Fritz Ritterbusch Explained

Fritz Ritterbusch (11 January 1894 – 14 May 1946) was a Nazi SS-Haupftsturmführer, a member of the crew of the Hinzert concentration camp, Lublin and Gross-Rosen and others. He was a commander of the Trautenau-Parschnitz camp.^[1]

Family

He was born in Zschakau (now Beilrode) near Torgau, Germany, a professional civil servant. His father Hermann Ritterbusch was a brickworks master from Zschakau.^[2] His brother Paul Ritterbusch was a NS-science functionary, his brother Willi Ritterbusch was general commissioner of the Netherlands 1943–1945.^[3]

Nazi military career

He participated in World War I, serving in the 153rd and 264th Infantry Regiment. He was a member of the Sturmabteilung, NSDAP on 25 January 1925 (Member No. 6,317) and SS from 1931 (Registration No. 9,107).

From early 1940 to 30 January 1941 he held an unspecified role in the Division IV camp Flossenbürg concentration camp, where then was transferred to the post of commander of one of the camp guard companies. The camp moved to the headquarters staff of Hinzert concentration camp, where he was adjutant to the commandant of the camp, Paul Sporrenberg. On 18 June 1943 he moved to KL Lublin. In March 1944, he was moved to KL Gross-Rosen where from May 1944 to 13 February 1945 he was company commander and the head of sub Parschnitz in Pozice and AL Trautenau in Trutnov in the Czech Republic.^{[4] [5]} 30 January 1945 he was carried to Hauptsturmführer^[6]

He was arrested by Soviet forces on 1 January 1946. On 25 March 1946 he was sentenced to death by a Soviet Military Tribunal, a special form of a court-martial. On 14 May 1946 Ritterbusch was executed at an unknown place.^{[2] [7]}

In November 2002 his trial was revisited by the Main Military State's Attorney of Russia and the sentence was confirmed.^[2]

Notes and References

1. Book: Guṭerman, Belah . A Narrow Bridge to Life: Jewish Forced Labor and Survival in the Gross-Rosen Camp System, 1940-1945. Berghahn Books. 2008. Berghahn Series. 112, 113, 132, 156. 9781845452063.
2. Communication of the German Red Cross from January 20, 2014, referring to information from the Russian Red Cross Society
3. Nieuwe Venlosche Courant v. 13. Dezember 1943, Digitalisat
4. Wolfgang Benz, Barbara Distel, Angelika Königseder (Hrsg.): Der Ort des Terrors: Geschichte der nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager. Band 6. Beck, 2007.
5. Miroslav Kryl, Ludmila Chládková: Pobočky koncentračniho tábora Gross-Rosen ve lnářských závodech Trutnovska za nacistické okupace. VHJ Lnářský Průmysl, Trutnov, 1981 (Die Außenlager von Groß-Rosen in den Flachsbetrieben im Trautenau-Gebiet während der nationalsozialistischen Okkupation)
6. Łukasz Najbarowski, Waldemar Sadaj: Numery członków Allgemeine SS oraz Waffen-SS, . Nummern der SS-Mitglieder 9000 bis 9999.
7. The information on his death in an NKVD special camp in 1947 given in: Geoffrey P. Megargee: The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945: Ghettos in German-Occupied Eastern Europe Indiana University Press, 2009, p.777, cannot be traced to a valid source. The name Ritterbusch is not mentioned in the complete death list of the camp: Initiativgruppe Lager Mühlberg e. V. (eds.): Totenbuch – Speziallager Nr. 1 des sowjetischen NKWD, Mühlberg/Elbe. Mühlberg/Elbe 2008, . Compare also the online version of the death list.