Erich Fuchs (9 April 1902 – 25 July 1980) was an SS functionary who worked for the

Action T4 (German, ) was a campaign of mass murder by involuntary euthanasia in Nazi Germany. The term was first used in post-war trials against doctors who had been involved in the killings. The name T4 is an abbreviation of 4, a street address of t ...

mass-murder program, and for the

Operation Reinhard or ''Einsatz Reinhard'' , location = Occupied Poland , date = October 1941 – November 1943 , incident_type = Mass deportations to extermination camps , perpetrators = Odilo Globočnik, Hermann Höfle, Richard Thomalla, Erwin L ...

phase of

the Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europ ...

. Fuchs was charged with war crimes at the Bełżec Trial in 1963–64, for which he was acquitted. As more evidence came to light, Fuchs was rearrested and tried at the Sobibor Trial in

Hagen Hagen () is the 41st-largest city in Germany. The municipality is located in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It is located on the south eastern edge of the Ruhr area, 15 km south of Dortmund, where the rivers Lenne and Volme (me ...

. He was charged with participation in the Holocaust and on 20 December 1966, found guilty of being an accessory to the

mass murder Mass murder is the act of murdering a number of people, typically simultaneously or over a relatively short period of time and in close geographic proximity. The United States Congress defines mass killings as the killings of three or more pe ...

of at least 79,000 Jews. Fuchs was sentenced to four years imprisonment.

Life

Fuchs was born Erich Fritz Erhard Fuchs in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...

. He began his career as a motor mechanic. He joined the

Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...

and the SA in May 1933. Following the outbreak of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, in 1940 Fuchs was assigned to the clandestine

euthanasia program. He served as Dr.

Irmfried Eberl Irmfried Eberl (8 September 1910 – 16 February 1948) was an Austrian psychiatrist and medical director of the euthanasia institutes in Brandenburg and Bernburg, who helped set up and was the first commandant of the Treblinka extermination camp ...

's driver while Eberl was Medical Director of the T-4 killing centers at

Brandenburg Brandenburg (; nds, Brannenborg; dsb, Bramborska ) is a state in the northeast of Germany bordering the states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony, as well as the country of Poland. With an area of 29,480 squ ...

and

Bernburg Bernburg (Saale) is a town in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, capital of the Salzlandkreis district. The former residence of the Anhalt-Bernburg princes is known for its Renaissance castle. Geography The town centre is situated in the fertile Magdeburg ...

. Klee, Ernst, Dressen, Willi, Riess, Volker. ''The Good Old Days: The Holocaust as Seen by Its Perpetrators and Bystanders'', p. 292. . Fuchs was present at many of the gassings of the disabled people. When the

Final Solution The Final Solution (german: die Endlösung, ) or the Final Solution to the Jewish Question (german: Endlösung der Judenfrage, ) was a Nazi plan for the genocide of individuals they defined as Jews during World War II. The "Final Solution to th ...

was set in place at

Wannsee Wannsee () is a locality in the southwestern Berlin borough of Steglitz-Zehlendorf, Germany. It is the westernmost locality of Berlin. In the quarter there are two lakes, the larger '' Großer Wannsee'' (Greater Wannsee, "See" means lake) and ...

, Fuchs was transferred to the newly built

Bełżec extermination camp Belzec (English: or , Polish: ) was a Nazi German extermination camp built by the SS for the purpose of implementing the secretive Operation Reinhard, the plan to murder all Polish Jews, a major part of the " Final Solution" which in tota ...

in German-occupied Poland for six weeks to install the killing apparatus there.Michael Bryant (2014),
Eyewitness to Genocide: The Operation Reinhard Death Camp Trials, 1955-1966.
' Univ. of Tennessee Press, p. 152. He later testified: After the successful installation of the gassing motor at Belzec, in April 1942 Fuchs was moved to the next secret construction site at the

Sobibor extermination camp Sobibor (, Polish: ) was an extermination camp built and operated by Nazi Germany as part of Operation Reinhard. It was located in the forest near the village of Żłobek Duży in the General Government region of German-occupied Poland. As an ...

. The gas-fueled, two-hundred-horse-power engine was allocated for him already in nearby Lvov by the SS men of Operation Reinhard. He remained at Sobibór for at least four weeks. In Fuchs's own words: While at Sobibor, Fuchs also operated this engine as it fed the gas chambers. Now an '' SS-

Scharführer ''Scharführer'' (, ) was a title or rank used in early 20th Century German military terminology. In German, ''Schar'' was one term for the smallest sub-unit, equivalent to (for example) a "troop" , "squad", or "section". The word ''führer'' ...

'' (Sergeant), Fuchs went to

Treblinka extermination camp Treblinka () was an extermination camp, built and operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II. It was in a forest north-east of Warsaw, south of the village of Treblinka in what is now the Masovian Voivodeship. The camp ...

, under the command of his old boss Eberl. He would later testify: Near the end of 1942, Fuchs returned briefly to Bernburg Euthanasia Centre. Then, from December to February 1943 he was stationed at

Wiesloch Wiesloch (, locally ; South Franconian: ''Wissloch''), is a town in northern Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated 13 kilometres south of Heidelberg. After Weinheim, Sinsheim and Leimen it is the fourth largest town in the Rhein-Neckar-Kre ...

psychiatric institution, where he was involved in "euthanasia research" and again, present during the gassing operations. In March 1943 Fuchs was removed from

, and his work in

and

genocide Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the ...

was done. After the war he worked as a lorry driver, motor mechanic and car salesman. Fuchs was put on trial at the Bełżec Trial in

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and ...

1963–64, for which he was acquitted. Fuchs was rearrested and tried at the Sobibor Trial in

. He was charged with participation in the mass murder of approximately 3,600 Jews. On 20 December 1966, Fuchs was found guilty of being an accessory to the mass murder of at least 79,000 Jews and sentenced to four years imprisonment. Fuchs was married for the sixth time during the trial. Fuchs died on 25 July 1980 at the age of 78.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fuchs, Erich 1902 births 1980 deaths People from Berlin Aktion T4 personnel Belzec extermination camp personnel People convicted in the Sobibor trial Sobibor extermination camp personnel SS non-commissioned officers Treblinka extermination camp personnel Truck drivers Holocaust perpetrators in Poland Automobile salespeople