Hans Httig

Personal

Passions

Vocation

German Schutzstaffel (SS) officer and Nazi concentration camp commandant. Following the outbreak of the First World War Hüttig enlisted in the German Imperial Army, seeing action in the East African Campaign and eventually rising to the rank of Feldwebel. Wounded in December 1917, the military hospital where he was being treated was captured by the British Army. Thereafter, Hüttig was sent to a POW camp in Cairo where he was held for two years. He returned to Germany in March 1920, working in a number of clerical jobs. After running his own photography shop (which closed in 1930), Hüttig enlisted in the SS in March 1932 at age 37 as an unpaid volunteer and he joined the Nazi Party soon afterwards. Following the Nazi seizure of national power in 1933, Hüttig was offered and accepted a full-time billet with the SS as part of the SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV). For the next six years Hüttig spent his time touring the concentration camps and being trained for a career in them. His first assignment came when he was appointed deputy to Karl Otto Koch, commandant of Buchenwald concentration camp and a man already known to Hüttig from Dresden. At Buchenwald Hüttig was praised by his superiors for his attitude whilst inmates would later testify to his personal cruelty. After his time at Buchenwald, Hüttig saw service at Sachsenhausen concentration camp and Flossenbürg concentration camp and in both garnered a reputation as a troubleshooter who was suitable for special tasks. Thus he was called upon to oversee the construction of a new facility at Natzweiler-Struthof in Alsace. Following this he spent time in occupied Norway, overseeing the construction of both concentration camps and prisons. Whilst there he commanded the security at Grini concentration camp and served as SS and Police Leader for the country. This assignment ended when he was sent to Herzogenbusch concentration camp as commandant following the removal of Adam Grünewald for his part in the Bunker Tragedy. After the war Hüttig was in Allied internment. He was sentenced to death on 2 July 1954 by a French military court in Metz, but the death sentence was not enforced. In 1956, he was released from detention after eleven years and led a discreet life at home, until his death on 23 February 1980, aged 85, in Wachenheim. Link to Wikipedia biography