Stefan Baretzki
Stefan Baretzki | |
---|---|
Deceased | |
Conviction(s) | Murder |
Trial | Frankfurt Auschwitz trials |
Criminal penalty | Life imprisonment plus eight years |
SS career | |
Allegiance | Nazi Germany |
Service/ | Waffen-SS |
Years of service | 1942–1945 |
Rank | Rottenführer |
Unit | Auschwitz concentration camp |
Stefan Baretzki (
24 March 1919 – 21 June 1988) was anEarly life
Stefan Baretzki was born in 1919 into a
Auschwitz
Baretzki served as a block officer in
At his trial, Baretzki described how he treated inmates who had been transferred from subcamps because they had become too starved or ill to work. He did not allow any of them to register for the camp. He held them instead in a quarantine block until they died, not even allowing them to enter the barracks because the starving prisoners would create a mess.[8] Baretzki was known to practice a sport he called the "rabbit hunt", where prisoners were ordered to remove their caps. Anyone who did not do so quickly enough was beaten and shot while "trying to escape".[9]
However, at other times, he attempted to help inmates, such as bringing water to women confined to "
After the evacuation of Auschwitz, Baretzki was transferred to the
Trial
A warrant for Baretzki's arrest was issued on 3 March 1960, and he was apprehended a month later.[15] He was the lowest-ranking of twenty-four men indicted at the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials; his defense attorneys were Eugen Gerhardt and Engelbert Jorschko.[1][16] Because the defendants were tried under ordinary criminal law, a distinction was made between individual acts of cruelty, which were punished as murder, and participation in the program of mass extermination, which was only charged as being an accomplice to murder.[17] As one of the more brutal SS guards, Baretzki could be proved to have murdered on his own initiative and therefore received a harsher sentence than many of his superiors.[18] In the German press, gruesome stories of the brutality of individual guards, including Baretzki, came to overshadow the larger point of prosecutor Fritz Bauer: that every SS guard, even those who did not personally commit shocking acts of sadism, was a voluntary participant in the system of extermination.[19]
Baretzki was found guilty of five counts of murder: he beat a starving prisoner to death and, on 21 June 1944, drowned four prisoners in a water tank of section BIId. He was also convicted as an accomplice to the mass murder of Jews on eleven occasions. He assisted in the murder of at least 3,000 people by participating in the liquidation of the Theresienstadt family camp in March 1944. During five selections on the Judenrampe, he was an accomplice to at least 1,000 murders. On five occasions he was found to have assisted in block selections where worn-out inmates were selected for death; in each of these incidents, more than 50 people were murdered. In addition, the court found that he was guilty of three other crimes. These included punishing prisoners in section BIId of the camp who attempted to communicate with inmates in other parts of the camp by forcing them to perform strenuous exercises, during which he shot at least five prisoners. The court did not assign additional punishment for these crimes but used them as further evidence of Baretzki's brutality. Otto Dov Kulka and other witnesses testified that Baretzki killed other prisoners, but he was not charged with these murders. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and eight years.[1][20]
Because the court described him as a "simpleton" and "less intelligent than all the other defendants", Baretzki's admission that he knew that the mass murder of Jews was a crime was used to prove that the other defendants knew that their actions were criminal as well.[21] He was the only defendant to testify against other defendants, offering damning testimony about the conditions at the camp.[22] About the SS doctor Franz Lucas, who initially denied having participated in selections, Baretzki stated, "I was not blind when Dr. Lucas made selections on the ramp. ... Five thousand men he sent to the gas [chambers] in half an hour, and today he wants to stand as a savior."[a] Baretzki said that Lucas changed his behavior during the final months of the war only when it was clear that Germany would lose. As a result, other witnesses came forward stating that Lucas had selected inmates to live or die. Lucas eventually admitted having done so on four occasions, but on orders and against his personal conviction. The court found that he had participated in murder.[23][24]
Later life
Baretzki also testified against Kurt Knittel , who was in charge of the propaganda department at Auschwitz. When he was dismissed from a government post in education following public outcry, Knittel sued the government to be reinstated. Called as a witness, Baretzki testified that Knittel had said that Jewish women and children had to be murdered because they were of an inferior race. According to Baretzki, "We learned how to murder from Herr Knittel's lectures".[25]
While in prison, he helped Langbein with his research into the camp. Baretzki told him he hoped Auschwitz would never happen again. According to Langbein, he accepted his guilt and said that serving jail time was the only thing he could do for the prisoners he had murdered. Baretzki said he only appealed his sentence due to pressure from his fellow defendants, on whom he was financially dependent for his legal fees. The appeal failed, and Baretzki committed suicide at a hospital in Bad Nauheim on 21 June 1988.[7][26][27]
References
Notes
Citations
- ^ a b c d e f Langbein, Hermann (27 January 1995). "Kleiner Mann ganz groß". Die Tageszeitung (in German). pp. 15–17. Retrieved 25 September 2018.
- ^ Langbein 2004, p. 442.
- ^ Langbein 2004, p. 297.
- ^ Wittmann 2012, p. 131.
- ^ Langbein 2004, pp. 285–286, 308.
- ^ Wittmann 2012, pp. 125–126, 327.
- ^ a b "Photo of Stefan Baretzki during a selection on the ramp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, spring 1944". Jewish Museum in Prague. July 2015. Retrieved 25 September 2018.[permanent dead link]
- ^ Langbein 2004, p. 36.
- ^ Wittmann 2012, p. 146.
- ^ a b Langbein 2004, p. 323.
- ^ Langbein 2004, p. 48.
- ^ Langbein 2004, p. 446.
- ^ Kárný 1997, p. 175.
- ^ Langbein 2004, pp. 83–84, 357.
- ^ Wittmann 2012, pp. 279–280.
- ^ Wittmann 2012, pp. 131, 284.
- ^ Wittmann 2012, pp. 24, 233.
- ^ Wittmann 2012, p. 140.
- ^ Wittmann 2012, pp. 178, 248.
- ^ Wittmann 2012, pp. 233–234, 285.
- ^ Wittmann 2012, p. 314.
- ^ Langbein 2004, pp. 290, 323.
- ^ Zeit Online(in German). Retrieved 25 September 2018.
- ^ Langbein 2004, pp. 357–358.
- ^ Langbein 2004, p. 515.
- ^ Langbein 2004, pp. 511, 517.
- ^ Morris 2018, p. 366.
Bibliography
- Kárný, Miroslav (1997). "Die Flucht des Auschwitzer Häftlings Vítězslav Lederer und der tschechische Widerstand" [The Escape of Auschwitz Prisoner Vítězslav Lederer and the Czech Resistance]. Theresienstädter Studien und Dokumente (in German) (4): 157–183.
- ISBN 978-0-8078-6363-3.
- Morris, Heather (2018). Le tatoueur d'Auschwitz [Auschwitz Tattoo Artist] (in French). City Edition. ISBN 978-2-8246-4688-6.
- Wittmann, Rebecca (2012). Beyond justice: the Auschwitz trial. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-04529-3.