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Josef Kramer (10 November 1906 – 13 December 1945) was a Hauptsturmführer and the Commandant of Auschwitz-Birkenau (from 8 May 1944 to 25 November 1944) and of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp (from December 1944 to its liberation on 15 April 1945).
Josef Kramer was a German commander of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp (1944–45), notorious for his cruelty. Joining the Nazi Party on Dec. 1, 1931, Kramer volunteered for the SS the following year. He served at various camps, including Auschwitz, Mauthausen, and Dachau, and commanded Birkenau.
Josef Kramer had been camp commandant at Bergen-Belsen and before that at Auschwitz. Of the other defendants, 12 were kapos, 16 female SS members and 16 male SS members. Although the SS was an all-male organisation, women were able to enlist as members of the SS-Gefolge, a form of civilian employee.
Josef Kramer war ein deutscher SS-Führer und Lagerkommandant der Konzentrationslager Natzweiler-Struthof, Auschwitz-Birkenau und Bergen-Belsen, der als Kriegsverbrecher im Bergen-Belsen-Prozess zum Tode verurteilt und hingerichtet wurde.
Apr 7, 2021 · Among them were 13 condemned prisoners who had just been convicted by a British war tribunal. The most senior of them was Josef Kramer, Bergen-Belsen’s former commander.
Josef Kramer (10 Nov. 1906 – 13 Dec. 1945), SS Hauptsturmführer, started his SS career as a guard at Dachau, then served at the Sachsenhausen and Mauthausen Camps, and became Rudolf Höss’s adjutant in 1940 during the initial set-up phase of the Auschwitz Camp.
He was brought to Auschwitz to manage the gassings of new transports in May 1944, according to the Prosecution Judge Advocate at the War Crimes tribunal that convicted him of being responsible for the murders committed at Auschwitz. At Auschwitz, Kramer became known among his subordinates as a harsh taskmaster.
Josef Kramer was the commandant of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Later, as commandant of Bergen-Belsen, he would be known as the "Beast of Belsen." And Dr. Josef Mengele selected "specimens" for his medical experiments from among the transports of Hungarian Jews.
The trial ended in mid-November 1945. Kramer and 10 others were sentenced to death, with the rest being acquitted or sent to prison (most of these were released by the early 1950s). Amongst the trial papers retained by Major Winwood is a letter written by Josef Kramer whilst awaiting his execution.
SS Captain Josef Kramer replaces Adolf Haas as the commandant of Bergen-Belsen. December 4, 1944. The SS permits the second transport of Hungarian Jewish prisoners (around 1,300) to leave for Switzerland in return for cash payment.
