Richard Baer

Richard Baer (9 September 1911 – 17 June 1963) was a German SS officer who, among other assignments, was the final commandant of Auschwitz I concentration camp from May 1944 to January 1945, and right after, from February to April 1945, commandant of Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp. Following the war, Baer lived under an assumed name to avoid prosecution but was recognized and arrested in December 1960. He died in detention before he could stand trial.

Life Born in Floss, Bavaria in 1911, Baer grew up in a Protestant family. In 1925, he moved to Weiden in der Oberpfalz, where he performed a three-year apprenticeship to become a pastry chef. After completing his vocational training, Baer toured Bavaria for several years as a journeyman. Eventually, in the winter of 1932, he returned to the pastry company of his apprenticeship and worked there until he resigned in March 1933.

Baer joined the Nazi Party in 1930, and on 1 July 1932, he became a member of the Allgemeine SS. In the local SS post in Weiden, he met the future concentration camp commandant Martin Gottfried Weiss. Under the direction of Weiss, a small SS gang offered protection to speakers at weekend public meetings of the Nazi Party in the surrounding villages. Baer later stated that he had joined the Allgemeine SS because he liked the "soldier discipline" and the "joy of playing soldiers". Baer described the training for guard duty in Dachau as being "very strict" and "sharply polished": "The more we were polished, the more proud we were of it".

From December 1934 to end-March 1935, Baer performed guard duty at the infamous Gestapo prison Columbia-Haus in Berlin. He was later assigned to the SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV) 2nd regiment Brandenburg, which in 1936 was involved in the build up of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.

The story of Baer's arrest is vividly recounted by Devin Pendas in his book The Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial. After seeing a wanted picture in the tabloid newspaper Bild-Zeitung, a co-worker on Fürst von Bismarck's estate reported that Baer was working as a forester there. When officials confronted "Neumann" on the early morning of 20 December 1960, he at first denied everything. Having already addressed Baer as her "husband", the woman in the house subsequently gave her name as "Frau Baer", but still claimed that Baer was named "Neumann". However, Baer finally admitted his true identity. On the advice of his lawyer, Baer refused to testify. He died of a heart attack while in pre-trial detention in 1963.