The guards included 50 SS men (Schutzstaffel “protection squadron” and SS-Totenkopfverbände "death’s head units") housed in the dining room on the ground floor, and included many so-called ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche). The command leader was SS-Oberscharführer (“senior squad leader”) Ludwig Plagge, who was considered one of the “most brutal and cruel SS men” and was sentenced to death in the Auschwitz trial in Kraków in January 1947. His deputy was SS-Oberscharführer Erich Liedtke, who often beat and mistreated the prisoners without cause. John Demjanjuk, who was convicted of aiding and abetting murder in 2011, is said to have been among the SS guards.