13 December 1945 – Josef Kramer

Josef Kramer

Josef Kramer was one of 45 concentration staff to be tried for genocide at Bergen-Belsen camp, after World War II.

Having been in charge of the gas chamber at Auschwitz-Birkenau, he transferred to Belsen as Commandant where he soon became known as the ‘Beast of Belsen’ fuelled by stories of his unashamed brutality.

Diseased

As the war drew to a close, the Allies were let in to the camp early as a result of an outbreak of typhus. But nothing could have prepared the British soldiers for the sight of rotting corpses strewn around the camp.

Of course, the Beast’s pivotal role in the mass genocide of prisoners was to catch up with him. Kramer was hanged for his war crimes, aged 39, by Albert Pierrepoint in a series of hangings following the Nuremberg Trials.

In the film Pierrepoint Kramer was played by Michael Norton.

Also on this day

13 December 2005 – Stanley Tookie Williams III
13 December 1945 – Irma Grese
13 December 2006 – Ángel Nieves Díaz
13 December 2005 – John B. Nixon

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