English source-aligned edition
Wilhelm Bahr
Wilhelm Bahr served as SS medical orderly at Neuengamme and direct participant in killing prisoners with gas. The profile reconstructs the person’s function in 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
- Wilhelm Bahr was born in Gleschendorf on 25 April 1907 and was executed in Hameln on 8 October 1946. (Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record)
- From 1941 to 1943 he served as an SS medical orderly at Neuengamme concentration camp. (Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record)
- Memorial records state that he released gas into a cell and took part in killing 197 Soviet prisoners of war. (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 attributes to Bahr the direct initiation of the gassing, as confirmed by trial and memorial records, not general responsibility for every killing at Neuengamme. (Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record)
Key events and mechanisms
- In 1942 he released Zyklon B into a sealed cell where 197 Soviet prisoners of war were killed. (Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record)
- In 1946 he was sentenced to death, and the sentence was carried out on 8 October 1946. (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
A British tribunal sentenced him to death in 1946, and the sentence was carried out on 8 October 1946. (Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record; Source: cited institutional or judicial record)
Limits of the evidence
The memorial gives 197 victims, while the record quotes Bahr’s testimony referring to 200 prisoners; the profile preserves that discrepancy rather than creating a falsely uniform figure. No approved portrait for publication 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.