English source-aligned edition
August Bender
August Bender served as second camp physician involved in prisoner selections at Buchenwald. The profile reconstructs the person’s function in Buchenwald · Weimar through documented office, decisions, supervision or operational conduct. It does not assign every crime committed by an institution or region to one individual.
Confirmed findings
- Heinrich August Bender was born on 2 March 1909 at Kreuzau and died on 29 December 2005 at Düren. (Source: LVR, Portal Rheinische Geschichte, lines 25, 31, 40–57 and 65; biography, camp-physician role, selections, sentence reduction and release)
- He returned to Buchenwald in January 1944 and became second camp physician in August 1944; he examined prisoners for labour fitness and participated in selections for transports to Auschwitz-Birkenau. (Source: LVR, Portal Rheinische Geschichte, lines 25, 31, 40–57 and 65; biography, camp-physician role, selections, sentence reduction and release)
- On 14 August 1947 he received a 10-year prison sentence; on 8 June 1948 it was reduced to 3 years, and he was released from Landsberg on 21 June 1948. (Source: LVR, Portal Rheinische Geschichte, lines 25, 31, 40–57 and 65; biography, camp-physician role, selections, sentence reduction and release)
Place in the chain of responsibility
Bender’s responsibility rests on his medical office within the camp apparatus, his documented participation in selections determining forced labour and the deportation of sick and weak prisoners, and the tribunal’s conviction. (Source: LVR, Portal Rheinische Geschichte, lines 25, 31, 40–57 and 65; biography, camp-physician role, selections, sentence reduction and release)
Key events and mechanisms
- January 1944 – returned to Buchenwald as a physician for SS and commandant’s-office personnel (Source: LVR, Portal Rheinische Geschichte, lines 25, 31, 40–57 and 65; biography, camp-physician role, selections, sentence reduction and release)
- August 1944 – became second camp physician and participated in prisoner selections (Source: LVR, Portal Rheinische Geschichte, lines 25, 31, 40–57 and 65; biography, camp-physician role, selections, sentence reduction and release)
- 14 August 1947 – 10-year sentence; 8 June 1948 – reduced to 3 years; 21 June 1948 – released (Source: LVR, Portal Rheinische Geschichte, lines 25, 31, 40–57 and 65; biography, camp-physician role, selections, sentence reduction and release)
The circle records authority, function and agency. Several profiles may describe different parts of the same persecution chain, so profile-level totals must not be added together.
Postwar accountability
On 14 August 1947 Bender was sentenced to 10 years in prison; on 8 June 1948 the term was reduced to 3 years, and on 21 June 1948 he was released. A later investigation ended without a new indictment. (Source: Arolsen Archives, Arolsen School handbook, PDF p. 35, lines 617–622; Bender as a Buchenwald physician and the problem of inadequate accountability)
Limits of the evidence
The institutional sources document selections and the subsequent conviction, but this profile does not attribute a specified killing personally to Bender without individualized evidence. Wikimedia Commons classifies the portrait as a public-domain official work of the U.S. Army Signal Corps; the Commons file is used with archive provenance. (Source: Buchenwald Photo Archive, record 026-00.003; identity, dates, role, sentence and photograph-rights status)
Sources
The source set combines institutional, archival, trial or scholarly material from at least two independent publishers.