The Nazi Soldier Whose Brutality Shocked Even the Nazis
The “Hangman” of Buchenwald: An Untold Holocaust Horror Story
One of the Nazi dictatorship’s most peculiar aspects was its apparent internal inconsistencies. They had no qualms about engaging in mass murder, genocide, or terrible, cruel medical experimentation. Still, they did have difficulties with the brutality that was out of line with their policies.
Murder and torture were sanctioned, but only if carried out in a strictly Nazi fashion. Concentration camp guard Walter Gerhard Martin Sommer was an SS Hauptscharführer. After his time in Sachsenhausen, he was sent to Buchenwald, where he first became known as the infamous “Hangman of Buchenwald.”
The Excesses of Cruelty
The son of Thuringian farmers, he came into the world in Schkölen in 1915. At the tender age of sixteen, Sommer joined the Nazi Party in 1931 and the SS the following year. In addition, he was a sick sadist.
He was sent from Sachsenhausen to Buchenwald, where he exercised absolute authority over the inmates in his cell block. Later, he was elevated to Chief Penal Officer after serving as head of the punishment bunker. Somner was under Karl Koch’s command in both camps.
