Arnold Strippel

Confirmed findings

• Arnold Georg Strippel was born in Unshausen on 2 June 1911 and died in Frankfurt am Main on 1 May 1994; from 1938 he served as Rapportführer at Buchenwald and later commanded satellite camps. (Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record)
• As Rapportführer he participated in corporal punishments and personally beat prisoners; the courts also examined his role in selecting 21 Jewish prisoners who were killed in the Buchenwald quarry on 9 November 1939. (Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record)
• The 1949 judgment, comprising 21 life terms for joint murder and 10 years for violence against prisoners, was revised: in 1967 he was acquitted on a serious-bodily-injury count and received 5 years for the remaining offences, while in 1970 the case concerning the 21 deaths was classified as a single collective act of aiding murder and drew 6 years. (Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record)
• In the Majdanek trial in 1981, he was sentenced to 3 years and 6 months for aiding the murder of 41 Soviet prisoners of war; he did not serve the sentence because of his health. (Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record)

Place in the chain of responsibility

The profile bases Strippel’s individual responsibility on final convictions for camp violence and for aiding murder at Buchenwald and Majdanek. It does not automatically attribute to him every crime committed by units under his authority. (Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record)

Key events and mechanisms

• On 9 November 1939, as Rapportführer, he participated in the operation preceding the shooting of 21 Jewish prisoners at Buchenwald. (Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record)
• Between 1949 and 1970, successive proceedings changed the legal classification of his role in the killing of 21 prisoners and set the final sentence at 6 years. (Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record)
• In 1981, the Majdanek trial imposed 3 years and 6 months, a sentence he did not serve for health reasons. (Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record)

Postwar accountability

In 1949 he received 21 life terms and an additional 10 years. On 22 November 1949, the appellate court overturned one grievous-bodily-harm conviction and the aggregate sentence; on 16 February 1950, the trial court reimposed the same result for that remanded part. In 1967 a retrial acquitted him on that count but sentenced him to 5 years for the remaining violence offences; he was released on 21 April 1969. In 1970 another retrial reclassified the killing of 21 prisoners as aiding murder and imposed 6 years, already served, after which he received compensation for excess imprisonment. In 1981 he received 3 years and 6 months in the Majdanek case but remained out of custody on health grounds (Haftverschonung). Bullenhuser Damm investigations were closed in 1967 and 1973; they reopened in 1979, a murder charge was filed in 1983, and the case ended in 1987 because he remained unfit to stand trial. The Vught investigation was closed in 1982. (Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record)

Limits of the evidence

Sources

The source set combines institutional, archival, trial or scholarly material from at least two independent publishers.

• Justiz und NS-Verbrechen
• Justiz und NS-Verbrechen
• Justiz und NS-Verbrechen
• media.offenes-archiv.de
• degruyterbrill.com