Josef Kramer

Josef Kramer was a high-ranking officer in the SS, a paramilitary organization in Nazi Germany. He served as a commandant at several concentration camps during the Second World War. A commandant is the person in charge of running a camp and its operations. Kramer was directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of people through his actions and orders. Because of his extreme cruelty, camp inmates gave him the nickname "the Beast of Belsen."

Kramer's early life began in Munich, Germany. He was born on November 10, 1906, to Theodore and Maria Kramer. His family moved to Augsburg in 1915, where he attended school. He trained as an electrician starting in 1920. Between 1925 and 1933, he held various jobs, including working in a department store and as an accountant. He joined the Nazi Party in 1931 and the SS in 1932. His SS training eventually led him to work as a prison guard and a concentration camp guard.

His career in the camp system moved through several locations in a specific order. In 1934, he was assigned as a guard at Dachau. He later received senior positions at the Sachsenhausen and Mauthausen concentration camps. In 1940, he became an assistant to Rudolf Höss at Auschwitz. In April 1941, Kramer was named the commandant of Natzweiler-Struthof. This camp was located in the Alsace-Lorraine region, which Nazi Germany had annexed from France.

At Natzweiler-Struthof, Kramer was involved in a specific and terrible event. He personally carried out the gassings of 80 Jewish men and women. These people were part of a group of 87 individuals selected at Auschwitz. They were intended to become anatomical specimens for a skull collection. This collection was to be held at the Anatomy Institute at the Reich University of Strasbourg. The project was directed by August Hirt. Of the 87 inmates, 46 were originally from Thessaloniki, Greece. Ultimately, 86 of these people died in an improvised gassing facility.

In May 1944, Kramer was promoted to the rank of Hauptsturmführer, which is a Captain. He was transferred to Auschwitz II-Birkenau to serve as the Lagerführer. The Lagerführer was the officer in charge of camp operations. In this role, he managed the gassings of new transports of people. Witnesses at later trials said he took an active part in selection parades. They testified that he loaded people into trucks and beat them if they resisted. He was also known as a harsh taskmaster to his own staff. He once threatened a doctor, Dr. Franz Lucas, with arrest for failing to obey orders regarding inmate selections.

In December 1944, Kramer was transferred to the Bergen Belsen concentration camp. Originally, Belsen was a temporary camp for people leaving Germany. During the war, it was expanded into a convalescent depot for ill and displaced people. Although Belsen did not have gas chambers, the conditions under Kramer's rule were devastating. By March 1, 1945, Kramer filed a report noting that 250 to 300 people were dying every day from typhus. By March 19, the inmate population had risen to 60,000 people. As the German administration collapsed, the camp fell into chaos.

Conditions at Bergen Belsen became extreme as the war ended. The number of prisoners increased again when 28,000 more people arrived in mid-April 1945. As guards fled, roll calls stopped and many people died from disease or starvation. Corpses were found everywhere, and rats attacked the weakened prisoners. When the British Army arrived to liberate the camp in April 1945, they found piles of bodies and many sick prisoners. Major Brian Urquhart led the British forces that inspected the scenes of the camp.

After the war, Kramer was detained by the British Army. He was tried in the Belsen Trial at a British military court in Lüneburg. This trial took place from September to November 1945 and included 45 other camp staff members. One witness, Anita Lasker, testified about his role in the selections at Auschwitz. On November 17, 1945, Kramer was convicted of war crimes. He was sentenced to death and was hanged at Hamelin Prison on December 13, 1945. He was 39 years old at the time of his death.