JOSEPH KLEHR
Joseph Klehr (SS-Oberscharführer) was born on October 17, 1904 in Langenau (Upper Silesia) as a teacher's son. After primary school, he became and worked as a joiner until 1934. In that year, he was employed as night porter by the institute where his father worked. At the end of 1934, he became an ambulance man in a sanatorium in Leubus/Silesia. Already in 1932, he had joined the SS and became "Hilfswachtmeister" (assistant seargant) in Wohlau penitentiary. In 1939, the SS drafted him and he came to Buchenwald concentration camp as a guard. One year later, he was transfered to Dachau concentration camp as a first aid man, was advanced to "SS-Unterscharführer" in 1941 and was detached to Auschwitz.
In Auschwitz, he started as ambulance man in charge of the killing of prisoners by using the lethal phenol injections. The phenol solvent was regared as "cheap, easy to handle and absolutely reliable", it was directly injected to the victim's hearts by long needles. Since 1943, Klehr worked as chief of the department for desinfection and as chief of the prisoner's hospital in Gleiwitz I subcamp since 1944 where he attended selections and mass-gassings. Being captured by American soldiers in May 1945, he was condemned to three years labour-camp. Released in 1948, he continued to work as a joiner in Braunschweig until his next arrest in 1960. In the Frankfurt Auschwitz trial in 1965, Klehr was sentenced to lifelong imprisonment for murder of "at least 475 people" and lost his civil rights.
