Execution of Hans Aumeier
- Deputy Commandant of Auschwitz Concentration Camp - Holocaust WW2

27 March 2022

Category: High Ranking Nazi Representatives

Hans Aumeier was born on August 20, 1906 in Amberg, then part of the German Empire. In 1929 he became one of the earliest members of the SS with SS identification number 2,700 and in Munich he soon belonged to the staff of Heinrich Himmler who was the head of the SS. Before he started to work in Auschwitz where he committed his worst crimes, he had worked in various concentration camps such as Dachau, Esterwegen and Buchenwald.

His specialties were torture, beatings and executions. He gave the kapos and guards far-reaching power which led to an increase of the terror in the camp. It was Aumeier who introduced the punitive standing cells in the notorious Block 11. In He was also active in the selections for gas chambers and after the victims were murdered, he stole their belongings including gold.

The camp’s commandant Rudolf Höss discovered this and as a punishment Höss sent Aumeier to Vaivara concentration camp in Estonia in mid-August 1943. From January 22, 1945 he took over Grini concentration camp near Oslo in Nazi-occupied Norway. He was captured in his SS uniform by the British forces on June 11, 1945. In 1946, he was extradited to Poland where he was tried at the Auschwitz trial which started in November 1947.On December 22, 1947 a tribunal sentenced Aumeier to death by hanging. He was 41 years old when he was executed on the 28 January 1948.

For more information,
do not forget to check our video above.