Martin Gottfried Weiss, alternatively spelled Weiß ( – 29 May 1946), was the commandant of the

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 ...

in 1945 at the time of his arrest. He also served from April 1940 until September 1942 as the commandant of

Neuengamme concentration camp Neuengamme was a network of Nazi concentration camps in Northern Germany that consisted of the main camp, Neuengamme, and more than 85 satellite camps. Established in 1938 near the village of Neuengamme in the Bergedorf district of Hamburg, th ...

, and later, from November 1943 until May 1944, as the fourth commandant of

Majdanek concentration camp Majdanek (or Lublin) was a Nazi concentration and extermination camp built and operated by the SS on the outskirts of the city of Lublin during the German occupation of Poland in World War II. It had seven gas chambers, two wooden gallows, a ...

. He was executed for war crimes.

Life

Weiss was born in

Weiden in der Oberpfalz Weiden in der Oberpfalz (official name: Weiden i.d.OPf.; Northern Bavarian: ''Weidn in da Owapfalz'') is a district-free city in Bavaria, Germany. It is located east of Nuremberg and west of the Czech border. A branch of the German Army is locat ...

. His father worked for the

Royal Bavarian State Railways The Royal Bavarian State Railways (''Königliche Bayerische Staats-Eisenbahnen'' or ''K.Bay.Sts.B.'') was the state railway company for the Kingdom of Bavaria. It was founded in 1844. The organisation grew into the second largest of the German ...

. He had two sisters and was raised as a Catholic. After school he continued his education at a mechanical engineering school in

Landshut Landshut (; bar, Landshuad) is a town in Bavaria in the south-east of Germany. Situated on the banks of the River Isar, Landshut is the capital of Lower Bavaria, one of the seven administrative regions of the Free State of Bavaria. It is also t ...

. He finished school in 1924 and worked as intern in an ironworks. Later he worked for about three and a half years for the

Upper Palatine The Upper Palatinate (german: Oberpfalz, , ) is one of the seven administrative districts of Bavaria, Germany, and is located in the east of Bavaria. Geography The Upper Palatinate is a landscape with low mountains and numerous ponds and lakes ...

electric company. In the summer of 1926 he 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 ...

and founded a chapter of the SA and of the HJ with two friends in Weiden. Later he studied electrical engineering in

Bad Frankenhausen Bad Frankenhausen (officially: Bad Frankenhausen/Kyffhäuser) is a spa town in the German state of Thuringia. It is located at the southern slope of the Kyffhäuser mountain range, on an artificial arm of the Wipper river, a tributary of the Unstr ...

, finishing in 1930. His grades were good, so he worked as an assistant at the school until April 1932, when he was released. He went back to the Weiden area and joined the SS.

SS career

From April 1933 he served with the guards of

; from November 1933 till February 1938 he was the engineer of the camp. In March he became adjutant to camp commander

Hans Loritz Hans Loritz (12 December 1895, Augsburg – 31 January 1946, Neumünster) was an officer in the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) who was the commandant of several concentration camps in Germany and Nazi-occupied Europe. He committed suicide in captivity ...

and

Alexander Piorkowski Alexander Bernhard Hans Piorkowski (11 October 1904 – 22 October 1948) was a German SS functionary during the Nazi era and commandant of Dachau concentration camp. Following the war, he was convicted and executed. Life Born in Bremen, Piorkows ...

. He married in 1934, and he had at least two children. In April 1940 he received an order for the construction of

. In November he became the camp commandant. The Neuengamme camp was tasked to deliver building materials for buildings in Hamburg. From April 1942 till July 1942 Weiss was also commandant of

Arbeitsdorf Arbeitsdorf ("work-village") was a Nazi concentration camp in Stadt des KdF-Wagens bei Fallersleben 1942. History and the purpose of the camp In 1936, a Czech engineer by the name of Ferdinand Porsche designed a prototype of a car that would be a ...

Commandant in Dachau

On 1 September 1942 Weiss became commandant of

. Soon after this,

Oswald Pohl Oswald Ludwig Pohl (; 30 June 1892 – 7 June 1951) was a German SS functionary during the Nazi era. As the head of the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office and the head administrator of the Nazi concentration camps, he was a key figure in ...

criticised him severely, about the poor condition of the prisoners. Weiss thereafter made conditions in the camp a bit more humane. Weiss had taken some of his

kapo A kapo or prisoner functionary (german: Funktionshäftling) was a prisoner in a Nazi camp who was assigned by the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) guards to supervise forced labor or carry out administrative tasks. Also called "prisoner self-administrat ...

s from Neuengamme to Dachau. A last special action of

Action 14f13 Action 14f13, also called ''Sonderbehandlung'' (special treatment) 14f13 and Aktion 14f13, was a campaign by Nazi Germany to murder Nazi concentration camp prisoners. Also called ''invalid'' or ''prisoner euthanasia'', the sick, the elderly and t ...

was carried out on his orders bringing death to 342 people in the

Hartheim Euthanasia Centre The Hartheim killing centre (german: NS-Tötungsanstalt Hartheim, sometimes translated as "Hartheim killing facility" or "Hartheim euthanasia centre") was a killing facility involved in the Nazi programme known as ''Aktion T4'', in which German ...

. Weiss worked in Dachau until 31 October 1943. During his time as commandant in Dachau, 35 people were hanged and 18 people were shot. Before his post-war trial, Weiss insisted that these people were not concentration-camp prisoners, but prisoners of 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 organi ...

