Death of Gerhard Palitzsch
- Sadistic Nazi Guard at Auschwitz Concentration Camp - Holocaust - WW2

20 June 2022

Category: Male Nazi Guards

Palitzsch was born on the 17th of June 1913 and in 1933 he joined the Nazi Party and the SS. His criminal career in concentration camps started in 1933 when he became a guard at Oranienburg and Lichtenburg concentration camps. 3 years later in 1936 he was sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp where he worked as a block leader.

When in May 1940 the Nazis established Auschwitz, the most notorious concentration camp located in German occupied Poland, Gerhard Palitzsch did not come into the camp alone. From Sachsenhausen, he brought with him 30 German prisoners with green badges. These mandatory colorful badges of shame, primarily triangles, were used to identify why the inmates had been placed in the camp. At Autschwitz, Palitzsch became the report leader and together with his kapos, he unleashed a brutal reign of terror in the camp.

Mass killing of prisoners

At Auschwitz, Palitzsch was one of the main participants in the first mass killing of prisoners using Zyklon B. On the 3rd of September 1941, he participated in the first tentative mass gassing in block 11 of the main camp, in which around 600 Soviet commissars and 250 sick Polish prisoners were killed with Zyklon B. Palitzsch was also active in selections on the ramp. In June 1943 he was sent to the Gypsy family camp which was a part of Auschwitz. Romani families deported to the Gypsy Family Camp were held together, instead of being separated as was typical at Auschwitz.

In the end, justice finally caught up with Palitzsch. When in late October 1944 the Soviet and Romanian armies started its offensive against Budapest, Palitzsch belonged to the 33,000 German soldiers defending the city together with Hungarian troops. On the 1st of December 1944, Adolf Hitler declared Budapest a fortress city which was to be defended to the last man. There was no escape for Palitzsch as the Führer also forbade any withdrawal attempt. Gerhard Palitzsch was 31 years old when he was killed in Budapest on the 7th of December, 1944. The man who literally walked over bodies to satisfy his hunger for power, was finally dead. There were no tears shed for Gerhard Palitzsch.

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