15 Facts About Karl Fritzsch

Karl Fritzsch was a German SS official who served as deputy and acting commandant at the Auschwitz concentration camp from 1940 to 1941.

Karl Fritzsch is best known as the official responsible for the death of priest Maximilian Kolbe and, according to Rudolf Hoss, first suggesting using poisonous gas Zyklon B and experimenting with gas chambers for the purpose of mass murder at Auschwitz.

Karl Fritzsch was sent to front line duty and is believed to have died at the Battle of Berlin on 2 May 1945, but this is unconfirmed, and his fate is unknown.

Karl Fritzsch was born on 10 July 1903 in Nassengrub in the Kingdom of Bohemia in Austria-Hungary into a Bohemian German family.

Karl Fritzsch's father was a stove builder and moved constantly on work assignments, so Fritzsch never received formal education.

In July 1930, at the age of 27, Karl Fritzsch joined the Nazi Party and its paramilitary wing the Schutzstaffel.

Karl Fritzsch became a career SS man and acquired a position at the Dachau concentration camp in 1934, almost as soon as it opened, as a member of the 1st SS-Totenkopf Regiment "Upper Bavaria".

In May 1940, due to his camp experience, Karl Fritzsch became deputy to Rudolf Hoss and head of the economic operation of Auschwitz.

Karl Fritzsch quickly obtained a fearsome reputation in Auschwitz, selecting prisoners to die of starvation in reprisal for escape attempts.

On 29 July 1941, when a headcount found that three prisoners were missing, Karl Fritzsch sentenced 10 remaining prisoners to immurement.

Lagerfuhrer Karl Fritzsch referred to the corpses beneath the tree as 'a present' for the living, and forbade the singing of Polish Christmas carols.

Karl Fritzsch tested Zyklon B inside the cells, which were not air-tight, subjecting the victims to even more torturous death.

Karl Fritzsch repeated the tests on additional victims in the presence of Hoss.

On 15 January 1942, Karl Fritzsch was transferred to Flossenburg as Schutzhaftlagerfuhrer, and from early August until October 1942 he was temporary substitute commandant of the camp.

However, Duk's book De Beul en de Heilige on Karl Fritzsch that was supposed to be launched first at the end of 2015 and then in 2016 at publisher Prometheus, was postponed indefinitely and has since been removed from the publishers' list of forthcoming books.