Criminals & Outlaws Codexery

Josef Kramer

SS Hauptsturmführer and commandant of Auschwitz-Birkenau and Bergen-Belsen.

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He was executed in 1945 after being convicted for war crimes committed at Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen.[1]

Key facts and history

He was assigned as a guard at Dachau in 1934 and received rapid promotions to senior posts at Sachsenhausen and Mauthausen.[2] At Natzweiler-Struthof, Kramer personally carried out the gassings of 80 Jewish people selected to become anatomical specimens for a skull collection.[3] He became Lagerführer of Auschwitz II-Birkenau from 8 May 1944 to 25 November 1944, managing the gassings of new transports.[4][5] In December 1944 he was transferred to Bergen-Belsen, where his harsh rule earned him the nickname "Beast of Belsen".[6]

He was tried by a British military court at Lüneburg from September to November 1945 and sentenced to death.[7][1] Born in Munich to Theodore and Maria Kramer, he was raised as a strict Roman Catholic; his birth year is not given in the cited evidence.[8] In 1940 Kramer became an assistant to Rudolf Höss, who was the Commandant at Auschwitz, and with Höss he inspected the site for a planned synthetic oil and rubber plant.[2] In April 1941 Kramer was appointed Commandant of Natzweiler-Struthof, a camp that was the only one built by the Nazis on what is now French soil.[9]

When British forces arrived to liberate Belsen, Kramer stayed at the camp and guided them on an inspection tour.[10]

What the cited sources add

The same source notes that the women's camp at Birkenau had chief supervisor Marie Mandel from 8 October 1942 until 25 November 1944, overlapping with Kramer's tenure.[5] The Prosecution Judge Advocate at Kramer's war crimes tribunal stated he was brought to Auschwitz to manage gassings of new transports in May 1944.[4] Dr. Franz Lucas testified at the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial that Kramer ordered him to the ramp for selections and threatened to arrest him for disobedience.[11]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "Josef Kramer" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Belsen gang hanged", The Times, 15 December 1945, p. 3 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "Josef Kramer" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Bartrop, "Perpetrating the Holocaust: Leaders, Enablers, and Collaborators", ABC-CLIO, 2019, p. 175 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wikipedia, "Josef Kramer" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Kramer Persists In Denying Guilt", The New York Times, 10 October 1945, p. 8; Law Reports of Trials of War Criminals, "The Belsen Trial", The United Nations War Crimes Commission, 1947, p. 112 et. seq (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  4. Wikipedia, "Josef Kramer" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Auschwitz Concentration Camp – Chain of Command", holocaustresearchproject.org (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  5. "Auschwitz Concentration Camp – Chain of Command", holocaustresearchproject.org. facts only, no text reused. holocaustresearchproject.org
  6. Wikipedia, "Josef Kramer" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Celinscak, "Distance from the Belsen Heap: Allied Forces and the Liberation of a Concentration Camp", University of Toronto Press, 2015 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  7. Wikipedia, "Josef Kramer" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Law reports of trials of war criminals, selected and prepared by the United Nations War Crimes Commission – Volume II, The Belsen Trial", United Nations War Crimes Commission, 1947, p. 21f (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  8. Wikipedia, "Josef Kramer" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Tom Segev: Die Soldaten des Bösen. Zur Geschichte der KZ-Kommandanten. Reinbek bei Hamburg 1995, S. 63 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  9. Wikipedia, "Josef Kramer" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Whatmore-Thomson, "Nazi Camps and Their Neighbouring Communities: History, Memory, and Memorialization", Oxford University Press, 2020, p. 18 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  10. Wikipedia, "Josef Kramer" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Kemp, "Belsen in History and Memory", Taylor & Francis, 1997, p. 134–148 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  11. Wikipedia, "Josef Kramer" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Wynn, "Holocaust: The Nazis' Wartime Jewish Atrocities", Penn & Sword Books, 2020 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Josef Kramer (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

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Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.

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