Karl Chmielewski was one of the most brutal concentration camp commandants in Nazi Germany. As commandant of Gusen, a subcamp of Mauthausen, he became notorious for extreme violence, torture, and the murder of prisoners. His cruelty earned him the nickname "The Devil of Gusen."
Discover the story of Karl Chmielewski's rise through the SS, his role in the Mauthausen-Gusen camp system, the infamous "death baths" that claimed thousands of lives, his later command of Vught concentration camp in the occupied Netherlands, and the justice he eventually faced after the Second World War.
Up Next in Season 1
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Last Nazi Commandant of Dachau Killed...
On 29 April 1945, American forces liberated Dachau, the first regular concentration camp established by Nazi Germany. Inside they found thousands of starving survivors, railway cars filled with corpses, and overwhelming evidence of years of mass murder.
This documentary tells the story of Heinri...
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Belzec Commandant Behind 320,000 Jewi...
Gottlieb Hering was a German police officer who once opposed the Nazi movement and was even nicknamed the “Nazi eater.” Yet after joining the Nazi Party, his career took a radically different path. He served in the Aktion T4 euthanasia program before becoming commandant of the Bełżec exterminatio...
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Corrupt Nazi Buchenwald Commandant Ex...
Karl Otto Koch was a Nazi SS officer and commandant of Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald, and Majdanek concentration camps. During his years in power, he became notorious for his cruelty, corruption, and exploitation of prisoners.
Alongside his wife, Ilse Koch, later known as the Witch of Buchenwald, he...
