Kurt Eccarius (5 March 1905 – 9 October 1984) was an SS functionary during the

Nazi era Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

; he was in charge of the prison block inside the Sachsenhausen concentration camp from 1939 to 1945. He was convicted by both Soviet and West German courts for murders committed during his concentration camp service. Eccarius was born in Coburg,

Saxe-Coburg and Gotha Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (german: Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha), or Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (german: Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha, links=no ), was an Ernestine, Thuringian duchy ruled by a branch of the House of Wettin, consisting of territories in the present-d ...

Conviction by Soviet tribunal

Eccarius was arrested by the British and then handed over to the Soviet authorities. He was tried in 1947 by a Soviets tribunal at the Berlin Pankow city hall along with another SS guard and Sachsenhausen record keeper,

Gustav Sorge Gustav Hermann Sorge (24 April 1911 – 3 October 1978), nicknamed "''Der eiserne Gustav''" ("Iron Gustav") for his brutality, was an SS senior NCO (''Hauptscharführer''). He was initially a guard at Esterwegen concentration camp in the Emslan ...

, the last Sachsenhausen commandant,

Anton Kaindl Anton Kaindl (14 July 1902 – 31 August 1948) was an SS-'' Standartenführer'' and commandant of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp from 1943-1945. Kaindl joined the army during the Weimar Republic in May 1920 and served until May 1932, lea ...

, eleven other SS commanders, one civil servant and two prisoner Kapos including Paul Sakowski, who served as the crematorium foreman and camp hangman from 1941 to 1943. Eccarius was found guilty on 31 October 1947 and was sentenced to life imprisonment at the

Vorkuta Vorkuta (russian: Воркута́; kv, Вӧркута, ''Vörkuta''; Nenets for "the abundance of bears", "bear corner") is a coal-mining town in the Komi Republic, Russia, situated just north of the Arctic Circle in the Pechora coal basin at ...

forced labour camp in the

Gulag The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...

. He served nine years before being repatriated to West Germany in 1956.

Criminal convictions in West Germany

Upon arrival in West Germany, Eccarius initially received amnesty. In 1962, he was indicted for the shooting of prisoners near

Wittstock Wittstock/Dosse is a town in the Ostprignitz-Ruppin district, in north-western Brandenburg, Germany. Geography It is located in the eastern Prignitz region on the Dosse River near the confluence with its Glinze tributary, about east of Pritzwal ...

, Germany, while on a death march from Sachsenhausen north-west to Crivitz, Germany. This march began on 21 April 1945, one day before the camp was liberated by the Soviet Army. He was found guilty on 30 November 1962, in the Federal District Court in Coburg,

West Germany 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 ...

and sentenced to four years. Additional criminal charges were filed against Eccarius in 1962 for complicity in the killing of over 13,000 Soviet prisoners in the "

Genickschussanlage Genickschussanlage (German for "neck shooting facility") is the official name of a facility used for surprise executions in Nazi Germany. The victim was placed, under the pretext of a medical examination, in a position where a shot could be fired in ...

" (neck shooting facility) in 1941. The trial was held in the Federal District Court of Munich, where he was found guilty and sentenced to eight and a half years' imprisonment on 22 December 1969. He was released after serving two years. He was also investigated for the murder of

Yakov Dzhugashvili Yakov Iosifovich Dzhugashvili, ', russian: Яков Иосифович Джугашвили, ' ( – 14 April 1943) was the eldest child of Joseph Stalin, the son of Stalin's first wife, Kato Svanidze, who died nine months after his birth. Hi ...

, son of

Josef Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...

.Ernst Klee: ''Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich'', Frankfurt am Main 2007, S. 124f.''Film and memory in East Germany'' By Anke Pinkert Publisher: Indiana University Press (June 18, 2008) Language: English

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Eccarius, Kurt 1905 births Year of death missing People from Coburg Sachsenhausen concentration camp personnel SS non-commissioned officers People from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha Waffen-SS personnel Foreign Gulag detainees People convicted in the Nazi concentration camp trials Prisoners and detainees of Germany Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by the Soviet Union