Richard Glücks (; 22 April 1889 – 10 May 1945) was a high-ranking German
SS functionary during the
Nazi era
Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictat ...
. From November 1939 until the end of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, he commanded the
Concentration Camps Inspectorate, later integrated into the
SS Main Economic and Administrative Office as "Amt D". Reporting first to
Theodor Eicke
Theodor Eicke (17 October 1892 – 26 February 1943) was both a senior SS functionary and a Waffen-SS divisional commander in Nazi Germany. He was a key figure in the development of Nazi concentration camps. Eicke served as the second com ...
, then to SS chief
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was a German Nazism, Nazi politician and military leader who was the 4th of the (Protection Squadron; SS), a leading member of the Nazi Party, and one of the most powerful p ...
and finally to
Oswald Pohl
Oswald Ludwig Pohl (; 30 June 1892 – 7 June 1951) was a German high-ranking SS official 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 ke ...
, he became Inspector of Concentration Camps. He retained this position despite Himmler, in whose presence Glücks would panic, having little confidence in him. Glücks was responsible for the forced labour of camp inmates and was the supervisor for the medical practices in the camps, ranging from
Nazi human experimentation to the implementation of the "
Final Solution
The Final Solution or the Final Solution to the Jewish Question was a plan orchestrated by Nazi Germany during World War II for the genocide of individuals they defined as Jews. The "Final Solution to the Jewish question" was the official ...
", in particular the mass murder of inmates with
Zyklon B
Zyklon B (; translated Cyclone B) was the trade name of a cyanide-based pesticide invented in Germany in the early 1920s. It consists of hydrogen cyanide (prussic acid), as well as a cautionary eye irritant and one of several adsorbents such ...
gas. After Germany capitulated, Glücks committed suicide by swallowing a
potassium cyanide
Potassium cyanide is a compound with the formula KCN. It is a colorless salt, similar in appearance to sugar, that is highly soluble in water. Most KCN is used in gold mining, organic synthesis, and electroplating. Smaller applications include ...
capsule.
Early life
Glücks was born 1889, in
Odenkirchen in the
Rhineland
The Rhineland ( ; ; ; ) is a loosely defined area of Western Germany along the Rhine, chiefly Middle Rhine, its middle section. It is the main industrial heartland of Germany because of its many factories, and it has historic ties to the Holy ...
. Having completed
gymnasium in
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in the state after Cologne and the List of cities in Germany with more than 100,000 inhabitants, seventh-largest city ...
, he worked in his father's business, a fire insurance agency. In 1909, Glücks joined the army for one year as a volunteer, serving in the artillery. In 1913, he was in
England
England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
, and later moved to
Argentina
Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...
as a trader. When
World War I
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
broke out, Glücks returned to Germany under a false identity on a
Norwegian ship in January 1915 and joined the army again. During the war, he eventually became the commander of an artillery unit and was awarded the
Iron Cross
The Iron Cross (, , abbreviated EK) was a military decoration in the Kingdom of Prussia, the German Empire (1871–1918), and Nazi Germany (1933–1945). The design, a black cross pattée with a white or silver outline, was derived from the in ...
I and II. Glücks fought at the
Battle of Verdun
The Battle of Verdun ( ; ) was fought from 21 February to 18 December 1916 on the Western Front (World War I), Western Front in French Third Republic, France. The battle was the longest of the First World War and took place on the hills north ...
and the
Battle of the Somme
The Battle of the Somme (; ), also known as the Somme offensive, was a battle of the First World War fought by the armies of the British Empire and the French Third Republic against the German Empire. It took place between 1 July and 18 Nove ...
. After the war, he became a liaison officer between the German forces and the
Military Inter-Allied Commission of Control, the allied body for controlling the restrictions placed upon Germany in the
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles was a peace treaty signed on 28 June 1919. As the most important treaty of World War I, it ended the state of war between Germany and most of the Allies of World War I, Allied Powers. It was signed in the Palace ...
regarding re-armament and strength of their armed forces. Until 1924, he stayed in that position, before joining the staff of the 6th Prussian Division. He also served in the ''
Freikorps
(, "Free Corps" or "Volunteer Corps") were irregular German and other European paramilitary volunteer units that existed from the 18th to the early 20th centuries. They effectively fought as mercenaries or private military companies, rega ...
''.
Rise under the Nazi regime
In 1930, Glücks joined the
NSDAP
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor, the German Workers ...
and two years later the
SS.
From 6 September 1933 to 20 June 1935, Glücks was a member of the staff of the SS-Group "West" and rose to the rank of an ''SS-
Sturmbannführer
__NOTOC__
''Sturmbannführer'' (; ) was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank equivalent to Major (rank), major that was used in several Nazi organizations, such as the Sturmabteilung, SA, Schutzstaffel, SS, and the National Socialist Flyers Corps, NSFK ...
