Otto Hantke

Otto Hantke (21 January 1907 – 18 November 1986) was a German SS-, convicted murderer, and war criminal in German-occupied Poland during the Holocaust. Hantke joined the Nazi Party and the SS by 1933. Between at least 1942 and 1944, Hantke served as the commandant of the Budzyń labor camp and Poniatowa concentration camp, both subcamps of the Majdanek concentration camp, and was an SS officer at the Lipowa 7 concentration camp and Stutthof concentration camp.

In his role at Poniatowa, Hantke helped coordinate the deportation of Jews to the camp during the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

For his participation during the Holocaust, Hantke was imprisoned as a suspected war criminal in Germany from 1961 until 1967.

Early life Otto Hantke was born on 21 January 1907, in Kietrz, Upper Silesia.

Budzyń concentration camp From September to December 1942, Hantke helped establish and served as the first commandant of the Budzyń labor camp, where the inmates were slave laborers at a Heinkel aircraft factory.

He was replaced as commandant at Poniatowa by Gottlieb Hering, who had served as commandant of the Belzec death camp. Hantke was convicted of killing four Jews between 1942 and 1943. After Hantke's conviction, the court sentenced him to life imprisonment.