. He said they were sentenced to death by order of

Heinrich Himmler Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was of the (Protection Squadron; SS), and a leading member of the Nazi Party of Germany. Himmler was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and a main architect of th ...

and the

Reich Security Main Office The Reich Security Main Office (german: Reichssicherheitshauptamt or RSHA) was an organization under Heinrich Himmler in his dual capacity as ''Chef der Deutschen Polizei'' (Chief of German Police) and ''Reichsführer-SS'', the head of the Nazi ...

. This contradicted the statement of Johann Kicks, and was also a violation of the rules of the concentration camps

Lagerordnung The Disciplinary and Penal Code (german: Lagerordnung) was first written for Dachau concentration camp and became the uniform code at all SS concentration camps in the Third Reich on January 1, 1934. Also known as the ''Strafkatalog'' (Punishment ...

. According to Dr. Johann Neuhäusler, Auxiliary Bishop of Munich and author of “What was it like in the Concentration Camp at Dachau?”, Commandant Weiss was regarded by many prisoners with respect due to his reforms. He personally inspected to ensure his reforms were followed. Such reforms included: deliberate beatings were forbidden, banning “path” haircuts, permitting food parcels, and ensuring various facilities for prisoners use. Most importantly, he refused Himmler’s orders to shell and burn the camp, along with all its inmates.

Commander at Majdanek

Weiss was appointed commandant of Majdanek after his predecessor

Hermann Florstedt Arthur Hermann Florstedt (18 February 1895 – 15 April 1945), member of the NSDAP, was a German SS commander, war criminal and convicted war profiteer. He became the third commander of Majdanek concentration camp in October 1942. Florsted ...

was charged with wholesale theft from the Third Reich in order to enrich himself. He took up his position as commander of

on 4 November 1943. On 3 November 1943, one of the worst massacres happened there; more than 17,000 Jewish people were murdered during

Aktion Erntefest Operation Harvest Festival (german: Aktion Erntefest) was the murder of up to 43,000 Jews at the Majdanek, Poniatowa and Trawniki concentration camps by the SS, the Order Police battalions, and the Ukrainian ''Sonderdienst'' on 3–4 Novembe ...

over the course of one day. Historians believe that Weiss was present at the time in Lublin-Majdanek to prepare himself for his new position. It is certain that on the first day of his new position as commandant, he was responsible for having to clean up the consequences of the massacre. On 18 May 1944, SS-Obersturmbannführer Weiß was promoted. On 1 November 1944 he was sent to

Mühldorf subcamp Mühldorf am Inn (Central Bavarian: ''Muihdorf am Inn'') is a town in Bavaria, Germany, and the capital of the district Mühldorf on the river Inn. It is located at , and had a population of about 17,808 in 2005. History During the Middle Ages, ...

. There

Organisation Todt Organisation Todt (OT; ) was a civil and military engineering organisation in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945, named for its founder, Fritz Todt, an engineer and senior Nazi. The organisation was responsible for a huge range of engineering projec ...

built two underground plants for the production of fighter planes with the forced assistance of prisoners from Dachau. Because the Luftwaffe was suffering severe losses in the air war against the RAF, the forced labour contingent was driven hard. Jewish prisoners who worked there were afraid of being gassed, if they did not work hard enough. Some died of the hard work, some from

typhus Typhus, also known as typhus fever, is a group of infectious diseases that include epidemic typhus, scrub typhus, and murine typhus. Common symptoms include fever, headache, and a rash. Typically these begin one to two weeks after exposure. ...

. Those who could not work any longer were sent to Auschwitz. The position of Weiß in Mühldorf is not absolutely clear. In any event, of all the command staff at Mühldorf, he had the highest rank. At the end of April 1945, Weiss was in Dachau, perhaps in order to relieve the commandant,

Eduard Weiter Eduard Weiter (18 July 1889 – 2 May 1945) was a German bureaucrat who became a Schutzstaffel Obersturmbannführer and concentration camp commandant during World War II. Early life The son of a horsewhip maker, Weiter worked as a book salesman ...

. On 28 April he discussed with SS-Standartenführer

Kurt Becher Kurt Andreas Ernst Becher (12 September 1909 – 8 August 1995) was a mid-ranking SS commander who was Commissar of all German concentration camps, and Chief of the Economic Department of the SS Command in Hungary during the German occupation i ...

how to hand over the camp to the

US Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

(uncertain, Becher later remembered only that the name of the man he talked to started with "W" ). On 28 April or 29 April Weiss fled from Dachau.

Conviction and execution

Weiss was apprehended in

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

on 29 April 1945 by corporal Henry Senger of the

292nd Field Artillery Observation Battalion, and was tried during the Dachau Trials beginning on 13 November 1945. After being found guilty of "violating the laws and usages of war," Weiss was executed by hanging 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 ...

on 29 May 1946. Just before the black hood was placed over his head, Weiss shouted "I am dying for Germany!"

Literature

* Jan Erik Schulte: ''Zwangsarbeit und Vernichtung. Das Wirtschaftsimperium der SS. Oswald Pohl und das SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt 1933-1945.'' Paderborn 2001, . * Karin Orth: ''Die Konzentrationslager-SS''. dtv, München 2004, . * Karin Orth: ''Das System der nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager.'' Pendo Verlag, Hamburg 2002, . *

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, . * Case No. 000-50-2 (US vs. Martin Gottfried Weiss et al.) Tried 13 Dec. 4
in eng. Sprache (pdf-datei; 40,9 MB)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Weiss, Martin 1905 births 1946 deaths Holocaust perpetrators in Germany Holocaust perpetrators in Poland People from Weiden in der Oberpfalz Dachau concentration camp personnel Dachau trials executions SS-Obersturmbannführer People from the Kingdom of Bavaria Executed people from Bavaria Majdanek concentration camp personnel Neuengamme concentration camp personnel Executed Nazi concentration camp commandants