''. Historian Nikolaus Wachsmann claims that while lacking in charisma, Glücks possessed an "abundance of ideological commitment".
On 1 April 1936, Glücks became the chief of staff to
Theodor Eicke
Theodor Eicke (17 October 1892 – 26 February 1943) was both a senior SS functionary and a Waffen-SS divisional commander in Nazi Germany. He was a key figure in the development of Nazi concentration camps. Eicke served as the second com ...
, who was then
Concentration Camps Inspector and head of the ''SS-
Wachverbände''.
Concentration Camps Inspector
When Eicke became field commander of the
SS Division Totenkopf during the summer of 1939, Glücks was promoted by Himmler on 15 November 1939 as Eicke's successor to the post of Concentration Camps Inspector. In contrast with the warm relation between Himmler and the older Eicke, Glücks only rarely met with Himmler, who promoted him not for his leadership competencies but for his ability to "provide the administrative continuity" with Eicke's policies. Less a reflection of Glücks' energy and aptitude, his rise in power was more about Eicke's ineffectual managerial skills.
Auschwitz
Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, 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 consisted of Auschw ...
commandant
Rudolf Hoess noted that Glücks had an "almost unbelievable fear" of Himmler and went to pieces when he had to deal with him.
[Rudolf Hoess, ''Commandant of Auschwitz'' (London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000), p. 245] Glücks made few changes once taking over, leaving the organisational structure intact as Eicke had set it up; the same uncompromising rigidity was carried out at the camps—there was no rehabilitation and no effort to exploit the working potential of inmates. Because Glücks never served inside a concentration camp, some senior camp members were suspicious and considered him nothing more than a desk-side bureaucrat. In terms of his leadership style, he preferred men of action and allowed them some autonomy in operating their respective camps. Glücks has been termed "unimaginative, lacking in energy if not lazy," and even "unperceptive," which may account to some extent for his hands-off approach.
Glücks' responsibilities at first mainly covered the use of concentration camp inmates for
forced labour
Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, or violence, including death or other forms of ...
. In this phase, he urged camp commandants to lower the death rate in the camps as it went counter to the economic objectives his department was to fulfil. Other orders of his were to ask for the inmates to be made to work continuously. On 21 February 1940, it was Glücks who recommended Auschwitz, a former
Austria
Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...
n cavalry barracks, as a suitable site for a new concentration camp to Himmler and
Reinhard Heydrich
Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich ( , ; 7 March 1904 – 4 June 1942) was a German high-ranking SS and police official during the Nazi era and a principal architect of the Holocaust. He held the rank of SS-. Many historians regard Heydrich ...
. On 1 March 1941, Glücks accompanied Himmler and several chief directors of
I.G. Farben on a visit to Auschwitz. It was decided that the camp would be expanded to accommodate up to 30,000 prisoners, an additional camp capable of housing 100,000 POWs would be established at nearby Birkenau and that a factory would be constructed in proximity with the camp prisoners placed at I.G. Farben's disposal.
On 20 April 1941, Glücks was promoted to the rank of ''SS-
Brigadeführer
''Brigadeführer'' (, ) was a paramilitary rank of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) that was used between 1932 and 1945. It was mainly known for its use as an SS rank. As an SA rank, it was used after briefly being known as '' Untergruppenführer'' in ...
''; in November 1943, he was made ''SS-Gruppenführer'' and a ''Generalleutnant'' of the Waffen-SS. Just a few days after the
Wannsee Conference in January 1942, Himmler ordered Glücks to prepare the camps for the immediate arrival of 100,000 Jewish men and 50,000 women being evacuated from the Reich as labourers in lieu of the diminishing availability of Russian prisoners. In February 1942, the CCI became ''Amt D'' of the
SS Main Economic and Administrative Office under SS-
Obergruppenführer
(, ) was a paramilitary rank in Nazi Germany that was first created in 1932 as a rank of the ''Sturmabteilung'' (SA) and adopted by the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) one year later. Until April 1942, it was the highest commissioned SS rank after ...
Pohl. By March 1942, Glücks was routinely receiving direct instructions from the head engineer and SS General
Hans Kammler, to meet the productivity demands of SS engineers.
From 1942 on, he was increasingly involved in the implementation of the "Final Solution", along with his new direct superior Pohl.
To oversee the coordination of camp related activities, which varied from the medical concerns of personnel and prisoners, the status of construction projects and the progress of extermination operations, Glücks attended weekly meetings chaired by Pohl. Glücks never attempted to outshine his superior and was quite aware of his subordination to Pohl.
