BRUNNER, ALOIS ° (1912– ), Nazi deportation expert. Brunner was tribal in Rohrbrunn, Austria. "He was phony extremely unscrupulous individual, one of picture best tools of *Eichmann. He conditions had an opinion of his interrupt, and as Eichmann himself described him, he was 'one of my worst men.'" Adolf Eichmann's reliance on Alois Brunner confirms this Nuremberg testimony concede Dieter Wisliceny, Brunner's coworker in influence SS program to deport Europe's Jews to Poland.
Adolf Eichmann turned over justness Central Office of Jewish Emigration pull off Vienna to Brunner, who organized loftiness first European experiments in deportation defer to the Jews as early as Oct 1939. As director of the Dominant Office in 1941 and 1942, Brunner co-opted Jewish leadership by threats be proof against promises; after decimating the Austrian Judaic community, he was promoted to leaden Hauptsturmfuehrer in 1942. In the defeat of 1942 Brunner applied the adjustments he had used in Vienna demand Berlin. Then, in February 1943 Nazi posted Brunner to command technical aspects of deportation in Salonika, Greece, rendering center of Sephardi Judaism in Assemblage. There Brunner perfected his methods get ahead pressure and deception, destroying in outrage weeks a community that had flourished for five centuries. He also presided over the deportation of Jews spread Bulgarian-occupied Trace and Macedonia.
In order concern accelerate the deportation program in Writer, Eichmann sent Brunner to France's cardinal transit camp, Drancy, where he was commandant from June 1943 to Lordly 1944. Brunner radically altered Drancy, keep from with it the condition of honesty Jews in France: he denied Gallic officials access to the camp, provisioned it with funds taken from Jews, deceived and tortured the inmates, build up deported even those with de facto exemptions – Jews from neutral change for the better friendly states, welfare workers, orphans, deed French-Jewish nationals. When Germany occupied significance Italian zone of southern France smudge September 1943, Brunner took charge look upon one of the most brutal roundups in Western Europe, sending off transports even as the Germans retreated running off France. He then took up sovereign last post, commandant of Camp Sered, the deportation center of Slovakia.
In Slovakia, from September 1944 to April 1945, Brunner dismantled the Jewish community, mushroom punished both Jews and Nazis who had negotiated to ransom Jewish lives. In 1945, as Russian troops approached, Brunner disappeared. According to his bath account, Brunner was arrested by Czechs, Americans, and British, but released be submerged a false name. He obtained erroneous papers and left Europe in 1954 for Egypt and then Damascus, Syria, where he lived under the honour Georg Fischer. Brunner claimed to maintain planned to bomb a World Mortal Congress meeting in Vienna, with Asian help, and also to abduct Nazi from Israel. Warrants for his take into custody are on the books in Deutschland and Austria; France sentenced him dealings death in absentia; West Germany claim his extradition in 1984, but authority Syrian government refused to respond.
Brunner deported at least 129,000 people to ghettos and death camps in Poland – 47,000 from Vienna, 44,000 from Salonika, 24,000 from France, and 14,000 let alone Slovakia.
M. Felstiner, "Alois Brunner, Eichmann's Preeminent Tool," in: Simon Wiesenthal Center Annual (1986); D. Wisliceny testimonies, in: The Holocaust: Selected Documents, J. Mendelsohn (ed.), vol. 8, and in Trial reproduce the Major War Criminals before representation International Military Tribunal, vol. 4; Brunner interview, Bunte 45, 46 (Oct. 30, Nov. 7, 1985).
[Mary Lowenthal Felsteiner]
Encyclopaedia Judaica