Alexander Bernhard Hans Piorkowski (11 October 1904 – 22 October 1948) was a German 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 ...

and commandant of

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 ...

. Following the war, he was convicted and executed.

Life

Born in

Bremen Bremen (Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (german: Stadtgemeinde Bremen, ), is the capital of the German state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (''Freie Hansestadt Bremen''), a two-city-state consis ...

, Piorkowski and was a trained mechanic who worked as a traveling merchant in the 1920s. He joined the SA on 1 June 1929 and moved from there to the SS on 1 June 1933 (member no. 8,737). On 1 November 1929, Piorkowski became a member of 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 ...

(member no. 161,437). He first led the ''SS-Standarte'' in Bremen on 20 July 1935, and in the following year, the ''SS-Standarte Allenstein''. For health reasons, he retired from the service on 19 September 1936.

Johannes Tuchel Johannes Tuchel (born 20 December 1957) is a German political scientist. He is currently head of the German Resistance Memorial Centre (''"Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand"'') museum and chief executive of the foundation responsible for it. L ...

: ''Konzentrationslager: Organisationsgeschichte und Funktion der Inspektion der Konzentrationslager 1934–1938''. 1991, p. 385 From July 1937 to December 1937, Piorkowski was provisionally commandant of Lichtenburg concentration camp, and after its conversion into a women's concentration camp, deputy to ''Lagerdirektor''

Günther Tamaschke Günther Tamaschke (26 February 1896, Berlin – 14 October 1959, Uhingen) was a German SS-'' Standartenführer'' and commandant of the Lichtenburg and Ravensbrück concentration camps. Early life Günther Tamaschke was born the son of a mercha ...

until August 1938. From there he was transferred to the

in early August 1938, where he 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 ...

''. From February 1940 to mid-September 1942, he was the commandant of

. Due to corruption charges, he was discharged from service on 31 August 1943.

Post-war life and death

After the

Second World War 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 ...

, Piorkowski, along with his adjutant Heinrich Detmers, had to answer to a U.S. military tribunal at the Dachau trials from 6 to 17 January 1947. The charges were war crimes for his complicity in the deportation, abduction and ill-treatment of prisoners in the former concentration camp at Dachau, his supervision of inhumane experiments conducted by

Sigmund Rascher Sigmund Rascher (12 February 1909 – 26 April 1945) was a German ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) doctor. He conducted deadly experiments on humans pertaining to high altitude, freezing and blood coagulation under the patronage of ''Reichsführer-SS'' Hei ...

and Claus Schilling, and the mass shootings of Soviet POWs. Piorkowski was found guilty and sentenced to death. Making futile petitions for a pardon, Piorkowski was hanged in the

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 ...

for war crimes.''This article contains a translation of the corresponding article in the

German Wikipedia The German Wikipedia (german: Deutschsprachige Wikipedia) is the German-language edition of Wikipedia, a free and publicly editable online encyclopedia. Founded on March 16, 2001, it is the second-oldest Wikipedia (after the English Wikipedia), ...

Citations

General sources

* Martin Gruner. ''Verurteilt in Dachau. Der Prozess gegen den KZ-Kommandanten Alex Piorkowski vor einem US-Militärgericht''. Wißner-Verlag, Augsburg 2008, * Stefan Hördler, Sigrid Jacobeit (Hrsg.). ''Dokumentations- und Gedenkort KZ Lichtenburg – Konzeption einer neuen Dauerausstellung für Werkstattgebäude und Bunker''. Lit-Verlag, Berlin 2009, * Ernst Klee. ''Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich: Wer war was vor und nach 1945''. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2007, * Johannes Tuchel. ''Konzentrationslager: Organisationsgeschichte und Funktion der Inspektion der Konzentrationslager 1934–1938''. (= Schriften des Bundesarchivs, Band 39). H. Boldt, 1991,

External links

Recommendations
for military trials at www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org (PDF-Datei; 1.98 MB) {{DEFAULTSORT:Piorkowski, Alexander 1904 births 1948 deaths Holocaust perpetrators in Germany Dachau trials executions Lichtenburg concentration camp personnel Military personnel from Bremen Schutzhaftlagerführer SS-Sturmbannführer Sturmabteilung personnel Waffen-SS personnel Executed Nazi concentration camp commandants Executed mass murderers