Johann Pauls





Johann Pauls


Johann Pauls (born 9 February 1908 in Danzig – died 4 July 1946 in Gdańsk), also John Pauls, was a German SS-Oberscharführer in Stutthof concentration camp.

Career


Pauls was the third child of Johann August Pauls and Minna Steingräber. He joined the NSDAP, along with the SS, in the Free State of Danzig on 1 April 1931. 

From 21 July 1939 to 31 October 1941, he served in the reserve police force. From 1 November 1941 to 11 March 1943, he served in the Waffen-SS infantry and SS-Schutze reserve.

Pauls was transferred to SS-Totenkopfsturmbann of Sachsenhausen concentration camp in April 1943. 

Thereafter, as an SS-Oberscharführer, he was commandant of the guards in Stutthof concentration camp until the end of the war in 1945.

He was tried in the first Stutthof Trial by the Soviet/Polish Special Criminal Court, which was held in Gdańsk (Danzig) from 25 April 1946 to 31 May 1946. 

In the company of 12 other guards and Kapos, he was convicted of war crimes, along with 10 other accused, and sentenced to death.

Execution


Pauls was executed by hanging on 4 July 1946 at Biskupia Górka.

He was brought to the place of execution along with 10 other prisoners, five men and five women. 

The convicts were on the backs of 11 trucks, bound hand and foot. Pauls was collared with a noose at the center of the central gallows and pushed out of the truck. On one side of him, Gerda Steinhoff, on his other side, an unknown Kapo.

It is generally believed that the execution was filmed.



Above: on one end of the gallows row, the truck has just pulled away from Jenny Wanda Barkmann — a modish Hamburg lass in her mid-20’s known to Stutthof prisoners as “the Beautiful Specter” for her cruelty. Down the row, one can see that some of the prisoners are already swinging, while others have not yet been dropped.



Upon hearing her sentence, Jenny Barkmann retorted, “Life is indeed a pleasure, and pleasures are usually short.” (More about Barkmann, including trial photos, here.) In this closer view of her, just as in the first photo, she is still alive and struggling. Next to her, Ewa Paradies, another guard, is prepared for the same fate


The central triple gallows. Commandant Johann Pauls hangs in the middle with Gerda Steinhoff — one of the senior female guards — in the foreground. The line of five male kapos recedes behind them into the enormous crowd of onlookers.

References:


 * This article incorporates information from the corresponding article in the German Wikipedia

 * This article incorporates information from the corresponding article in the French Wikipedia

 * Death on the Gallows

 * Execution Today

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