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Erich Lachmann

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Allegiance
  
Nazi Germany

Years of service
  
1933—1945


Name
  
Erich Lachmann

Service/branch
  
Schutzstaffel

Erich Lachmann httpsuploadwikimediaorgwikipediacommonsthu

Born
  
6 November 1909 Liegnitz, German Empire (
1909-11-06
)

Rank
  
Scharfuhrer, SS (Sergeant)

Died
  
January 23, 1972, Wegscheid, Germany

Unit
  
Sobibor extermination camp

Other work
  
Police officer, Stonemasonry

Erich Lachmann (6 November 1909 – 23 January 1972) was an SS functionary who participated in the Operation Reinhard in the Sobibor extermination camp.

Erich Lachmann Erich Lachmann Wikipedia

From September 1941, at Trawniki concentration camp Lachmann trained Ukrainians who had volunteered to be guards at the Reinhard death camps. According to Lachmann's own statement, he was in Sobibor as commander of the Ukrainian guards since August 1943. However, witnesses state that he was in the camp starting exactly one year earlier. Fellow SS man Erich Bauer called him "a boozer and somebody who stole like the ravens". Sobibor prisoners such as Eda Lichtman and Abraham Margulies witnessed him rape young girls. When Franz Reichleitner took over command of Sobibor from Franz Stangl, he sent Lachmann back to Trawniki because he deemed that Lachmann was unfit for duty. From there Lachmann deserted with his Polish girlfriend in the winter of 1942-43. He was arrested several months later in Warsaw and sentenced by an SS and police court to six years in prison. However, he was released in April 1945 during the final stages of the war, captured by the Soviet Red Army and survived the war.

In the Sobibor Trial in Hagen, which lasted from 6 September 1965 to 20 December 1966, he was accused of participating in the mass murder of approximately 150,000 Jews. Lachmann was quoted as saying: "I had nothing against the Jews. I regarded them as all other people. My suits I previously bought from a Jew, Max Süssmann, who had a textile firm in Liegnitz." The court found Lachmann to be mentally incompetent and he was acquitted because of "putative duress".

References

Erich Lachmann Wikipedia