page_title: Monowitz concentration camp
section_title: Overseers
hierarchical_section_title: Monowitz concentration camp / Auschwitz III concentration camp / Overseers
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. 19 Strassenbauarbeiten
context_page_description: Monowitz was a Nazi concentration camp and labor camp run by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland from 1942–1945, during World War II and the Holocaust. For most of its existence, Monowitz was a subcamp of the Auschwitz concentration camp; from November 1943 it and other Nazi subcamps in the area were jointly known as "Auschwitz III-subcamps". In November 1944 the Germans renamed it Monowitz concentration camp, after the village of Monowice where it was built, in the annexed portion of Poland. SS Hauptsturmführer Heinrich Schwarz was commandant from November 1943 to January 1945.
  The SS established the camp in October 1942 at the behest of IG Farben executives to provide slave labor for their Buna Werke industrial complex. The name Buna was derived from the butadiene-based synthetic rubber and the chemical symbol for sodium, a process of synthetic rubber production developed in Germany. Other German industrial enterprises built factories with their own subcamps, such as Siemens-Schuckert's Bobrek subcamp, close to Monowitz, to profit from the use of slave labor.
context_section_description: To a large degree, the SS men from the garrison in Monowice were responsible for the conditions that prevailed in the camp. SS-Obersturmführer Vinzenz Schöttl held the post of Lagerführer during the period when Monowice functioned as one of the many Auschwitz sub-camps. In November 1943, after the reorganization of the administrative system and the division of Auschwitz into three quasi-autonomous components, the camp in Monowice received a commandant of its own. This was SS-Hauptsturmführer Heinrich Schwarz, who until then had been the head of the labor department and Lagerführer in the main camp. At Monowice, he was given authority over the Jawischowitz, Neu-Dachs in Jaworzno, Fürstengrube, Janinagrube in Libiąż, Golleschau in Goleszów, Eintrachthütte in Świętochłowice, Sosnowitz, Lagischa, and Brünn (in Bohemia) sub-camps. Later, the directors of new sub-camps opened at industrial facilities in Silesia and Bohemia answered to him. Rudolf Wilhelm Buchholz and Richard Stolten were SS men there. Also present were: Dr. Bruno Kitt from December 1942 to January 1943 or March 1943, SS-Hauptsturmführer Dr. Hellmuth Vetter; from March 1943 to 20 October 1943, SS-Obersturmführer Dr. Friedrich Entress. From October 1943 to  November 1943, there followed SS-Obersturmführer Dr. Werner Rohde; from November 1943 to September 1944, SS-Hauptsturmführer Dr. Horst Fischer; and finally, from September 1944 to January 1945, SS-Obersturmführer Dr. Hans Wilhelm König.
  Bernhard Rakers was Kommandoführer in 1943, then roll-call leader in Buna/Monowitz concentration camp, sentenced to life in prison in 1953 for murder of prisoners (pardoned in 1971, died in 1980).
  Fritz Löhner-Beda (prisoner number 68561) was a popular song lyricist who was murdered in Monowitz-Buna at the behest of an IG Farben executive, as his friend Raymond van den Straaten testified at the Nuremberg trial of 24 IG Farben executives:
  One day, two Buna inmates, Dr. Raymond van den Straaten and Dr. Fritz Löhner-Beda, were going about their work when a party of visiting IG Farben dignitaries passed by. One of the directors pointed to Dr. Löhner-Beda and said to his SS companion, "This Jewish swine could work a little faster." Another director then chanced the remark, "If they can't work, let them perish in the gas chamber." After the inspection was over, Dr. Löhner-Beda was pulled out of the work party and was beaten and kicked until, a dying man, he was left in the arms of his inmate friend, to end his life in IG Auschwitz.
  In May 1944, the command center of a separate guard battalion (SS-Totenkopfsturmbann KL Auschwitz III) was established in Monowice. It consisted of seven companies, which were assigned to the following sub-camps: the 1st Company to Monowitz, the 2nd Company to Golleschau in Goleszów, and Jawischowitz in Jawiszowice, the 3rd Company to Bobrek, Fürstengrube, Günthergrube, and Janinagrube in Libiąż, the 4th Company to Neu-Dachs in Jaworzno, the 5th Company to Eintrachthütte, Lagischa, Laurahütte, and Sosnowitz II in Sosnowiec, the 6th Company to Gleiwitz I, II and III in Gliwice, and the 7th Company to Blechhammer in Blachownia.
  In September 1944, a total of 1,315 SS men served in these companies. The 439 of them who made up 1 Company were stationed at Monowice, and included not only guards but also the staff of the offices and stores that saw to the needs of the remaining sub-camps.
  In January 1945, the majority of the prisoners were evacuated and sent on a death march to Gliwice, and then carried by train to the Buchenwald and Mauthausen camps.
  Prisoners at the camp in Monowice included the Nobel Peace-Prize winner Elie Wiesel, the prominent Italian writer Primo Levi and the film production designer Willy Holt, informs the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum webpage.
caption: Prisoners at work in Monowitz, identified by striped clothes
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