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Richard Baer | |
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| Born | (1911-09-09)9 September 1911 |
| Died | 17 June 1963(1963-06-17) (aged 51) |
| Political party | Nazi Party #454,991 (SS #44,225) |
| SS service | |
| Branch | SS-Totenkopfverbände Waffen-SS |
| Service years | 1933–1945 |
| Rank | SS-Sturmbannführer |
| Commands | commandant inAuschwitz I concentration camp (May 1944-February 1945) commandant inMittelbau-Dora concentration camp (February-April 1945) |
| Notes | |
Further information:SS command of Auschwitz concentration camp | |
Richard Baer (9 September 1911 – 17 June 1963) was a GermanSS officer who, among other assignments, was the final commandant ofAuschwitz I concentration camp from May 1944 to January 1945, and right after, from February to April 1945, commandant ofMittelbau-Dora concentration camp. Following the war, Baer lived under an assumed name to avoid prosecution but was recognized and arrested in December 1960. He died in detention before he could stand trial.[1]
Born inFloss,Bavaria in 1911, Baer grew up in a Protestant family.[2] In 1925, he moved toWeiden in der Oberpfalz, where he performed a three-year apprenticeship to become a pastry chef. After completing his vocational training, Baer toured Bavaria for several years as a journeyman.[3] Eventually, in the winter of 1932, he returned to the pastry company of his apprenticeship and worked there until he resigned in March 1933.[4]
Baer joined theNazi Party in 1930, and on 1 July 1932, he became a member of theAllgemeine SS.[5]In the local SS post in Weiden, he met the future concentration camp commandantMartin Gottfried Weiss. Under the direction of Weiss, a small SS gang offered protection to speakers at weekend public meetings of the Nazi Party in the surrounding villages.[3]Baer later stated that he had joined the Allgemeine SS because he liked the "soldier discipline" and the "joy of playing soldiers".[5][6]
After the Nazis came to power, most of the SS men in Weiden served as auxiliary police officers locally[4] and, as early as mid-April 1933, they were assigned as guards to the Dachau concentration camp, where Baer was subject to military drills,Naziideological indoctrination, and hard training in systematic techniques for the terrorisation of prisoners. His teacher wasTheodor Eicke, the camp commandant since June 1933 and shaper of the so-called "Dachau Model" of the Nazi concentration camp system.[7] Baer described the training for guard duty in Dachau as being "very strict" and "sharply polished": "The more we were polished, the more proud we were of it".[6]
From December 1934 to end-March 1935, Baer performed guard duty at the infamousGestapo prisonColumbia-Haus in Berlin.[8] He was later assigned to theSS-Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV) 2nd regimentBrandenburg, which in 1936 was involved in the build up of theSachsenhausen concentration camp.[7] After taking a platoon commander course inOranienburg concentration camp, Baer served from March to September 1938 with the SS-TV 3rd regimentThuringen inBuchenwald concentration camp. In September 1938, Baer was promoted to SS-Untersturmführer (second lieutenant) and, at the end of the same year, he headed the first group of guards in the newly establishedNeuengamme concentration camp, then still asub-camp of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. In September 1940, he became a commando overseer.[7] At the end of 1940, Baer asked to join the front line and, after completing a course to become a company commander, he was sent to theEastern front. In December 1941, as a result of a wound, he was transferred back to Neuengamme concentration camp.[7]
In 1942, Baer was appointed adjutant to the commandant of the Neuengamme concentration camp. At Neuengamme, he participated in the killing of Soviet prisoners-of-war in a specialgas chamber and in the selection of prisoners for the so-calledOperation 14f13 in theT4 Euthanasia Program.[1] From November 1942 to May 1944, Baer was adjutant toOswald Pohl, then chief of theSS Main Economic and Administrative Office. In November 1943, he took over the office DI (Central Office) in the Department D "Concentration camps Inspectorate". He succeededArthur Liebehenschel, considered byHimmler to be too "soft" with the prisoners[citation needed], as the third and final commandant ofAuschwitz I from 11 May 1944, until the final dissolution of the camp in early 1945.
From November 1943 until the end of 1944,Fritz Hartjenstein andJosef Kramer were responsible for the extermination camp inAuschwitz II-Birkenau, so Baer was only Commandant of that part of the camp from the end of 1944 until February 1945. Near the end of the war, having replacedOtto Förschner as commandant of theMittelbau-Dora concentration camp inNordhausen, Baer was responsible for the mass execution of Soviet prisoners by hanging[citation needed]. His final rank wasSS Major.[1]
Baer returned to his home county at the end of the war and eventually settled nearHamburg, living as Carl Egon Neumann, a forestry worker atDassendorf.[1] In the course of investigation during theFrankfurt Auschwitz Trials, a warrant for his arrest was issued in October 1960 and his photograph was printed in newspapers.[9]
The story of Baer's arrest is vividly recounted by Devin Pendas in his bookThe Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial.[10] After seeing a wanted picture in thetabloid newspaperBild-Zeitung, a co-worker onFürst von Bismarck's estate reported that Baer was working as a forester there. When officials confronted "Neumann" on the early morning of 20 December 1960, he at first denied everything. Having already addressed Baer as her "husband", the woman in the house subsequently gave her name as "Frau Baer", but still claimed that Baer was named "Neumann". However, Baer finally admitted his true identity. On the advice of his lawyer, Baer refused to testify. He died of a heart attack[citation needed] while in pre-trial detention in 1963.[11]
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