Tag: Buchenwald

Posted on

The Auschwitz Tatooist

Entrance gate to Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Administration building likely on the left. Photo by anonymous (c. 1955). German Federal Archives. Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-32279-007/CC-BY-SA 3.0. Wikimedia Commons.

At the age of 25, he stepped off the first transport train carrying Jews to KL Auschwitz II-Birkenau in April 1942. Lale Sokolov (1916−2006), then known as Ludwig “Lale” Eisenberg, was soon to exchange his name for a number. He would never be allowed to forget the number—32407—as it was tattooed on his arm. Before long, Lale would take over the duties from the prisoner who tattooed his arm and begin almost three years as the camp’s primary tetovierer (tattooist). Several months later, Lale would tattoo 34902 onto the arm of his future wife.

Did You Know?

The Dachau concentration camp opened in March 1933 and did not cease operations until April 1945. It was the first camp established under the Nazi regime and the only one to survive the entire twelve years of the Third Reich. It was built to hold political prisoners (as time went on, Polish prisoners would dominate the camp’s population). Dachau was never intended to become an industrialized extermination camp such as Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Dachau deaths were primarily from beatings, malnutrition, disease (e.g., typhus), and suicide. It is impossible to accurately assess the final number deaths attributed to Dachau.

KL Auschwitz 

The main camp known as Auschwitz I was built in May 1940 in the newly annexed area of Poland. It was originally constructed to house Polish political prisoners. By September 1941, exterminations had begun and the Nazis determined a second camp was needed. So, by March 1942, a sub-camp named Auschwitz II-Birkenau was completed with its first gas chamber.

Entrance to Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Photo by Stanislaw Mucha (c. 1945). German Federal Archives. Bundesarchiv, B 285 Bild-04413/Stanislaw Mucha/CC-BY-SA 3.0. Wikimedia Commons.
Entrance to Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Photo by Stanislaw Mucha (c. 1945). German Federal Archives. Bundesarchiv, B 285 Bild-04413/Stanislaw Mucha/CC-BY-SA 3.0. Wikimedia Commons.

Nazi plans for the Final Solution had been finalized in January 1942 and by early 1943, Himmler decided to expand Birkenau and increase its capacity as an extermination camp. It is estimated that 1.3 million people were sent to Auschwitz with 1.1 million murdered. More than 90 percent or 1.0 million of the people murdered here were Jews (in other words, one in six Jews who perished in the Holocaust were murdered at Auschwitz). Watch a short documentary on Auschwitz. Read More The Auschwitz Tatooist

Posted on

“The Good Nazi”

The subject of our blog today is about one of the top Nazi leaders and a defendant in the International Military Tribunal commonly known as the main Nuremberg Trial. Our last two blogs dealt with two topics that will forever be associated with the city of Nuremberg: the Nazi Party Rally Grounds (click here the blog Zeppelin Field) and the Nuremberg Trials (click here the blog Courtroom 600).

In my opinion, one of the sad outcomes of what became the greatest mass murder in the history of mankind is the fact that most of the Nazi criminals who carried out these crimes were either never held accountable or punished. For most of those who were punished, they were likely to suffer lightly with commuted sentences, outright release, or time served. Many who received death sentences were given early release as evidenced by the Einsatzgruppen Trial (Case 9) during the subsequent American Military Tribunal Nuremberg Trials.

Albert Speer at the Nuremberg trial. Photo by Charles Alexander/US Army (c. 1946). PD-US Government. Wikimedia Commons.
Albert Speer at the Nuremberg trial. Photo by Charles Alexander/US Army (c. 1946). PD-US Government. Wikimedia Commons.

I decided to write this blog on Albert Speer because he is the “poster child” for someone who got off with a relatively light sentence (20-years) when in fact, he should have hanged on 16 October 1946 with the other ten former Nazi leaders. Instead, he died a multi-millionaire, a media star, and a world celebrity almost fifteen years after his release from Spandau Prison.

Did You Know?

The English music group, The Cut, was formed in 1979 and eventually the group changed its name to Spandau Ballet after someone saw the term Spandau Ballet scribbled on the wall of a club bathroom. Many people think it refers to Spandau Prison and the “ballet” portion refers to the movement of feet and legs of the condemned struggling at the end of the rope. The term actually originated with Allied soldiers and refers to the German Spandau machine gun and the little dance the soldiers did as the bullets whizzed by their legs.

Let’s Meet “The Good Nazi” 

Born in Mannheim, Germany, Albert Speer (1905−1981) followed in his father and grandfather’s footsteps by becoming an architect (Speer’s son, Albert Jr., also became an architect). He married Margarete Weber (1905−1987) in 1922 and they had six children. While pursuing his post-graduate degrees, Speer attended a Nazi rally in December 1930 which changed his life.

Speer always maintained he was apolitical even when he joined the Nazi party in March 1931 as member number 474,481. Recommended to Hitler by Joseph Goebbels, Speer’s first job for the Nazis was to renovate the party headquarters in Berlin. His next major assignment was to design and build the Party Rally Grounds in Nuremberg. By 1934, Speer had become Hitler’s favorite architect and would consult on all of Hitler’s grand building ideas.  Read More “The Good Nazi”