World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseErich Mußfeldt was assigned to serve at Auschwitz I of Auschwitz Concentration Camp in mid-1940, then in late 1941 he was transferred to Majdanek Concentration Camp, where he assumed the role of the chief of the crematorium. In May 1944, he returned to Auschwitz as the supervising officer of the Jewish Sonderkommando in Crematorium II and III at the Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp. Starting in Aug 1944, he served on the front lines, but in early Apr 1945 he was assigned to Flossenbürg Concentration Camp. At all camps, he was known to have personally carried out many executions of Jewish prisoners, most by gunfire to the back of the head; during the evacuation of Flossenbürg, he personally killed many prisoners who were too weak to carry on the march. After the end of the war, he was captured by the Americans and transferred to Poland for trials. For his 4-week tenure at Flossenbürg, he was sentenced to life imprisonment; in 1947, for his tenure at Majdanek and Auschwitz, he was sentenced to death by the Supreme National Tribunal at Kraków, Poland. He was executed by hanging on 28 Jan 1948.

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