Hitler's monsters: Faces of Nazi guards who helped oversee the death of more than a million Jews at Auschwitz revealed as Poland publishes details of 10,000 of Adolf's men - Poland's Institute of National Remembrance has published details of 9,686 guards who worked at Auschwitz
- Nearly all of them are German and the INR is seeking to dispel claims that Auschwitz was staffed by Poles
- Auschwitz-Birkenau held Polish prisoners from 1940 but 1.1 million Jews died there between 1942 and 1945
The names of almost 10,000 Nazi SS commanders and guards who helped in the extermination of more than a million Jews at Auschwitz have been posted online for the first time. The huge searchable database, which includes hundreds of photographs, has been uploaded by Poland's Institute of National Remembrance (INR) in an attempt to dispel false claims that many of the guards were Polish. The list of 9,686 names are predominantly German and their pre-war occupations are listed as farmers, butchers, teachers, cobblers and all manner of jobs. + Fritz Taddiken (pictured, left) was promoted to Unterscharführer (Junior Squad Leader) in the SS in 1944. Four years later he was convicted of war crimes by a court in Krakow. Stormtrooper Walter Salawey (centre) was dealt with by the same court. Horst Panitzsch (right) was a former member of the Hitler Youth, who transferred to the SS from the Wehrmacht in 1944 Hitler's forces invaded Poland in 1939 and the following year he ordered the construction of Auschwitz-Birkenau in the Polish countryside. It was originally used to house Polish political prisoners but was later handed over to the infamous SS and between 1942 and 1945 around 1.1 million Jews died there, either in the gas chambers or through starvation or beatings. INR chief Jaroslaw Szarek told the BBC the online archive was 'a tool to fight lies' and he added: 'We're not expressing an opinion, we're presenting the cold, hard facts.' R After the war the camp's former commandant, Arthur Liebehenschel, and 33 other senior officers went on trial in nearby Krakow. Most were executed by hanging. But most of the SS guards - including 200 women - spent time in Polish or Russian prisoner-of-war camps but were released in the 1950s and went back to spend the rest of their life in obscurity in Germany. In 1963 more than 20 middle- to lower-ranking SS officers were put on trial for crimes against humanity in Frankfurt, West Germany. Some, like Wilhelm Boger, the 'Tiger of Auschwitz', were jailed for life and died in prison, but many, like camp dentist Willi Schatz, were Detlef Nebbe (left) had been in the SS since 1933 and was promoted to the highest rank, Hauptscharführer, by war's end. A committed Nazi, he would have been one of those giving orders. Gottfried Paggen (left), born in Mönchengladbach, was 47 when the war ended, making him one of the oldest SS guards. Robert Nagy (right) is one of the minority of non-German SS guards, being an ethnic Hungarian from what was then Yugoslavia Johannes Maranca (left) had served in the German Army in the First World War and worked as a plumber and roofer before being called up again, at the age of 53, in 1944. Richard Lamb (centre) was a coal miner before the war, while Willi Heindorf (right) was awarded a medal, the Kriegsverdienstkreuz (War Merit Cross) in 1943 Before the war Johannnes Gunesch (left) was an ethnic German farmer in Romania, while Helmut Grundschok (centre) was an apprentice plumber, who joined the SS in 1939 and rose rapidly through the ranks. He was awarded two medals during the war, one of which was after he was wounded. Little is known about baby-faced Josef Hefner (right), except he was Croatian Martin Flohr (left) was a locksmith before the war in his native Croatia. Hans Fischer (centre), who had been a farmer, rose to the rank of corporal by 1944. Ernst Fischer (right) had been a pharmacist in the Sudetenland, the ethnically German area of Czechoslovakia that Hitler demanded in 1938, leading to Neville Chamberlain's famous appeasement at Munich Samuel Exler (left) was a farmer who lived close to the border with Austria and joined the Hungarian Army at the outbreak of the war but later transferred to the SS. Hungary, under its dictator Miklós Horthy, was an ally of Nazi Germany in the Second World War. Kolomann Bistritz (centre) was also from Hungary. Felix Becker (right) was another farmer, from Croatia Albin Ackermann (left) was a waiter before the war but joined the Wehrmacht (German Army) in 1941, before transferring to the SS. Johannes Badstubner (centre) was a coal miner from Planitz, near Zwickau in eastern Germany. Hans Ansorg (right) had worked in a bank before the war but enthusiastically joined the SS in 1933 and rose to the rank of Oberscharführer (Senior Squad Leader) If you want to see the actual pictures --here is the url to the article online https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4177300/Faces-Nazi-guards-killed-million-Jews-online.html |
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