Gerhard Palitzsch

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Enter the SS, the 15 of March of 1933 , with membership number 79,466. ¹ At the beginning of his career as a Petty Officer, Palitzsch served in the concentration camps of Lichtenburg , Buchenwald , and Sachsenhausen , where he was Blockführer (Head Block Prisoners). From Sachsenhausen he was transferred to Auschwitz in 1940. ²

In Auschwitz

During his transfer he took 30 prisoners from Sachsenhausen, whom he placed as Funktionshäftlinge (prisoners with special functions). Palitzsch was the first Rapportführer and used his position to carry out an extensive terror among the prisoners. He participated actively in the executions before the Black Wall. Palitzsch claimed his SS colleagues, who were responsible for the execution of at least 25,000 people with gunshots in the nape of the neck. Like many of the other officials of the concentration camps, he was enriched stealing and taking ownership of the deportees and victims, why was submitted to the Research Council of the SS, for theft and corruption . He was transferred in 1943 to a subfield in Brno , Germany, where he was appointed Commander, but in condition of criminal transfer.

Some of the most trusted prisoners in the Auschwitz workplaces , who actually fought against the camp authorities, took typhus-infected lice and placed them in the clothing worn by SS personnel. Due to his notoriety, Palitzsch was given garments of the infected, he was not ill but his wife Luise died of this disease. After this, Palitzsch is believed to have engaged in sexual intercourse with one of the detainees. ³

Final

Briefly after his transfer to Brno he was arrested and sent back to Auschwitz to be placed in the prison of officials of Block 11. Accused of “Faults a la Raza” , for having had sex with a “non-Aria” And for theft. Palitzsch was sentenced to death but his sentence was revised simple soldier being demoted to the SS and sent to a Penal Unit. In June 1944, he was assigned to the Division 4, “Polizei”, dying in combat on 7 of December of 1944 , in the famous battle of Budapest , was buried momentarily on the road to Budapest and in later years was exhumed and reburied In the War Cemetery of Budaois, on the motorway from Vienna to Budapest.

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