Karl Christian Friedrich Everding

Friedrich Everding, born on 5 October 1905 in Bad Eilsenben, Lower Saxony, was 18 when he joined the conservative/liberal Jungdeutscher Orden (Young German Order). He remained a member until 1928. In 1926-1929 he was several times unemployed or worked as a book-keeper, but his efforts to gain general teacher training failed. It is not known what attracted him to the extreme right. By 1929 he was an NSDAP member (No. 187.862) and not much later joined the SA and the SS. His aggression became clear when he caused injuries three times while serving as a Nazi party guard. After the Nazi takeover, he dropped book-keeping for a job in the volunteer police service. His first post was at Börgermoor concentration camp, Emsland, Lower Saxony – rated particularly gruesome for its torture and murder. This became known also in nearby villages, where plain residents too met with guard brutality.

Everding’s brutality in the camp was famed. Not by chance was he chosen to train new guards and as head of the camp’s punishment squad. Rabbi Max Abraham, for instance, was forced to hold religious classes in a cesspit. After Abraham urged people to “love thy neighbour as thyself,” Everding beat him half dead. He likewise beat up Heinrich Hirtsiefer, once a Prussian welfare minister, for refusing as a Protestant to pray before a Catholic rosary, and made him dress in ragged, filthy clothes when introducing himself at various prison barracks. Similar deeds ensued day after day. One speciality was to force prisoners to coat themselves in human excrement. This was the camp that the notable anti-Nazi “Swamp Soldiers” song arose and spread despite a ban on it.

The concentration camp was officially handed over in April 1934 to the Ministry of Justice. This also meant that the guard staff were changed.

In 1936 Everding was promoted to the rank of Untersturmführer (“lower storm leader”) and in 1941 to the next rank of Obersturmführer. There his career halted, presumably because he lacked some abilities expected of an officer.