Walter Gerhard Martin Sommer (8 February 1915 – 7 June 1988) was an SS

Hauptscharführer __NOTOC__ ''Hauptscharführer'' ( ) was a Nazi paramilitary rank which was used by the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) between the years of 1934 and 1945. The rank was the highest enlisted rank of the SS, with the exception of the special Waffen-SS ran ...

(master sergeant) who served as a guard at the concentration camps of Dachau and

Buchenwald Buchenwald (; literally 'beech forest') was a Nazi concentration camp established on hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within Germany's 1937 borders. Many actual or sus ...

. Sommer, known as the "Hangman of Buchenwald" was considered a depraved sadist who reportedly ordered two Austrian priests, Otto Neururer and Mathias Spannlang, to be crucified upside-down.W.R. Garscha et al.
Rudolf Watzek-MischanNachKriegsJustiz
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Buchenwald

In 1943 Reichsführer

Heinrich Himmler Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was of the (Protection Squadron; SS), and a leading member of the Nazi Party of Germany. Himmler was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and a main architect of th ...

appointed SS judge Georg Konrad Morgen to investigate charges of cruelty and corruption at the Buchenwald camp. Due to his excessive brutality and sadism, Sommer was indicted and tried before Morgen. Commandant Karl Koch and his wife

Ilse Koch Ilse Koch (22 September 1906 – 1 September 1967) was a German war criminal who was an overseer at Nazi concentration camps run by her husband, commandant Karl-Otto Koch. Working at Buchenwald (1937–1941) and Majdanek (1941–1943), Koch ...

were also put on trial. According to Morgen, Sommer had a secret compartment underneath the floor under his desk. He kept his private instruments of torture concealed within this compartment such as the needles he used to kill his victims after he had finished torturing them, he would inject them with

carbolic acid Phenol (also called carbolic acid) is an aromaticity, aromatic organic compound with the molecular chemical formula, formula . It is a white crystalline solid that is volatility (chemistry), volatile. The molecule consists of a phenyl group () ...

, or inject air into their veins causing their death by

embolism An embolism is the lodging of an embolus, a blockage-causing piece of material, inside a blood vessel. The embolus may be a blood clot (thrombus), a fat globule (fat embolism), a bubble of air or other gas ( gas embolism), amniotic fluid (am ...

. On occasions, after private late night torture sessions Sommer would hide his victim's bodies under his bed until he could dispose of them in the morning. Among his acts of depravity were beating a German pastor, hanging him naked outside in the winter then throwing buckets of water on him and letting him freeze to death. On another occasion Sommer beat a Catholic priest to death for performing the

Sacrament of Penance The Sacrament of Penance (also commonly called the Sacrament of Reconciliation or Confession) is one of the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church (known in Eastern Christianity as sacred mysteries), in which the faithful are absolved from si ...

for a fellow inmate. After the SS trial Sommer received a reduction in rank and was sentenced to a penal battalion fighting on the Eastern Front where he was wounded in a tank explosion, losing his left arm and right leg. He was taken captive by the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army ( Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, afte ...

and was detained as a POW until 1950 when his prisoner status was upgraded to war criminal. He was released from Soviet captivity in 1955 as part of the negotiations conducted on behalf of Soviet held German prisoners by

Konrad Adenauer Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer (; 5 January 1876 – 19 April 1967) was a German statesman who served as the first chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1949 to 1963. From 1946 to 1966, he was the first leader of the Christian Dem ...

Retrial and imprisonment

After his release he returned to

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

where he married, fathered a child and filed for and received a pension for his service related disabilities. In 1957, he was indicted for complicity in the death of 101 concentration camp inmates. In July 1958 in Bayreuth district court in

, he was ultimately convicted of 25 deaths and received a

life sentence Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes fo ...

. Upon appeal, the case was upheld in May 1959 by the Federal Court. In 1971 he was released from jail because there was no facility to continue his treatment of his war injuries. He was transferred to a hospital and in 1973 to a nursing home where he remained until his death in 1988.Time Magazine; West Germany: The Monster
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References

;Sources *''The Buchenwald Report'' by David A. Hackett Publisher: Basic Books (September 11, 1997) Language: English

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sommer, Walter Gerhard Martin 1915 births 1988 deaths SS non-commissioned officers Waffen-SS personnel Buchenwald concentration camp personnel Dachau concentration camp personnel Nazi persecution of the Catholic Church Anti-Christian sentiment in Europe German prisoners of war in World War II held by the Soviet Union Nazis convicted of war crimes Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by Germany German people who died in prison custody Prisoners who died in German detention Criminals from Thuringia German amputees Nazis who died in prison custody