Heinrich Schwarz was born on June 14, 1906, in Munich, then part of the German Empire. He originally worked as a book printer and later trained as a photographer, though he worked in that profession only sporadically. Between 1926 and 1931, he was unemployed.
Germany’s economic collapse during the Great Depression contributed heavily to the Nazi Party’s rise. Widespread unemployment and poverty left many Germans vulnerable to extreme political arguments. Schwarz joined both the Nazi Party and the SS in 1931.
After Adolf Hitler came to power in January 1933, Nazi propaganda became inescapable. The regime established the first concentration camp at Dachau in March 1933. Over the following years, the Nazis systematically marginalized and disenfranchised Germany’s Jewish population.
The Second World War began on September 1, 1939, when Germany invaded Poland. Schwarz served with the Waffen-SS on the Western Front until October 1940. He was then transferred to the SS Concentration Camps Inspectorate.
During 1940 and 1941, Schwarz was deployed at the Mauthausen and Sachsenhausen concentration camps. In September 1941, he was transferred to German-occupied Poland and posted to the administrative office of the Auschwitz concentration camp. His initial duties included serving as adjutant to the camp commandant, Rudolf Höss.
Schwarz also served as director of the camp’s Work Assignment Department. In November 1943, the Auschwitz complex was divided into three parts. The camps were split into Auschwitz I, Auschwitz II-Birkenau, and Auschwitz III.
In December 1943, Schwarz was given command of Auschwitz III. The camp’s main function was renting prisoner slave labor to German companies. More than 40 sub-camps were established at nearby industrial enterprises.
Auschwitz III, also known as Monowitz or Monowitz-Buna, was established at the site of the Polish village of Monowice. The inhabitants were expelled and their buildings razed. The SS charged IG Farben daily fees for the use of prisoners as workers.
The camp housed more than 2,000 prisoners in November 1942. By late summer 1944, it held almost 11,000 inmates. Prisoners lived in 59 wooden barracks and one concrete panel structure, each with three-story wooden bunks.
The camp lacked sufficient latrines, baths, and a disinfection chamber for prisoner clothing. The hardest work involved transferring construction materials, earthworks, and laying power cables. Prisoners received only one break during working hours, during which they were given so-called “Buna-Soup.”
Prisoners described Schwarz as moody, unpredictable, and one of the worst concentration camp leaders. He was feared not only by prisoners but also by the SS men under his command.
Former prisoner Martin Sztern recalled after the war how inmates were treated. He described public executions, forced standing for hours in bad weather, and beatings with rubber truncheons. Many prisoners fell ill due to harsh treatment and lack of food and medicine.
As a result of hard labor and insufficient food, prisoner strength dropped rapidly. The weak and sick were sent to the camp hospital, where selections were carried out every two or three weeks. Those in worse condition were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where most were killed in the gas chambers.
A British prisoner of war who worked alongside Monowitz prisoners testified about their condition. He described inmates collapsing from weakness daily and being beaten for falling. He said it was pitiful to see them struggle to stand out of fear of being declared unfit for work.
Punishments recorded by the SS included nights in standing cells, penal labor on Sundays, and flogging. After Polish prisoners escaped, harsh reprisals followed. Every tenth prisoner was sometimes pulled from line and sent to Birkenau to be gassed, or inmates were forced to witness public hangings.
In total, 1,670 prisoners were murdered at the building site or died in the sub-camp hospital. Another 11,000 were sent to Auschwitz and Birkenau, where most were killed with phenol injections or in gas chambers.
Schwarz remained at the camp until January 1945, when Soviet forces approached. The SS began evacuating Auschwitz and its sub-camps in forced marches known as death marches. Prisoners from Monowitz-Buna were evacuated on foot to Gliwice, then transported by rail to Buchenwald and Mauthausen.
Schwarz was then sent to Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp in France. It was the only concentration camp established by the Germans in pre-war French territory. Prisoners worked in granite quarries, construction projects, and camp maintenance.
By fall 1944, there were about 7,000 prisoners in the main camp and more than 20,000 in the sub-camps. With Allied forces approaching in August and September 1944, the SS evacuated the main camp. In April 1945, while Schwarz was commandant, the Germans disbanded the sub-camps and sent prisoners on brutal evacuation marches toward Dachau.
Between May 1941 and March 1945, between 19,000 and 20,000 people died in the Natzweiler-Struthof camp system.
After the war, Schwarz was captured and tried by a French military tribunal at the Rastatt trial. He was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity. He was sentenced to death.
Schwarz was 40 years old when he was shot by a firing squad near Baden-Baden on March 20, 1947.