Question About DR Konrad Morgen

[ihoyos]

Why the Nazi stablishment, mainly the SS, Gestapo, and the others criminal oraganizations of the Nazi regime, alow the investigations, and the Dr Konrad Morgen activity in general terms. This remain an enigma for me. Wanssee meeting was in January 1942, the extermino orders set.
Why punish comanders of Concentration camps in mid 1942?, they folow rsuperior orders.

[David Thompson]

ihoyos -- The concentration camp administration personnel were investigated for stealing dental gold, and other unauthorized acts.

[WalterS]

ihoyos wrote:

Why punish comanders of Concentration camps in mid 1942?, they folow rsuperior orders

Umm...in case you missed it, "I was just following orders" was rejected as a defense.

[Apocalypse_Now]

Why the Nazi stablishment, mainly the SS, Gestapo, and the others criminal oraganizations of the Nazi regime, alow the investigations, and the Dr Konrad Morgen activity in general terms. This remain an enigma for me. Wanssee meeting was in January 1942, the extermino orders set.
Why punish comanders of Concentration camps in mid 1942?, they folow rsuperior orders.

It had nothing to do with following issued orders from the higher echelons in the administration. These investigations dealt with suspected black market operations, theft, etc;

For example, you own a business, you hire a manger to run your operation, until you find out that he is skimming your profits, and using your business to generate income that you have not authorized or are receiving. I'm sure you would want this dealt with, no?

[ihoyos]

ihoyos wrote:

Why punish comanders of Concentration camps in mid 1942?, they folow rsuperior orders

Umm...in case you missed it, "I was just following orders" was rejected as a defense.

I mean.
Morgan NAZI burocrat. Punished Koch and others sadic camps commanders in 1942. They follow orders witch point of origen was Wansee.
that was the question?

[Apocalypse_Now]

I mean.
Morgan NAZI burocrat. Punished Koch and others sadic camps commanders in 1942. They follow orders witch point of origen was Wansee.
that was the question?

I would never make fun of someone for there trouble with another language, but, I'm sorry I have no idea what you are asking?


Do you want to know when the Wansee conference took place? If so, what does that have to do with Morgan? or Koch?

[Michael Miller]

I think the question relates to the seeming incongruity of SS officers being punished for offenses in the camp BY SS courts.

Yes, on the surface it seems strange. But these investigations (and in some cases prosecutions and even executions) were primarily directed against camp commandants and other officers who had enriched themselves (through embezzlement, use of inmate labor for their own purposes, etc.) and/or had committed acts of brutality that even the SS leadership found "over the top". In at least one instance, an inmate had been murdered because he allegedly had information of a compromising nature against members of the Buchenwald camp staff.

Regards,
~ Mike

[michael mills]

The investigation by SS judge Konrad Morgen was initially aimed at corruption within the concentration camps, and particular the stealing of gold confiscated from prisoners, which according to German law was state property.

However, once the investigation started, Morgen found out that a lot of unauthorised killing was going on at the camps, that is to say, killing that had not been ordered by the German Government. He then set about investigating those unauthorised killings.

To illustrate the difference, the killing of Jews unfit for labour had been specifically ordered by Himmler, so Morgen did not regard that as an illegal act. What he targeted was arbitrary killings, for example, camp staff attacking groups of prisoners at work or returning from work and wounding and killing them for no reason, which incidentally was contrary to the published German Government regulations governing the treatment of concentration camp prisoners.

Other examples of arbitrary killings were the shooting of prisoners at work on the pretext that they were trying to escape. Or beating to death prisoners sentenced to 25 strokes of the cane, the maximum form of corporal punishment allowed by the regulations.

Morgen charged Maximilian Grabner, the head of the "camp Gestapo" at Auschwitz, with mass murder for the above sorts of offences. The trial was scheduled to take place in about October 1943, but Himmler eventually quashed the proceedings. However trials of Koch and others for corruption were allowed to proceed, and resulted in some harsh penalties, including death sentences.

[ihoyos]

thanks , very explicative.

[Andreas]

However trials of Koch and others for corruption were allowed to proceed, and resulted in some harsh penalties, including death sentences.

Were these carried out?

[David Thompson]

Andreas -- There were 800 separate cases of corruption and murder investigated by Dr. jur. Morgen in this inquiry. Before Himmler halted the inquiry, there were convictions and sentences by the SS courts in 200 cases. Here are some of the better-known defendants:

(1) Karl Koch, commandant of KL Buchenwald and KL Lublin, sentenced to death and executed.
(2) Hermann Florstedt, commandant of KL Lublin, sentenced to death and executed.
(3) Hermann Hackmann, protective custody commander at KL Lublin, sentenced to death but reprieved for service in a penal unit.
(4) Hans Loritz, commander of KL Oranienburg, proceedings started, then halted.
(5) Adam Gruenewald, commandant of KL s'Hertogenbosch, convicted of mistreatment of prisoners and sentenced to a penal unit.
(6) Karl Kuenstler, commandant of KL Flossenbuerg, dismissed for drunkeness and debauchery.
(7) Alex Piorkowski, commandant of KL Dachau, indicted for murder but not sentenced.
(8) Maximilian Graebner, head of the political section at KL Auschwitz, indicted for murder but not sentenced.

From Heinrich Hoehne, The Order of the Death's Head: The Story of Hitler's SS, Ballantine Books, New York: 1971, pp. 437-38.

[Andreas]

Thanks a lot David. Very interesting, I had never heard of this.

[David Thompson]

Andreas -- Here's Hoehne's account:

[David Thompson]

Part 2:

[michael mills]

It could be worthwhile comparing this thread with the one started by Oleg Grigoryev, at viewtopic.php?t=46758, which dealt with the punishment by Beria of NKVD officials who had transgressed against the official guidelines for the treatment of German POWs.

The two situations are rather similar, with the respective heads of the organs of police oppression, Soviet and German, punishing subordinates for individual acts of mistreatment of prisoners in situations where those heads of the police were themselves overseeing programs of repression that resulted in mass-death on a gigantic scale.