Erich Muhsfeldt oversaw the crematoria at Majdanek and Auschwitz, where he personally murdered prisoners and burned others alive.
Muhsfeldt was born on February 18, 1913, in Neuhof, then part of the German Empire. He completed eight classes of elementary school in 1927 and became a baker by trade three years later. He was married and had one son.
He joined the SA in 1933, the same year Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. In 1937, Muhsfeldt switched to the SS. He became a member of the Nazi Party in 1939.
The Second World War began on September 1, 1939, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland. In January 1940, Muhsfeldt joined the SS Division Totenkopf, also known as the Death’s Head units. These units were responsible for administering Nazi concentration and extermination camps throughout Germany and occupied Europe.
In August 1940, Muhsfeldt arrived at the Auschwitz concentration camp. He worked as the head of prisoner commandos and as a block leader.
In November 1941, he was transferred to Majdanek concentration camp. There, he served as the head of the crematorium and commanded a unit that burned the bodies of murdered prisoners.
Mass murder operations using poison gas began at Majdanek in October 1942. The SS killed tens of thousands of Jews at the camp. Many died from inhumane living conditions, while others were killed in gas chambers after they could no longer work.
Muhsfeldt was responsible for carrying out Operation Harvest Festival. Between November 3 and 4, 1943, approximately 43,000 Jews were murdered at Majdanek, Poniatowa, and Trawniki concentration camps.
Jewish prisoners were ordered to strip naked and walk into trenches that had been dug for this purpose. They were then shot. Loud music was played to cover the sound of gunfire.
The operation was the largest single massacre of Jews carried out by German forces during the Holocaust.
Witnesses described Muhsfeldt as a twisted sadist who enjoyed mistreating prisoners. He was constantly drunk and carried a thick truncheon, which he used to smash inmates unconscious without reason.
On one occasion, he noticed a prisoner smiling at a wagoner. Muhsfeldt hit the man on the jaw, knocked him to the ground, and kicked him until several teeth were knocked out.
In another incident, Muhsfeldt beat a prisoner with his hands. When the prisoner fell, Muhsfeldt took a shovel handle, stuck it in the prisoner’s throat, and left him there until he died.
As head of the crematorium, Muhsfeldt walked around the camp and told prisoners he would burn them alive.
One young Polish woman learned she was to be gassed. She fought for her life and scratched Muhsfeldt. He had her hands and feet bound, tied her to a trolley used for loading corpses, and pushed her into the flames of the crematoria alive.
Prisoners were often hanged on hooks on the crematorium wall. The weaker prisoners were selected for this on days when few had died in the camp, so the mortality rate would remain at a fixed level.
According to witnesses, Muhsfeldt also threw small children, mostly Jewish, into the gas chamber.
Jerzy Lang, a Holocaust survivor, testified after the war that he saw Muhsfeldt heading for the crematorium with two Jewish children in each hand. Lang heard revolver shots shortly afterward.
The engine of a truck was started to drown out the cries during executions.
The Red Army liberated Majdanek on July 24, 1944. The camp was virtually intact, and fewer than 500 Jewish prisoners remained alive. Soviet officials invited journalists to inspect the camp and see the evidence of the horrors.
Between 80,000 and 120,000 people perished at Majdanek between October 1941 and July 1944.
In May 1944, Muhsfeldt returned to Auschwitz. He supervised the crematoria in Birkenau during the liquidation of hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews.
At Birkenau, he was seen beating some women to death with rods. He also struck prisoners on the back with his whip)Skip. He reportedly had a smile on his face when prisoners who disobeyed orders were pushed, sometimes alive, into the fiery furnace.
On one occasion, Muhsfeldt became furious about Jewish boys from the Warsaw Ghetto. After being separated from their parents, the boys were found and sent to the gas chambers.
Miklos Nyiszli, a Hungarian Jewish prisoner and doctor at Auschwitz, said Muhsfeldt once shot 80 prisoners in the back of the head. When Nyiszli asked if that was why his blood pressure was high, Muhsfeldt angrily replied that it made no difference to him whether he killed one or 80 inmates.
The doctor also recalled a 16-year-old girl who survived the gas chamber, which was extremely rare. Nyiszli asked Muhsfeldt to spare her. The request was denied. To ensure the girl died, she was shot in the back of the neck.
In August 1944, Muhsfeldt was sent to the front lines)Skip. He took part in the battle for Hungary but was injured. He was sent to the Flossenbürg concentration camp in early April 1945.
The camp was evacuated soon after his arrival. During the death march, Muhsfeldt was seen shooting dozens of prisoners too weak or too sick to walk.
For his crimes, Muhsfeldt was awarded the War Merit Cross Second Class.
After the war, Muhsfeldt was captured by the Allies. In January 1947, a US military court sentenced him to life imprisonment. He was later extradited to Poland, where he was retried at the Auschwitz trial.
The trial began on November 24, 1947, and lasted one month.
The Polish Supreme National Tribunal in Krakow found Muhsfeldt guilty of crimes against humanity. He was sentenced to death by hanging.
Erich Muhsfeldt was executed at Montelupich prison in Krakow on January 24, 1948. He was 34 years old.
His body was made available to medical students at the University of Krakow as illustrative material.