English source-aligned edition
Max Pauly
Max Pauly served as commandant of Stutthof concentration camp, subsequently Neuengamme concentration camp and its satellite-camp network. The profile reconstructs the person’s function in Stutthof, Danzig–West Prussia, Hamburg and Neuengamme 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
- Pauly commanded Stutthof concentration camp until August 1942 and then Neuengamme concentration camp and its expanding network of satellite camps until the end of the war.
- In sworn testimony dated 3 July 1946, he described the administrative subordination of food, labour, medical care and executions to central SS offices; the document is a perpetrator source and must be tested against the trial evidence.
- The Neuengamme memorial documents that the main trial addressed executions, the gassing of Soviet prisoners of war, medical experiments and violence against prisoners for which the commandant's office was responsible.
- Bullenhuser Damm documentation establishes that Pauly transmitted to the camp doctor an order to murder 20 Jewish children used in experiments.
Place in the chain of responsibility
Pauly makes it possible to describe the commandant's office as a node transmitting orders between the WVHA/RSHA, doctors, labour administration and executors. The profile does not reduce responsibility to the title of commandant, but identifies a specific flow of orders and the matters adjudicated at Neuengamme.
Key events and mechanisms
- commanding Stutthof concentration camp in 1939–1942
- taking charge of Neuengamme concentration camp and its satellite-camp network in 1942
- transmitting the order to kill the Bullenhuser Damm children in April 1945
- the Neuengamme main trial from 18 March to 3 May 1946 and execution on 8 October 1946
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
A British military court in the Neuengamme main trial found Pauly guilty of war crimes and sentenced him to death on 3 May 1946. He was hanged at Hameln on 8 October 1946.
Limits of the evidence
The British trial concerned crimes at Neuengamme and its satellite camps, not the full record of his earlier command at Stutthof. Pauly's own testimony is defensive. The profile does not automatically attribute every act of staff to him; it identifies the scope of command and the documented transmission of the Bullenhuser Damm order.
Sources
The source set combines institutional, archival, trial or scholarly material from at least two independent publishers.