Fritz Klein

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title: "Fritz Klein" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1945-deaths", "1888-births", "auschwitz-concentration-camp-medical-personnel", "austro-hungarian-military-personnel-of-world-war-i", "belsen-trial-executions", "executed-german-mass-murderers", "executed-romanian-people", "holocaust-perpetrators-in-poland", "people-from-codlea", "physicians-in-the-nazi-party", "neuengamme-concentration-camp-personnel", "perpetrators-of-the-romani-holocaust", "romanian-military-personnel-of-world-war-ii", "waffen-ss-personnel"] description: "Nazi physician (1888–1945)" topic_path: "history" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Klein" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Nazi physician (1888–1945) ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox criminal"]

Field	Value
name	Fritz Klein
birth_date
death_date
birth_place	Feketehalom, Austria-Hungary
death_place	Hamelin Prison, Hamelin, Allied-occupied Germany
image	Fritz Klein.jpgborder
caption	Klein at his trial in 1945
module	{{Infobox military person
allegiance	Nazi Germany
branch	Flag Schutzstaffel.svg Schutzstaffel
death_cause	Execution by hanging
conviction	War crimes
conviction_status	Executed
criminal_penalty	Death
motive	Nazism
trial	Belsen trial
victims	Thousands
beginyear	1943
endyear	1944
country	Poland
locations	Auschwitz concentration camp
::

| name = Fritz Klein | birth_date = | death_date = | birth_place = Feketehalom, Austria-Hungary | death_place = Hamelin Prison, Hamelin, Allied-occupied Germany | image = Fritz Klein.jpgborder | caption = Klein at his trial in 1945 | module = {{Infobox military person|embed=yes | allegiance = Nazi Germany | branch = Flag Schutzstaffel.svg Schutzstaffel | death_cause = Execution by hanging | conviction = War crimes | conviction_status = Executed | criminal_penalty = Death | motive = Nazism | trial = Belsen trial | victims = Thousands | beginyear = 1943 | endyear = 1944 | country = Poland | locations = Auschwitz concentration camp Fritz Klein (24 November 1888 – 13 December 1945) was a Romanian-German Nazi doctor and war criminal, hanged for his role in atrocities at Auschwitz concentration camp and Bergen-Belsen concentration camp during the Holocaust.

Early life, education, and Nazi soldier

Klein was born in Feketehalom, Austria-Hungary (now Codlea in central Romania).

Klein was considered a Volksdeutscher, or ethnic German. He studied medicine at the University of Budapest and completed his military service in Romania, finishing his studies in Budapest after World War I. He lived and worked as a doctor in Siebenbürgen (Transylvania), Romania.

In 1939, as a Romanian citizen, he was drafted into the Romanian army, where, after the outbreak of the war with the Soviet Union in 1941, he served as a paramedic on the eastern front. In May 1943, Romanian fascist dictator Marshal Antonescu, on a demand from Hitler to release ethnic Germans in the Romanian Army, drafted them into the German army. Hence Klein became a Nazi soldier in the Waffen-SS, was listed in the SS-Personalhauptamt, and posted to Yugoslavia.

Nazi camp doctor and execution

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/90/Fritz_Klein_Belsen.jpg" caption="Klein surrounded by bodies. The British Army liberating Bergen-Belsen forced German camp personnel to bury the corpses of prisoners."] ::

On 15 December 1943, he arrived in Auschwitz concentration camp, where at first he served as a camp doctor in the women’s camp in Birkenau. Subsequently, he worked as a camp doctor in the Gypsy camp. He also participated in numerous selections ("Selektionen") on the ramp. In December 1944 he was transferred to Neuengamme concentration camp, from where he was sent to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in January 1945. He remained at the camp with commandant Josef Kramer and assisted in handing it over to British troops. Klein was imprisoned and forced to help bury all unburied corpses in mass graves. The British Army Film and Photographic Unit Number 5 photographed Klein standing in a mass grave, in a well-known 1945 photo (seen on the left).

Klein and 44 other camp staff were tried in the Belsen Trial by a British military court at Lüneburg. The trial lasted several weeks, from September to November 1945. During the trial Anita Lasker testified that Klein took part in selections for the gas chamber.

Klein was sentenced to death and hanged at Hamelin prison by Albert Pierrepoint on 13 December 1945.

References

References

1. ro
2. (1947). "Law reports of trials of war criminals, selected and prepared by the United Nations War Crimes Commission. – Volume II, The Belsen Trial". [[United Nations War Crimes Commission]].
3. (1945-11-17). "30 GERMANS GUILTY OF CAMP MURDERS; Kramer, Irma Grese and 28 Belsen and Oswiecim Guards Convicted--14 Acquitted SENTENCING SLATED TODAY Soldiers Search Spectators Entering Court to Prevent Violence at Decisions Acquittal of 14 a Surprise List of Those Convicted". The New York Times.
4. [[Associated Press]] (14 December 1945). [https://archive.today/20130131201816/http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/csmonitor_historic/access/268335862.html?dids=268335862:268335862&FMT=ABS 11 Belsen Gang Leaders Hanged for War Crimes], ''[[Christian Science Monitor]]''; accessed 7 April 2018.

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