Ernst Biberstein
- Nazi Commandant of Einsatzkommando 6 - The Holocaust in Ukraine - World War 2
13 March 2022
Category: World War 2 Other
Ernst Biberstein was born on 15 February 1899 in Hilchenbach, then part of the German Empire as Ernst Szymanowski. He called himself the “ SA pastor “ and below his robe he often wore the SA uniform. From 1942 he became a commander of Einsatzkommando 6 which operated mostly in Ukraine. It was here where Biberstein committed his worst atrocities. Between September 1942 and June 1943, his commando killed between 2,000 and 3,000 Ukrainian Jews. In Rostow, he personally supervised the execution of between 50 and 60 men, women and children in a gas truck. The poor Ukrainian victims were stripped of all the money and valuables, sometimes even clothes and were left in mass grave. In gas vans victims died of toxins in the exhaust while the vans were transporting them to fresh pits or ravines which became mass graves.
His kommando executed people also with firearms and Biberstein was present. Innocent Ukrainian victims, often naked, had to kneel down on the edge of a mass grave as his kommando shot them in the back of the neck with an automatic pistol and then the bodies dropped straightly into the pit. Justice finally caught up with Biberstein in the end when he was arrested by allies on July 1, 1945. Ernst Biberstein was convicted of war crimes, crimes against humanity and membership in a criminal organization - the SS. In summer 1947 a tribunal found Biberstein guilty and sentenced him to death by hanging. However, the death sentence was never carried out and was changed to life imprisonment instead. Even his life imprisonment did not last long as he was released in 1958. He died in 1986 as a free man at the age of 87.
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