Otto Hantke

Otto Hantke
Born(1907-01-21)21 January 1907
Kietrz, Upper Silesia, German Empire
Died1986 (aged 78–79)
AllegianceNazi Germany
Service / branchSchutzstaffel
RankUnterscharführer
Commands

Otto Hantke (21 January 1907 – 1986) was a German SS-Unterscharführer, convicted murderer, and war criminal in German-occupied Poland during the Holocaust.[1] Hantke joined the Nazi Party and the SS by 1933. Between at least 1942 and 1944, Hantke served as the commandant of the Budzyń labor camp and Poniatowa concentration camp, both subcamps of the Majdanek concentration camp, and was an SS officer at the Lipowa 7 concentration camp and Stutthof concentration camp.[2]

In his role at Poniatowa, Hantke helped coordinate the deportation of Jews to the camp during the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.[3]

For his participation during the Holocaust, Hantke was imprisoned in Germany from 1960 until 1967.[4] In 1974, at the age of 67, Hantke was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for crimes committed in 1942 and 1943, including shooting to death at least four people during the deportation of Jews from Krasnik in November 1942.[5][6]

  1. ^ "The Budzyn Remembrance Project: List of the SS Men". The Budzyn Remembrance Project. Retrieved 5 February 2023.
  2. ^ Friedrich, Klaus-Peter (2014). Polen: Generalgouvernement August 1941 – 1945. Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Juden durch das nationalsozialistische Deutschland 1933–1945 (in German). Vol. IX. Munich: Oldenbourg Verlag. p. 640. doi:10.1524/9783486735987. ISBN 978-3-486-73598-7.
  3. ^ "German Figures in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising". Holocaust Historical Society. Retrieved 1 February 2023.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ "Ex‐Nazi Jailed in Hamburg". The New York Times. Reuters. 26 July 1974. Retrieved 1 February 2023.
  6. ^ Megargee, Geoffrey (2012). Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945: Volume II. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. pp. 660–661. ISBN 978-0-253-00202-0. Retrieved 1 February 2023.