Karl Fritzsch
| Karl Fritzsch | |
|---|---|
SS-Hauptsturmführer Karl Fritzsch
|
|
| Born |
10 July 1903 Nassengrub (Mokřiny), Bohemia Austria-Hungary |
| Died | Missing on 2 May 1945 (aged 41) Disappearance: Oslo (?) |
| Allegiance |
 Nazi Germany
|
| Service/branch |
 Schutzstaffel
|
| Years of service | Dachau 1934–1939 Auschwitz 1940–1941 Flossenbürg 1942–1943 |
| Rank |
 SS-Hauptsturmführer
|
| Unit |
 Totenkopfverbände
|
| Commands held | Schutzhaftlagerführer Auschwitz Camp Deputy |
| Spouse(s) | Franziska Stich (m. 1928) |
| Relations | 3 children |
| Other work | first suggested and experimented with using Zyklon B gas for the purpose of mass murder |
SS-Hauptsturmführer Karl Fritzsch (10 July 1903 – reported missing 2 May 1945), was a German SS Captain and Auschwitz concentration camp Deputy who first suggested using poisonous gas Zyklon B for the purpose of mass murder according to Rudolf Höss and experimented with the first gassings himself.
Karl Fritzsch was born in Bohemia into the family of a stove builder. His father moved constantly on work assignments, and therefore Fritzsch never received formal education. For some years he worked as labourer on river ships along Danube. His marriage in 1928 to Franziska Stich produced three children, but ended in divorce in 1942. Fritzsch joined the Nazi Party and the SS (NSDAP # 261135 SS # 7287) in 1930 at the age of 27. He became a career SS man. Almost as soon as it opened, he acquired a position at the Dachau concentration camp in 1934.
Due to his camp experience, several months after the German invasion of Poland, in May 1940 he became deputy to Rudolf Höss and the head of the economic operation of Auschwitz (Schutzhaftlagerführer). Fritzsch quickly obtained a reputation as the Auschwitz horror. He used to select prisoners to die of starvation in reprisal for the escape attempts among prisoners. Together with Höss, he was responsible for the torture death of victims locked inside standing cells in the basement of the Bunker, i.e. the Block 11 or 13 prison until they died.
On 29 July 1941, a camp count found that three prisoners were missing and Fritzsch sentenced 10 remaining prisoners to immurement. One of the condemned, Franciszek Gajowniczek, was reprieved when a fellow prisoner, the Franciscan priest Maximilian Kolbe, offered to take his place. After over 2 weeks starvation, only Kolbe remained alive and the priest was killed in the underground bunker by lethal injection. Kolbe was later canonized by Pope John Paul II. Fritzsch was also fond of psychological torture. Former Auschwitz prisoner Karol Świętorzecki recalled the first Christmas Eve behind the camp barbed wire, on 24 December 1940, was also one of the most tragic. "The Nazis set up a Christmas tree, with electric lights, on the roll-call square. Beneath it, they placed the bodies of prisoners who had died while working or frozen to death at roll call. Lagerführer Karl Fritzsch referred to the corpses beneath the tree as “a present” for the living, and forbade the singing of Polish Christmas carols."
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Wikipedia