Suchergebnisse
Suchergebnisse:
Although most of them bore on their uniforms a green triangle signaling their official status as criminals, the vast majority were in custody for petty property offenses. That did not matter in the slightest to Franz Ziereis, whom Eicke selected to replace Albert Sauer as Mauthausen’s commandant in February 1939.
Mauthausen Commandant Franz Ziereis allowed his eleven year old son to shoot prisoners with a rifle from their front porch. Ziereis was wounded by Allied soldiers and subsequently died some time later from his wounds. He never really admitted his crimes. 40,000 prisoners had perished in the first four months of 1945.
Franz Ziereis was the commandant of the Mauthausen concentration camp. Ziereis was born August 13, 1905, in Munich. After attending commercial school in Munich, he signed up as a career military officer in Germany's Reichswehr (army) on April 1, 1924, for 12 years. On September 30, 1936, he left the army with the rank of sergeant and joined the SS.
Lagerkommandant Franz Ziereis (Mitte) mit Heinrich Himmler (links) im Steinbruch während einer Inspektion des Konzentrationslagers Mauthausen. (Foto: Archiv der KZ-Gedenkstätte Mauthausen, mit Genehmigung des USHMM Photo Archives.)
April 1945 um 15 Uhr ordnete Ziereis persönlich im Bunker die sofortige Verbringung von 40 Häftlingen einschließlich des Widerstandskämpfers Franz Josef Messner in den Gaskeller an. Ziereis schüttete eigenhändig die Zyklon-B-Brocken ins Gaseinfüllungsgerät, in der folgenden Nacht wurden Messners Leichnam und die leiblichen Überreste der anderen Opfern im Krematorium verbrannt.
US troops captured Mauthausen camp commandant Franz Ziereis on May 23, 1945, in a mountain hut. Ziereis was shot in the abdomen during a reported attempt to escape and died a day or two thereafter. Before his death, former camp prisoners interrogated him in the Gusen protective detention camp; this deathbed testimony was available to ...
In February 1939 he was replaced as commandant by Franz Ziereis, a former career soldier. Ziereis was in charge of Mauthausen for six years, making him one of the longest-serving commandants of a single concentration camp. Ziereis and other members of the SS fled at the end of the war but he was tracked down and mortally wounded during exchange of fire with US Army soldiers. Before his death ...
