Oskar Groening

Oskar Groening was born on 10 June, 1921 in Nienberg, Lower Saxony, Germany. He was the son of a textile worker and a proud nationalist. His grandfather was a soldier in the Duchy of Brunswick.

Groening grew up in a disciplined environment and was fascinated with the military from an early age.

In 1930s, he joined the Scharnhorst, a youth organisation in Stahlhelm.

In 1933, Groening joined the Hitler Youth, the youth organisation of the Nazi Party. He was influenced by the view that National Socialism would be beneficial for Germany.

In 1938, he graduated from high school and started working as a trainee bank clerk.

In 1940, Groening joined the Waffen-SS, an elite army unit as a SS salary administrator, despite his father’s reluctance.

Till 1942, he worked in this post until the desk jobs were given to injured veterans of the war.

Groening and his 22 colleagues were transferred to the commandment of Auschwitz where he was given responsibilities of handling the currencies of the deportees, sending them to Berlin and safekeeping the private properties of the prisoners.

Groening did not know about the ‘Final Solution’ initially but his desk job could not block him completely from the extermination processes.

He complained about the cruel killings of infants and prisoners inside the camp to his superior but his request for an organized framework was turned down twice.

More than 40 years after the war, he publicly decried the people who said that the Jews were never taken into gas chambers or murdered. Groening maintained that he was innocent and not a defendant because he never volunteered in the mass murders. He says that despite not being a perpetrator, he felt guilt towards Jews.