Josef Kollmer (26 February 1901 – 24 January 1948) was a German SS functionary during the

Nazi era Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictat ...

who committed mass murder at

Auschwitz Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It consisted of Auschw ...

. He was prosecuted at the Auschwitz Trial. Born in Händlern,

Bavaria Bavaria, officially the Free State of Bavaria, is a States of Germany, state in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the list of German states by area, largest German state by land area, comprising approximately 1/5 of the total l ...

, Kollmer was a farmer by trade. He became a member of the SS on 1 January 1935 after having previously spent several years in the German police force. He joined the

Nazi party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor ...

in May 1937. In October 1941 he was drafted into the

Waffen-SS The (; ) was the military branch, combat branch of the Nazi Party's paramilitary ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) organisation. Its formations included men from Nazi Germany, along with Waffen-SS foreign volunteers and conscripts, volunteers and conscr ...

and was assigned to Auschwitz, where he commanded various guard companies until October 1943. He then temporarily transferred to

Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp Mittelbau-Dora (also Dora-Mittelbau and Nordhausen-Dora) was a Nazi concentration camp located near Nordhausen in Thuringia, Germany. It was established in late summer 1943 as a subcamp of Buchenwald concentration camp, supplying slave labour f ...

, but returned to Auschwitz in May 1944. Initially he commanded the guard company at Auschwitz main camp, then later the one at Monowitz concentration camp from August to October 1944. During his time at Auschwitz, Kollmer participated in the mass murder of Jews in the Birkenau gas chambers, and carried out executions against the shooting wall between blocks 10 and 11 and at the Buna factory. Kollmer was tried by the Supreme National Tribunal at the Auschwitz Trial in

Kraków , officially the Royal Capital City of Kraków, is the List of cities and towns in Poland, second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city has a population of 804,237 ...

and was sentenced to

death Death is the end of life; the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain a living organism. Death eventually and inevitably occurs in all organisms. The remains of a former organism normally begin to decompose sh ...

. His sentence was carried out by hanging in

Montelupich Prison The Montelupich Prison, named for the street on which it is located, the ''ulica Montelupich'' ("street of the Montelupi family"),Ulica Montelupich or "street of the Montelupis" itself is named after the Montelupi manor house (Kamienica (archite ...

, Kraków.

Bibliography

*Cyprian T., Sawicki J., ''Siedem wyroków Najwyższego Trybunału Narodowego'', Poznań 1962

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kollmer, Josef 1901 births 1948 deaths Auschwitz trial executions Executed German mass murderers Executed people from Bavaria Holocaust perpetrators in Poland Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp personnel People from the Kingdom of Bavaria SS-Obersturmführer Waffen-SS personnel 20th-century German farmers