Heinrich Deubel

Who was Heinrich Deubel?

Heinrich Deubel was a German soldier, civil servant and officer in the Schutzstaffel who served as commandant of Dachau concentration camp.

Deubel was born in Ortenburg. The son of a postman, he joined the German Imperial Army and spent 12 years in the service, although he was to spend most of the First World War in a British prisoner of war camp. Right-wing by inclination, Deubel had been involved with the Freikorps and other rightist and anti-Semitic groups from an early age. He became involved with the Nazis in the early 1920s at the same time as Egon Zill and was amongst the first 200 members of the SS. Deubel was a civil servant with the customs office and actually took a leave of absence to join the SS rather than forgo his civil service pension.

Deubel was an inspector at Dachau concentration camp in 1934 when commandant Theodor Eicke was promoted to a role overseeing all concentration camps. Deubel, by then an Oberfuehrer in the SS, was nominated by Eiche as his successor. Deubel commanded the camp from 1 May 1934 until 20 April 1936 with detainees describing his regime as fairly liberal, especially when compared to that of his successor in the role, Hans Loritz.