Bruno Kitt
Bruno Kitt (9 August 1906 in Heilsberg in East Prussia – 8 October 1946 in Hamelin) was a German physician and SS officer. He worked in Auschwitz and Neuengamme as a concentration camp doctor.
Biography
Kitt was the son of a teacher. After his Abitur, he began the study of natural sciences, then graduated and studied medicine at the University of Münster and received his MD PhD. After the Machtergreifung, he joined the NSDAP in May 1933 and soon thereafter the SS (SS-Nr. 246,756). After graduation, he found a job as an assistant and later as a senior medical officer.
During the Second World War, he was drafted in March 1942 into the Waffen-SS, and graduated from basic training at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.[1] From June 1942 he was a camp doctor at Auschwitz concentration camp. Among other things, he served in Auschwitz II (Birkenau) as a chief physician of the women's prisoner hospital. In this function, he also selected the sick female prisoners to be gassed.[2] He had to be treated in the hospital because he contracted typhus. At times he was a camp doctor in Monowitz concentration camp (Auschwitz III).[1] The Auschwitz survivor Hermann Langbein describes Kitt as a very intelligent and sometimes even accessible camp doctor, who was not a fanatical Nazi. Kitt had once asked his superior Eduard Wirths to be replaced as a camp doctor so that he did not have to partake in selections. Wirths briefly entrusted Kitt with the duties of a military doctor, but Kitt was not absolved of selections of incoming transports of prisoners.[3] In mid-September 1943, Kitt received the War Merit Cross, 2nd Class with Swords and was promoted to SS-Hauptsturmführer. In July 1944, Kitt married Cläre Maus. Maus had been working as a laboratory assistant in Auschwitz concentration camp.[4] The couple had a son.[1]
After the evacuation of Auschwitz in January 1945, Kitt was transferred to Neuengamme concentration camp in February 1945, where he worked under the garrison physician Alfred Trzebinski as a camp physician until April or early May 1945.[4] Kitt was responsible both for the treatment of members of the camp SS as well as the classification of concentration camp prisoners with respect to their ability to work. When the war was nearing its end in Europe, he escorted prisoners from the subcamps of Neuengamme to Stalag X-B. From there he accompanied a prisoner transport from Flensburg to Malmö and then returned to northern Germany.[1]
After the war, he was arrested by the British Army and was tried at the Neuengamme trial for participating in crimes in Neuengamme concentration camp. On 3 May 1946, Kitt was sentenced to death by hanging and executed by Albert Pierrepoint on 8 October 1946 in Hamelin.[4]
Literature
- Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum (ed.): Auschwitz in den Augen der SS. Oświęcim 1998, ISBN 83-85047-35-2
- Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich. Wer war was vor und nach 1945. 2. Auflage. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8
- Ernst Klee: Auschwitz. Täter, Gehilfen, Opfer und was aus ihnen wurde. Ein Personenlexikon. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2013, ISBN 978-3-10-039333-3
- Hermann Langbein: Menschen in Auschwitz. Frankfurt am Main, Berlin Wien, Ullstein-Verlag, 1980, ISBN 3-548-33014-2
References
- 1 2 3 4 "Offenes Archiv" der KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme
- ↑ Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum (ed.): Auschwitz in den Augen der SS. Oswiecim 1998, p. 233
- ↑ Hermann Langbein: Menschen in Auschwitz. Frankfurt am Main, 1980, p. 406f
- 1 2 3 Ernst Klee: Auschwitz. Täter, Gehilfen, Opfer und was aus ihnen wurde. Ein Personenlexikon, Frankfurt am Main 2013, p. 216