Arnold Buscher

Arnold Buscher (16 December 1899, Bad Oeynhausen – 2 August 1949) was a German SS officer. At the rank of SS-Obersturmfuhrer, he was the second and last commandant of the Krakow-Plaszow concentration camp, succeeding Amon Goeth, from September 1944 until about January 1945.

Buscher was a member of the SS since 1931. After the outbreak of the Second World War, he worked at various concentration camps: Flossenburg, Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen and Neuengamme.

Buscher succeeded Amon Goeth as the commandant of Krakow-Plaszow concentration camp after Goeth was arrested on 13 September 1944. Buscher resisted Oskar Schindler's efforts to include 300 Jewish women on his list of Schindlerjuden for work at Schindler's new factory in Brunnlitz, instead sending them with other Jews of the Krakow-Plaszow concentration camp to Auschwitz I. Furthermore, Buscher, perhaps out of spite of Schindler, requested of Auschwitz I commandant Richard Baer that 300 different Jewish women be sent to Schindler's factory. Ultimately, Schindler was able to pay Baer to send him his 300 female Schindlerjuden.

On 23 January 1948, Buscher was sentenced to death in Poland for his deeds at Plaszow. He was executed by hanging on August 2, 1949.