of the war as an inmate at

Dachau concentration camp , , commandant = List of commandants , known for = , location = Upper Bavaria, Southern Germany , built by = Germany , operated by = ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) , original use = Political prison , construction ...

. Chmielewski disappeared into

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

after the war. By 1953, he was back in Germany, under an assumed identity, where he had taken up farming. He was tried in that year for perjury, fraud and bigamy, and sentenced to a year in prison. After his real identity was established, he was arrested by

West German West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

police in January 1959, accused of nearly two hundred counts of murder. At his trial in 1961, he was found guilty of causing the deaths of prisoners through his brutality, and was sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labour. The court pronounced him a sadist who took pleasure in killing prisoners, whom he did not see as human, by scalding them with boiling water.Segev, ''Soldiers of Evil'', p. 33 He was released from prison in March 1979, on mental health grounds, and spent his last years in a care institution at Chiemsee.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chmielewski, Karl 1903 births 1991 deaths Mauthausen concentration camp personnel Nazi concentration camp commandants Dachau concentration camp survivors Military personnel from Frankfurt SS-Hauptsturmführer German people convicted of rape German people convicted of murder