Otto Förschner (4 November 1902 – 28 May 1946) was a German SS commander and a

Nazi concentration camp From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than a thousand concentration camps, (officially) or (more commonly). The Nazi concentration camps are distinguished from other types of Nazi camps such as forced-labor camps, as well as concen ...

official. He served as commandant of the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp and the Kaufering concentration camp in the Dachau camp system. He was indicted for his crimes, found guilty, and hanged in May 1946.

Early life

Förschner was born in the town of Dürrenzimmern (today part of Nördlingen), Bavaria on 4 November 1902, and was raised on a farm owned by his family. In 1922, he enlisted in the '' Reichsheer'', and would remain a soldier for the next twelve years. Following his departure from the army in 1934, he became a member of the SS, and was assigned to its military-wing, the ''

SS-Verfügungstruppe ''SS-Verfügungstruppe'' (SS-VT or V-Truppe) (lit. "SS Dispositional Troops") was formed in 1934 as combat troops for the Nazi Party (NSDAP). On 17 August 1938 Adolf Hitler decreed that the SS-VT was neither a part of the ''Ordnungspolizei'' (r ...

'', the organization that would eventually become the '' Waffen-SS''. Tom Segev, ''Soldiers of Evil'',

Berkley Books Berkley Books is an imprint of the Penguin Group. History Berkley Books began as an independent company in 1955. It was founded as "Chic News Company" by Charles Byrne and Frederick Klein, who had worked for Avon; they quickly renamed it Berk ...

, 1991, p. 70

SS career

Between April 1934 and December 1936, Förschner attended the SS training camp at Bad Tölz, and became a member of the Nazi Party in 1937. During the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, he served as an officer with the

5th SS Panzer Division Wiking The 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking (german: 5. SS-Panzerdivision Wiking) or SS Division Wiking was an infantry and later an armoured division among the thirty-eight Waffen-SS divisions of Nazi Germany. It was recruited from foreign volunteers ...

. After being wounded in action and declared medically unfit for combat duty, Förschner was transferred to 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 ...

, taking over as Schutzhaftlagerführer of the

Buchenwald concentration camp Buchenwald (; literally 'beech forest') was a Nazi concentration camp established on hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within Germany's 1937 borders. Many actual or su ...

in the spring of 1942. In September 1943, Förschner was given command over the newly built concentration camp of

Mittelbau-Dora Mittelbau-Dora (also Dora-Mittelbau and Nordhausen-Dora) was a Nazi concentration camp located near Nordhausen in Thuringia, Germany. It was established in late summer 1943 as a subcamp of Buchenwald concentration camp, supplying slave labour ...

, which at this time functioned as a sub-camp of the much larger Buchenwald. The purpose of Mittelbau-Dora was to provide slave-laborers from among its inmate population to the nearby V-weapons production facility of

Mittelwerk Mittelwerk (; German for "Central Works") was a German World War II factory built underground in the Kohnstein to avoid Allied bombing. It used slave labor from the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp to produce V-2 ballistic missiles, V-1 flyin ...

. In addition to his position as commandant at Dora, Förschner was also technically the managing director of Mittelwerk GmbH, the front company created by the German government for V-weapons production. He would hold this post until April 1944, when he was replaced by

Georg Rickhey Georg Johannes Rickhey (25 August 1898, Hildesheim – 1966) was a German engineer and the general director of Mittelwerk GmbH in Dora-Mittelbau. Rickhey, a doctor of engineering, joined the Nazi Party in October 1931 as member number 664,050 ...

. Förschner had a contentious relationship with the various Nazi security services (the SD and the Gestapo) that operated in and around Mittelbau-Dora. His leadership was regularly criticized by them as being too "soft" on both the camp's prisoners and personnel. Of particular concern for them was Förschner's practice of selecting prisoner functionaries almost exclusively from among the camp's German-Communist inmates. NordhausenApril1945

Förschner's reputation in the Nazi party was badly damaged in November 1944, when many of the prisoner functionaries he had appointed were rounded up by the Gestapo and revealed to have been involved in resistance activities inside the camp, most notably the sabotage of V-weapons during the production process. After it was revealed that Förschner had failed to report a bonus payment of he had received from Mittelwerk GmbH, he was dismissed as commander of Mittelbau-Dora in February 1945, and replaced by former

Auschwitz Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...

commandant

Richard Baer Richard Baer (9 September 1911 – 17 June 1963) was a German SS officer who, among other assignments, was the commandant of Auschwitz I concentration camp from May 1944 to January 1945, and right after, from February to April 1945, commanda ...

. After being relieved of command at Mittelbau-Dora, Förschner was transferred to

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

, where he served briefly as commandant of the sub-camp of

Kaufering Kaufering is a municipality in the district of Landsberg in Bavaria in Germany. It lies on the river Lech. During World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted ...

Trial and conviction

In April 1945, Förschner was taken prisoner by the US Army. He was a defendant in the Dachau concentration camp trial, in which he was indicted for war crimes stemming from his tenure at Kaufering. Namely, Förschner was charged with responsibility for the brutal conditions which prevailed in the camp and his role in the management of prisoner

executions Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...

. He was convicted by a US military tribunal and sentenced to death, along with 35 other co-defendants, on 13 December 1945. He was hanged 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 28 May 1946.Ernst Klee: ''Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich: Wer war was vor und nach 1945.'' Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 158

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Forschner, Otto 1902 births 1946 deaths People from Nördlingen People from the Kingdom of Bavaria Executed people from Bavaria Holocaust perpetrators in Germany Buchenwald concentration camp personnel Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp personnel Dachau concentration camp personnel SS-Sturmbannführer Dachau trials executions Reichswehr personnel Waffen-SS personnel Executed Nazi concentration camp commandants Executed mass murderers