Declassified Interrogation of Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp Commander: Part 1

The Russian Federation FSB website recently declassified and published the Russian-language December 1946 interrogation of SS Standartenführer Anton Kaindl who, at the time of his arrest in May 1945, was the commandant of the infamous Sachsenhausen concentration camp just north of Berlin. The camp was liberated just over 80 years ago, on 22 April 1945, by advance elements of the 1st Belorussian Front.

Construction of the camp began in July 1936 at the direction of SS Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler to keep political enemies of the Nazi regime, and to serve as a base for training concentration camp guards.

Sachsenhausen was created by the Nazis as a model camp, which was sometimes visited by foreign delegations. In the Sachsenhausen barracks, the Nazis also produced fake American and British banknotes (the so-called “Bernhardt operation”). According to various reports, more than 100,000 prisoners from European countries occupied by the Nazis were murdered during the concentration camp’s existence.

In May 1945, SS Standartenführer Anton Kaindl was arrested by Allied forces. He was brought as a witness at the trial of the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, then handed over to the Soviet authorities. On December 17, 1946, Kaindl was taken into custody by operatives of the MGB [Ministry of State Security] of the USSR in Berlin. Along with him, 15 concentration camp workers were also arrested.

Per the Law of the Control Council in Germany No. 10, dated December 20, 1945, on the punishment of persons guilty of war crimes against peace and against humanity, by verdict of the Military Tribunal of the Group of Soviet Occupation Forces in Germany at an open court session from October 23 to 31, 1947 in the city of Berlin, Kaindl was sentenced “to life imprisonment with hard labor.”  On August 31, 1948, he died in the Vorkut camp of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs.

His sentence emphasized that: “[…] according to Kaindl’s personal confession at the trial, during his leadership in the Sachsenhausen camp, more than 42,000 prisoners were killed, and the Sachsenhausen camp was turned into a death camp […].”

Kaindl’s interrogation, in the original Russian, is 39 pages long. English-language excerpts are already being published across the globe, but Translating History felt that publishing the complete translation would be more appropriate to help understand and bear witness to the historical weight of the events described therein.

Due to its length, the translation will be published piecemeal over the coming week. Part One of the transcript is dedicated to Kaindl’s early years and political motivations, his military life and work for the Nazi Party, and his assignment to the SS Concentration Camps Inspectorate and as commandant of the Sachsenhausen camp. Particular attention is afforded to the ill treatment of both Soviet prisoners of war and Soviet civilians.

Part Two, to be published in two days, will begin detailing his war crimes as the Sachsenhausen camp commandant.