Joseph Kramer

(1906-1946)

Joseph Kramer was born in Germany in 1906. He joined the Schutzstaffel (SS) and in 1934 joined the concentration camp service.

Kramer served in the Natzweiler camp before being appointed as the commandant of Auschwitz and later Belsen. In 1945, numbers in the camp increased from 15,000 to nearly 50,000. When the camp was liberated by Allied forces at the end of the Second World War they found more than 13,000 corpses.

At the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial Kramer was accused of selling off camp food supplies during 1945. Joseph Kramer was found guilty and executed on October 1, 1946.