SS-Sturmbannführer Richard Baer

Auschwitz Visit by Oswald Pohl

Oswald Pohl Visit to Auschwitz, 1944

SS-Obergruppenführer Oswald Pohl, center, visits Auschwitz in late 1944. Officer to the right, with his back to the photographer, is Auschwitz Commandant SS-Sturmbannführer Richard Baer. Taking the photograph is SS-Obersturmbannführer Karl Hoecker. Pohl was hanged a few minutes after midnight on June 7, 1951 at Landsberg Military Prison at Landsberg am Lech. Baer had been arrested in West Germany in December 1960, and died of a heart attack in pre-trial detention in 1963.

SS-Sturmbannführer Richard Baer, Dachau, Columbia Haus, Neuengamme, Auschwitz & Dora

Richard Baer

Kommandant at Auschwitz (1944-1945) and Dora (1945.) Baer served in the SS Totenkopf Division in 1942. At least 1,000,000 persons died at Auschwitz; about 20,000 perished at Dora. He died while in detention at trial in Frankfurt, Germany on June 17, 1963, having avoided prosecution for many years due to a false identity of Karl Neumann.