On 8 April 1945, prisoners inside Buchenwald concentration camp secretly sent a desperate Morse code message to the advancing Allied forces: “SOS. We request help. The SS want to destroy us.” Just three days later, soldiers of General George S. Patton’s Third Army liberated the camp and discovered more than 21,000 starving survivors.

Among the perpetrators responsible for the brutality of Buchenwald was SS officer Hermann Hackmann, a violent and sadistic camp official known for savage beatings and cruel punishments inflicted on prisoners. Serving under commandant Karl-Otto Koch, Hackmann became notorious among inmates for his relentless brutality.

After the war, Hackmann was prosecuted during the Buchenwald Trials. Although initially sentenced to death, his punishment was later reduced. Decades later, he was tried again for murders committed at Majdanek concentration camp.

This episode explores the crimes and postwar fate of Hermann Hackmann, one of the brutal figures behind the Nazi concentration camp system.