In July 1942, he participated in a planning meeting with Himmler on the topic of
medical experiments on camp inmates. From several visits to the camps at Auschwitz, Glücks was well aware of the
mass murder
Mass murder is the violent crime of murder, killing a number of people, typically simultaneously or over a relatively short period of time and in close geographic proximity. A mass murder typically occurs in a single location where one or more ...
s and other atrocities committed there. Correspondingly, Hoess routinely informed Glücks on the status of the extermination activities. During one of his inspection-tour visits to Auschwitz in 1943, Glücks complained about the unfavourable location of the crematoria, since all types of people would be able to "gaze" at the structures. Responding to this observation, Hoess ordered a row of trees planted between Crematoria I and II. When visits from high officials from the Reich or the Nazi Party took place, the administration was instructed by Glücks to avoid showing the crematoria to them; if questions arose about smoke coming from the chimneys, the installation personnel were to tell the visitors that corpses were being burned as a result of epidemics.
Some time in December 1942, after discovering 70,000 out of 136,000 incoming prisoners had died almost as fast as they arrived, he issued a directive to the camp doctors: "The best camp doctor in a concentration camp is that doctor who holds the work capacity among inmates at its highest possible level ... Toward this end it is necessary that the camp doctors take a personal interest and appear on location at work sites."
Before the
death marches of early 1945 started, Glücks reiterated a July 1944 directive to camp commanders that during "emergency situations," they were to follow the instructions of the regional
HSSPF (''Höherer SS- und Polizeiführer'') commanders. Between 250,000 and 400,000 additional people died as a result of these death marches.
Glücks was "the RSHA man responsible for the entire network of concentration camps" and his authority extended to the largest and most infamous of them all, Auschwitz. Nearly all the important matters concerning the concentration camps were "decided directly between the Inspector of Concentration Camps and the ''Reichsführer-SS''." In January 1945, Glücks was decorated for his contributions to the Reich in managing the fifteen largest camps and the five-hundred satellite camps which employed upwards of 40,000 members of the SS. Glücks' role in the
Holocaust
The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...
"cannot be over-emphasized" as he, together with Pohl, oversaw the entire Nazi camp system and the persecution network it represented.
Death
When the
SS Main Economic and Administrative Office premises in
Berlin
Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
were destroyed by Allied bombing on 16 April 1945, the office was moved to
Born auf dem Darß
Born auf dem Darß is a municipality in the Vorpommern-Rügen district, in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany. It is part of the peninsula Darß, to which also belong the villages of Prerow and Wieck. Born is situated at the southern shore o ...
in
Pomerania
Pomerania ( ; ; ; ) is a historical region on the southern shore of the Baltic Sea in Central Europe, split between Poland and Germany. The central and eastern part belongs to the West Pomeranian Voivodeship, West Pomeranian, Pomeranian Voivod ...
on the
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by the countries of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and the North European Plain, North and Central European Plain regions. It is the ...
. Owing to the advances of the Red Army forces, Glücks and his wife fled to
Flensburg
Flensburg (; Danish language, Danish and ; ; ) is an independent city, independent town in the far north of the Germany, German state of Schleswig-Holstein. After Kiel and Lübeck, it is the third-largest city in Schleswig-Holstein.
Flensburg's ...
.
After the capitulation of Germany, he is believed to have committed suicide on 10 May 1945 by swallowing a capsule of
potassium cyanide
Potassium cyanide is a compound with the formula KCN. It is a colorless salt, similar in appearance to sugar, that is highly soluble in water. Most KCN is used in gold mining, organic synthesis, and electroplating. Smaller applications include ...
at the
Mürwik naval base in
Flensburg
Flensburg (; Danish language, Danish and ; ; ) is an independent city, independent town in the far north of the Germany, German state of Schleswig-Holstein. After Kiel and Lübeck, it is the third-largest city in Schleswig-Holstein.
Flensburg's ...
-
Mürwik, although the lack of official records or photos gave rise to speculation about his ultimate fate.
Fictional references
*In the 1973 thriller novel
The Odessa File
''The Odessa File'' is a thriller by English writer Frederick Forsyth, first published in 1972, about the adventures of a young German reporter attempting to discover the location of a former SS concentration-camp commander.
The name ODESSA ...
(and subdequent movie) set in 1963 Glücks is still alive and head of the ODESSA (an organisation dedicated to protecting members of the SS from prosecution for war crimes and the destruction of the state of Israel).
*Glücks appears as a minor character in the
Jonathan Glazer film ''
The Zone of Interest'' (2023).
See also
*
List SS-Gruppenführer
*
List of SS personnel
A list is a set of discrete items of information collected and set forth in some format for utility, entertainment, or other purposes. A list may be memorialized in any number of ways, including existing only in the mind of the list-maker, but ...
*
Pohl Trial
Notes
References
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Further reading
* Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team (2009). "Richard Glucks as described by Rudolf Höss" a
Holocaust Research Project.org
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gluecks, Richard
1889 births
1945 suicides
1945 deaths
People from Mönchengladbach
Nazi Party politicians
SS-Gruppenführer
People from the Rhine Province
Nazis who died by suicide in Germany
Suicides by cyanide poisoning
Holocaust perpetrators
20th-century Freikorps personnel
German Army personnel of World War I
German military personnel who died by suicide
Waffen-SS personnel