Karl Künstler

In January 1939, Künstler became commandant at Flossenbürg concentration camp after the previous commandant Jakob Weiseborn had committed suicide on 20 January 1939. Under Künstler, who was regarded as arbitrary, the death toll skyrocketed. In addition, he was responsible for mass executions of Polish and Soviet prisoners, introduced a special two-week holiday for the guards, and also shot prisoners on the run.

In August 1942, Künstler was relieved from his post as commandant of the camp by Oswald Pohl. He was succeeded for two months by his deputy, Schutzhaftlagerführer Karl Fritzsch, before Egon Zill was appointed camp commandant. The reasons for Künstler's dismissal as camp commandant lay in his debauchery and his chronic alcohol abuse. Künstler, like other concentration camp commandants and personnel, was caught in the sights of SS judge Georg Konrad Morgen, who prosecuted corruption in the concentration camps. After that, he was demoted to the 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division Prinz Eugen and probably died in the Battle of Nuremberg in April 1945. Künstler was declared dead in Erlangen in 1949.^[1]

• Karin Orth: Die Konzentrationslager-SS. dtv, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-423-34085-1
• Tom Segev. Soldiers of Evil: The Commandants of the Nazi Concentration Camps. 1988, ISBN 0-07-056058-7
• Karin Orth: Das System der nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager. Pendo Verlag, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-85-842-450-1
• Ernst Klee. Das Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 2005, ISBN 3-596-16048-0