Gerhard Arno Max Palitzsch

Gerhard Palitzsch, born on 17 June 1913 at Großopitz, died on 7 December 1944 in Budapest, was born into a farming family. He joined the NSDAP and the SS in 1933. The latter meant he could serve right away as a concentration-camp guard. He then became a non-commissioned officer and arrived at Auschwitz on 20 May 1940 with 30 self-chosen civil offenders. These thirty criminals were the ones there to receive the lowest identity numbers.

Palitzsch’s speciality was to execute people with a shot in the back of the head. His intentional arrival at the Auschwitz concentration camp and 945 days spent there were reported in detail by a Polish resistance fighter, Witold Pilecki, after his escape in 1943. Palitzsch had a hand in murdering some 20,000 people. He shot several Polish officers dead for refusing to kiss his boots. He was also involved in the first mass execution with Cyclone B gas in September 1941, costing the lives of 900 Soviet prisoners of war. The gassing occurred in the infamous penal Block 11.

Hungary had several mass murderers at work in the Second World War. Palitzch was among the ghastiest. Almost all his crimes were committed as official tasks that redound not only on him, but on the system he sought to protect in Budapest at any cost.

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