English source-aligned edition
Otto Lätsch
Otto Lätsch served as Lagerführer of the Auschwitz subcamp Gleiwitz IV. The profile reconstructs the person’s function in Gleiwitz IV, Auschwitz 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
- Otto Lätsch was born in Lichtenberg in Lower Silesia on 26 November 1905 and died in Kraków on 24 January 1948. (Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record)
- An SS-Unterscharführer, he first served at Monowitz and then became Lagerführer of Gleiwitz IV, where he directed selections of sick and exhausted prisoners for the gas chambers. (Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record)
- The Supreme National Tribunal found that he abused and shot prisoners and bore responsibility for burning the infirmary during the evacuation; it sentenced him to death on 22 December 1947. (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 records Lätsch’s command decisions, selections for extermination and direct violence established by the judgment, without automatically assigning every crime committed at Gleiwitz IV to him. (Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record)
Key events and mechanisms
- From June to October 1944 he was Lagerführer of Gleiwitz IV; he later served as Rapportführer and handled supplies. (Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record)
- During the evacuation in January 1945, he ordered the infirmary containing abandoned sick prisoners to be burned and took part in violence against those trying to escape. (Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record)
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
The Supreme National Tribunal sentenced him to death on 22 December 1947; the sentence was carried out in Kraków on 24 January 1948. (Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record)
Limits of the evidence
The judicial source and the Auschwitz Museum differ on the number of people who survived the infirmary fire; the profile gives no such number. No portrait with clearly documented publication rights was found. (Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record)
Sources
The source set combines institutional, archival, trial or scholarly material from at least two independent publishers.