Richard Baer (Nazi)
| Richard Baer | |
|---|---|
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| Born |
September 9, 1911 Floß, Bavaria |
| Died | June 17, 1963 (aged 51) |
| Nationality | German |
| Occupation | SS-Sturmbannführer |
| Known for | Commander of the Auschwitz I concentration camp (May 1944 to February 1945) |
| Political party | NSDAP |
SS-Sturmbannführer Richard Baer (September 9, 1911 – June 17, 1963) was a German SS officer with the rank of major, and the commandant of the Auschwitz I concentration camp from May 1944 to February 1945. Following the war, Baer lived under an assumed name to avoid prosecution, but was recognized and arrested in 1960. He died in detention before he could stand trial.
Baer was born in Floss, Bavaria in 1911; originally a trained confectioner, he became a guard in Dachau concentration camp after becoming unemployed in 1930. He was a member of NSDAP (no. 454991) and the SS (no. 44225). In 1939, he joined the SS-Totenkopfverbände, and was appointed adjutant of Neuengamme concentration camp in 1942 following spells in Oranienburg, Columbia-Haus and Sachsenhausen. At Neuengamme he participated in the killing of Soviet prisoners of war in a special gas chamber and in the selection of prisoners for the so-called Operation 14f13 in the T-4 Euthanasia Program.
From November 1942 until May 1944, Baer was adjutant of SS-Obergruppenführer Oswald Pohl, then chief of the Wirtschaftsverwaltungshauptamt (SS office of economic policy). In November 1943, he took over the department D I, the "inspectorate for concentration camps". He succeeded Arthur Liebehenschel, considered by Himmler to be too "soft" with the prisoners, as the third and final commandant of Auschwitz from May 11, 1944, until the final dissolution of the camp in early 1945. From November 1943 until the end of 1944 Fritz Hartjenstein and Josef Kramer were responsible for the extermination camp Auschwitz II, Birkenau, so that Baer was only Commandant of this part of the camp from the end of 1944 until January 1945. Near the end of the war Richard Baer, having replaced Otto Förschner as commandant of the Dora-Mittelbau camp in Thuringia Nordhausen, was responsible for the execution of Soviet prisoners at mass gallows. His final rank was SS-Sturmbannführer (Major).
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