Josef Kramer (10 November 1906 – 13 December 1945) was the Commandant of Auschwitz-Birkenau (from 8 May 1944 to 25 November 1944)
Josef Kramer (10 November 1906 – 13 December 1945) was the Commandant of Auschwitz-Birkenau (from 8 May 1944 to 25 November 1944) and of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp (from December 1944 to its liberation, April 15, 1945). Dubbed the Beast of Belsen by camp inmates, he was a German Nazi war criminal, directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of people. He was detained by the British Army after the Second World War, convicted of war crimes, and hanged on the gallows in the prison at Hamelin by British executioner Albert Pierrepoint. He joined the Nazi Party in 1931 and the SS in 1932. His SS training led him into work as a prison guard and, after the outbreak of war, as a concentration camp guard. In 1934, he was assigned as a guard at Dachau. His promotion was rapid, obtaining senior posts at Sachsenhausen and Mauthausen concentration camps. He became assistant to Rudolf Hรถss, the Commandant at Auschwitz in 1940. He accompanied Hรถss to inspect Auschwitz as a possible...