Gerhard Palitzsch was born on June 17, 1913, in the village of Groß-Oßnitz, near Dresden, then part of the German Empire. Before his criminal career began, he worked as a farmer. In 1933, he joined the Nazi Party and the SS.
His work in the concentration camp system started the same year, when he became a guard at the Oranienburg and Lichtenburg camps. By 1936, he was transferred to Sachsenhausen, where he served as a block leader.
When Auschwitz was established in May 1940 in German-occupied Poland, Palitzsch arrived with 30 German prisoners from Sachsenhausen. These prisoners wore green badges, which identified them as convicted criminals. The SS selected them for capo duty, meaning they would supervise other inmates in exchange for better conditions. These capos were often as brutal as their SS supervisors.
At Auschwitz, Palitzsch became the report leader. Together with his capos, he imposed a brutal reign of terror over the camp. His main responsibility was carrying out executions at the death wall, a task he performed willingly and with a smile.
His preferred method was shooting prisoners in the back of the head with a small caliber gun fitted with a silencer. According to a Holocaust survivor who later testified, Palitzsch claimed responsibility for shooting around 25,000 people in this manner. He was proud of the number of prisoners he killed and would often attend roll call with his boots soaked in blood. He was allegedly paid five marks for each execution.
Palitzsch was known for torturing victims before killing them. He would whip prisoners with 10 to 25 strokes, then force them to run in a frog position for 500 meters to the bunker. There, they would wait for hours while being harassed and tortured. Regardless of the season, naked prisoners were kicked and spat on before their execution.
He also targeted children. On one occasion, he ordered little Jewish girls to run around a closed yard while he shot at them. After killing them all, he was seen calmly smoking a cigarette with a smile on his face. He often killed children first so that their parents would live long enough to witness the murders.
A former Polish prisoner testified after the war about one such execution. Palitzsch killed a family of five, starting with the youngest baby, who was tied to the mother’s chest. He shot the baby in the head first. Next, he shot the child standing between the parents. He then threw the eldest child to the ground, stood on his back, and shot him in the base of the neck. Finally, he shot the mother and then the father.
Shooting was not his only method of killing. In one case, after killing the parents of a child, he took the boy by the legs and smashed his head against a wall.
Palitzsch also hated Poles and killed them without reason. In August 1940, he shot several Polish officers who had just arrived with a transport. Their only offense was refusing to kiss his boots.
He was also a key participant in the first mass killing using Zyklon B. On September 3, 1941, he took part in the first experimental gassing in Block 11 of the main camp. Around 600 Soviet commissars and 250 sick Polish prisoners were killed in that operation.
Palitzsch was also active during selections on the ramp. While other SS officers told victims they would receive hot soup and coffee, Palitzsch greeted newcomers with cruel words. He told them that Germans had no sympathy for enemies of the Third Reich and that they would die like dogs, telling them to forget their families.
Palitzsch lived in the town of Auschwitz with his wife and children. In the summer of 1942, his wife Louisa fell ill during a typhoid epidemic and died a few months later. After her death, Palitzsch became increasingly dependent on alcohol.
In June 1943, he was assigned to the Gypsy family camp, a section of Auschwitz where Romani families were kept together. After his wife’s death, he developed a passion for women, including Romani and Jewish prisoners.
His downfall began when he was caught with a Romani female inmate. The SS considered this race defilement, as relationships between Aryans and those deemed inferior were strictly forbidden. He was also accused of theft, having enriched himself by plundering the possessions of murdered Jews, which were considered property of the Nazi party.
The SS and police court sentenced him to several years in prison. He was later pardoned and expelled from the SS in June 1944.
Justice finally caught up with him in late October 1944, when Soviet and Romanian forces began their offensive against Budapest. Palitzsch was among the 33,000 German soldiers defending the city alongside Hungarian troops. On December 1, 1944, Adolf Hitler declared Budapest a fortress city to be defended to the last man, and withdrawal was forbidden.
Gerhard Palitzsch was killed in Budapest on December 7, 1944. He was 31 years old. The man who walked over bodies in pursuit of power was finally dead, and no tears were shed for him.