Ansgar Pichen was born on 22 September 1913 in Esbjerg, Denmark. His father was of Danish descent. In 1914 the family moved to Upper Silesia, and when Poland took over the region in 1922 they became Polish citizens.
After the Nazi German invasion of Poland, Pichen was drafted into the German army on 25 May 1940. He was deployed to the Eastern Front to fight against the Soviet Red Army.
On 25 November 1942 he was wounded in action. As a result, his left hand was crippled.
He was transferred to Troppau in Moravia, where he remained until March 1943. He then went to the forced labor and prisoner of war camp at Blechhammer in Upper Silesia, which from April 1944 was a subcamp of the Auschwitz-Monowitz concentration camp.
As the Soviet Red Army advanced, the camp was evacuated by the SS. Prisoners were deported or sent on death marches, and around 200 prisoners who were unfit for transport were killed.
Pichen left Blechhammer on 21 January 1945 and arrived at Gross-Rosen concentration camp with evacuation transports on 20 February 1945. He stayed there until 25 February, then left for the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
He arrived at Bergen-Belsen on 10 March and was detailed for guard duty. Because of his crippled arm, he was instead given charge of camp kitchen number one.
Pichen's papers were taken from him to be recruited into the SS. It is not known whether he was accepted into SS service, as he never wore an SS uniform, a point he later testified to at the Belsen trial.
He worked as an apprentice in kitchen number two, and four days later took charge of cookhouse number one.
As Allied forces advanced on the Belsen camp, many SS camp guards fled to escape retaliation. Heinrich Himmler agreed to hand over the camp to Allied forces without a fight.
Shortly before the liberation of the camp, all the SS men were called on parade. Belsen commandant Josef Kramer told camp personnel that they had to stay on their jobs until the British troops arrived.
On 15 April 1945, the Bergen-Belsen camp was liberated by Allied forces. British and Canadian soldiers found 60,000 prisoners inside, most of them severely ill and starving, and over 13,000 unburied bodies lying around the camp.
The British forced the former SS camp staff to help bury thousands of bodies in mass graves. While burying the bodies, Pichen contracted typhus and was hospitalized. Several SS camp staff died of typhus because they were forced to handle the bodies without protection. They were not allowed to use gloves or other protective clothing.
Pichen, along with 44 other camp staff, were tried at the Belsen trial in Luneburg, Germany. He was charged with crimes committed at the Belsen camp.
The prosecution accused him of shooting two male prisoners who were taking some turnips from the kitchen. In his testimony, Pichen stated that he did not abuse any prisoners and that the allegations he shot and killed two male prisoners were untrue. He pleaded not guilty.
He was convicted of war crimes at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and sentenced to death. Pichen was hanged on 13 December 1945 by British executioner Albert Pierrepoint at Hameln prison.