Peter Betz (1913)

Born 12 Oct 1913 in Theisenort, Küps, Kronach, Oberfranken, Bavaria, Germany

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Brittany Williams [send private message]

Biography

Peter Betz is born October 12, 1913 in Theisenort, Küps, Kronach, Oberfranken, Bavaria, Germany

He joins the SS on November 1, 1933. From 5 August 1935 he is employed in the Dachau concentration camp and is there first a member of the guard company, which is part of the SS Totenkopfverbandes. In the course of 1938 Betz is temporarily in the office of Schutzhaftlagerführer and then works in the office of the camp commandant until 1943. His duties include in the office of the camp commandant the execution of prisoner transport and the registration and handling of deaths. His superiors are Alex Piorkowski, Adam Grünewald, Egon Zill, Michael Redwitz and Franz Hofmann. Betz, who becomes a member of the Waffen-SS on September 2, 1939, is rapport leader from January 1943 to March 1943. He then serves as a commanding officer in external commands. On January 7, 1944, he is transferred to the Dora-Mittelbau subcamp of the Buchenwald concentration camp.

After his arrest, Betz is on 15 November 1945 in the Dachau trial, which takes place in the context of the Dachau trials, due to the charge of war crimes in front of a US military court.

On 13 December 1945 Betz is sentenced to life imprisonment, which is later converted into a temporary prison sentence and further reduced. In the judgment were taken as individual Exzesstaten at Betz the mistreatment of detainees. Betz argues in his defense that he has never mistreated or beaten prisoners. Betz is imprisoned in the war criminal prison Landsberg and is released in January 1954 from custody.

Betz is married and had a child.

Sources

• https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Betz

https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1167607