Anton Kaindl

Who is Anton Kaindl?

Anton Kaindl was an SS-Standartenführer and commandant of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp from 1942-1945.

Kaindl joined the army during the Weimar Republic in May 1920 and served until May 1932, leaving with the rank of sergeant. He worked briefly for a bank in the city of Donauwörth until August 1932, when he took an administrative position with the Reichskuratorium für Jugendertüchtigung. He joined the SS in July 1935 and the Nazi Party in May 1937. In November 1939 he was assigned an administrative position in the SS-Totenkopf Division. He then was transferred to the administrative department of the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps headed by Richard Glucks. Kaindl's next transfer was to Sachsenhausen, where he served as commandant until the evacuation of the camp on April 22, 1945.

He was captured by the Red Army and put on trial in the Sachsenhausen trial held by the Soviet Military Tribunal in the city hall of Pankow, Berlin in October 1947. He was charged along with Sachsenhausen record keeper Gustav Sorge, punishment Blockführer Kurt Eccarius, camp doctor Heinz Baumkötter and 10 other SS officers, one civil servant and two prisoner kapos including Paul Sakowski who served as the crematorium foreman and camp hangman from 1941 to 1943, he was found guilty with 11 of the others.