Arnold Strippel
SS career. Strippel served in various concentration camps starting in 1934, when he joined the SS. His first assignment was at Sachsenburg, his next was Buchenwald, where he participated in the shooting of 21 Jewish inmates on November 9, 1939, following the failed assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler in Munich. While at Buchenwald, Strippel caught an inmate who was using a rope and some paper to alleviate heavy loads he was carrying on his work. This was against camp regulations (stealing Third Reich property), so Strippel decided to make an example out of him. "You used this rope ; you'll hang on a rope. And the whole camp will watch as you twist in the wind." The inmate's hands were tied behind his back and he was lifted two feet off the ground from a tree. The weight of his body was all on the shoulder joints and the pain was "excruciating beyond all description." Strippel's next assignment from March to October 1941 was the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp in Occupied France. Strippel then served in Majdanek near Lublin Poland, Ravensbrück, then at Peenemünde on the Usedom peninsula, in the Karlshagen II forced labor camp, the  site of V-2 rocket production and launches. From there the 's-Hertogenbosch concentration camp in Vught, the Netherlands, more commonly known as Camp Vught. His final assignment was at Neuengamme. Trial and conviction. Strippel was convicted of war crimes at the Third Majdanek Trial before the West German Court in Düsseldorf (1975–1981) for his actions at Buchenwald and at the Majdanek concentration camp, Poland, where he served as deputy commandant (Case no. 145 & 616 in Frankfurt District Court). He was implicated in the torture and killing of many dozens of prisoners including 42 Soviet POWs in July 1942. Strippel received  a nominal -year sentence. He also received 121,500 Deutsche Mark reimbursement for the loss of earnings and his social security contributions, which he used to purchase a condominium on Talstrasse in Frankfurt Kalbach, which he occupied until his death. In popular culture. A character inspired by Strippel was featured in the 1989 film "The Rose Garden".