Fritz Dressel

Fritz Dressel (1 June 1896 – 7 May 1933) was a Communist Party activist in Bavaria, Germany.

Dressel died in the concentration camp at Dachau. His was one of the first concentration camp deaths to be widely reported after the Nazis took power in Germany, although differences of interpretation persisted over whether he had committed suicide in the concentration camp, as stated on his death certificate, or was "beaten to death", as baldly reported in an English newspaper as early as 1934.

Life

Early years Friedrich Georg Robert Dressel was born in Welsberg, close to Coburg in northern Bavaria, and grew up in nearby Schottenstein. Directly before the war he embarked on a period of itinerant work, during which he worked for the Krupp steel conglomerate in Essen. In March 1929 Fritz Dressel and organised a protest demonstration by Munich's unemployed workers. His parliamentary immunity was lifted and he was sentenced to several months of detention.

Dachau At the concentration camp Dressel was taken to the so-called "Arrest building" where he was kept separate from the other detainees. Over several days he was repeatedly beaten and subjected to water torture and psychological torture techniques by his SS guards. He made a feeble suicide attempt by cutting his wrists with a bread knife, and his wounds were initially bandaged. Later two SA "medical" staff, while pretending to provide assistance, removed the bandages after which Dressel was left on the floor slowly bleeding to death while his guards looked on and the camp doctor was forbidden to intervene. According to another version, Dressel was set upon by guard dogs and then left bleeding to death. The guards concluded the evening with a drunken music party.

Report of the death Although the authorities were content for the death of Fritz Dressel to be reported as a suicide, the more graphic details emerged thanks to a fellow detainee called Hans Beimler. Beimler (who would later die fighting in the Spanish Civil War), escaped from the Concentration Camp on the night of 8/9 May after killing an SS guard and donning the man's uniform. Beimler's report of Dressler's death was included in a publication entitled "Im Mörderlager Dachau" ("In the Dachau Murder Camp") which Beimler produced in August 1933.