Hermann Florstedt

Arthur Hermann Florstedt
SS-Hauptsturmführer Florstedt
Born	18 February 1895 Bitsch, German Empire
Died	15 April 1945 (aged 50) Buchenwald camp, Germany
Allegiance	Nazi Germany
Service/branch	Schutzstaffel
Years of service	1931-1945
Rank	SS-Standartenführer
Commands held	Majdanek concentration camp

Arthur Hermann Florstedt (18 February 1895 – 15 April 1945), NSDAP card number 488 573 (the SS: 8660), was a Nazi German war criminal and convicted war profiteer. He became the third Commandant of Majdanek concentration camp in October 1942. A World War I veteran, Florstedt was awarded the Iron Cross by Nazi Germany which didn't prevent him from being executed by the SS in 1945.

Early life

Florstedt was born in Bitche, Lorraine near the German border.

Florstedt was given the ranks of SS Untersturmführer on 9 November 1933; Hauptsturmführer on 1 April 1934; Sturmbannführer on 9 June 1934; Obersturmbannführer on 20 April 1935 and Standartenführer on 20 April 1938, a year before the invasion of Poland.

World War II

Florstedt served at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp from 1940 till 1942. He was appointed the third chief of Majdanek extermination camp in October 1942 to replace SS-Sturmbannführer Max Koegel.

Florstedt was investigated by SS Judge Georg Konrad Morgen and charged by the Schutzstaffel (SS) with embezzlement and arbitrarily killing of prisoner witnesses.^[1] Florstedt was one of two Majdanek commandants put on trial by the SS in the course of the camp operation.^[2] He was charged with wholesale stealing from the Third Reich to become rich, partly because of what the camp was initially, merely a storage depot for gold, money and furs stolen from trainloads of Holocaust victims at death factories of Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka.

He was replaced by the interim commander Martin Gottfried Weiss. Florstedt was executed by the SS on 15 April 1945.^[3]

Florstedt was alleged to have had an affair with Oberaufseherin Ilse Koch.

Notes

1. "Konrad Morgen". Investigating corruption within the SS. Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team. 2012. Retrieved 2013-04-23.
2. Staff Writer (2006). "Lublin/Majdanek Concentration Camp: Overview". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. ushmm.org. Retrieved 2013-04-13.
3. "Procesy zbrodniarzy (Trials of war criminals) 1946–1948". Wykaz sądzonych członków załogi KL Lublin/Majdanek. KL Lublin. Retrieved 2013-04-14.