Figure 1.-- SS-Obergruppenführer Hans Kammler was a civil engineer who was attracted by NAZI ideology. He helped design important camps like Auschwitz and Majdanek. He worked on the crematoria, improving their disposal rate. He did not design the gas chambers, but improving the ability to dispose of the killers grisly work helped increase the killing capacity of the camps Kammler was put in charge of the secret weapon programs as the War progressed. During this he was responsible for major war crimes

Hans Kammler was born in Stetin (1901). He did not serve in World War I, but was active in the Frei Korps in the Baltic after the War (1919). He began university and was awarded an engineering doctorate (1932). Jyst before that he joined the NAZI Party attracted by NAZI doctrine (1931). After graduating he joined the SS, seeing this was a way of advancing. His first jobs were innocuous, but eventually became involved with the SS Race and Settlement Office which was at the center of the most heinous NAZI war crimes. This was probably no accident given Kammler's ideological mindset. His civil engineering was put to use in designing important camps like Auschwitz and Majdanek. He worked on the crematoria, improving their disposal rate. He did not design the gas chambers, but improving the ability to dispose of the killers grisly work helped increase the killing capacity of the camps Kammler was put in charge of the secret weapon programs as the War progressed. During this he was responsible for major war crimes. He reached the rank of SS-Obergruppenführer who at first oversaw construction projection programs at NAZI concentration camps. He was then put in charge the V-2 rocket and second generation Fighter Programs toward the end of the War. He was head of the SS Office of Unit C in the Economic Administration Main Office. The projects were not war crimes. The treatment of the slave workers used to build the weapons were war crimes. He disappeared (May 1945). He was never prosecuted. What happened to him is the subject of considerable controversy.

Created: 7:54 AM 2/6/2024
Last updated: 7:54 AM 2/6/2024