Kristan Otto, Member: Fill & Download for Free

Contrary to popular perception maybe, the concentration camps were run as a “tight ship” with personal theft and embezzlement by staff extremely frowned upon by the camp head office at Sachsenhausen outside of Berlin. All of the “loot” from the camps was supposed to be accounted for and sent back for “official use”.Which is why you have guys like Konrad Morgen, the SS Judge who investigated corruption in the concentration camps.He presided over more than 700 trials against camp administration staff for fraud, corruption and murder during the war . He was so successful at taking down some “big names” that he was not a popular figure himself among the camps and he had antagonists who actively plotted against him and had him sent to the Front to fight in 1943 (generally not something anyone wanted to happen to themselves). SS leader Himmler brought him back to “sniff out corrupt networks” in the camps again and he ended up surviving the war, testified at Nuremberg, became “de-nazified”, and lived until 1982. To be clear, he didn’t disapprove of the camps in general. He disapproved of the staff becoming corrupt, or “making up their own rules”, or otherwise profiting from what should be “official business”.Georg Konrad Morgen - Wikipediahttp://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/trials/konradmorgen.htmlAnd then you have people like Karl-Otto Koch .. the corrupt camp commandant at Buchenwald who enriched himself with camp loot, and “illegally” executed prisoners to hide his transgressions. He was convicted of corruption and sentenced to death by Morgen’s SS court shortly before the end of the war. He was executed by firing squad at Buchenwald and his body was thrown in the crematorium.Here he is with his wife Ilse Koch, The Bitch of Buchenwald, at their home.Karl-Otto Koch - WikipediaOther commandants were similarly put on trial by SS Court and executed for corruption, such as Majdanek Commandant, Hermann Florstedt.Hermann Florstedt - WikipediaOr Karl Künstler, at Flossenburg, who was dismissed for “debauchery”.Karl Künstler - WikipediaEnriching yourself from camp loot, and “living it up”, had pretty serious consequences, much like gang members dont want to steal from money that should be going up to their bosses.So most of the Commandants *wouldnt* be so wealthy. They had comfortable lives with a nice house or estate with servants at the camp. Most of them had established a nice lower-upper class lifestyle with their careers in the SS before the war. But other than that .. it was wartime. They were on “temporary assignments” and being moved around from camp to camp, and occasionally up to the front for combat duty. And we are only talking about a timeframe of a few years.They certainly had access to certain “choice picks” from the loot gathered at the camp but they wouldn’t be able to live so extravagantly, if they were so inclined, without drawing attention to themselves.EDIT - Incorrect picture used.