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Forced to join the Waffen-SS? Chief pharmacist Victor Capesius (1907-1985) and his role in Auschwitz concentration camp.

Victor Capesius (1907-1985) attained sad fame as chief pharmacist in the Auschwitz concentration camp. After the war he outlined himself as a victim of his time and claimed to have been forced into the Waffen-SS as a so-called Romanian "Volksdeutscher" (ethnic German). But does this claim stand up to critical scrutiny? What was his actual role in Auschwitz, how did his life develop in the postwar period, how did he himself evaluate his actions in the Third Reich, and to what extent do self-image and historical facts coincide? These are precisely the questions that this article explores. The study is based on primary sources from various archives. These are supplemented and compared with the existing literature on Capesius, the role of pharmacists in the Third Reich, and the Auschwitz concentration camp. The analysis shows that Capesius was not only complicit in the criminal acts in the concentration camp, but directly involved in the systematic killing of thousands of Jewish people - among other things, by dispensing Zyklon B and phenol and by the lethal selection of people at the ramp. The alleged compulsion to join the Waffen-SS, on the other hand, cannot be substantiated. After 1945, Capesius was imprisoned twice by the Allies, but only charged in the first Auschwitz trial in the 1960s. Despite a guilty verdict, he was released from prison as early as 1968. At the end of his life, Capesius could look back on a successful career as a pharmacist and businessman in Germany. At no time did he come to a self-critical evaluation of his role in the Third Reich.