Maximilian Grabner

As Gestapo chief, Grabner was responsible, among other things, for the fight against the resistance movement in the camp, as well as for the prevention of escapes and all contact with the outside world. These tasks were carried out with horrendous cruelties against the prisoners and a large number of incarcerations in the bunker in Block 11. Grabner's staff members, such as Wilhelm Boger, who was only brought to justice in the early 1960s, carried out so-called sharpened interrogations, during which the victims were systematically tortured.

In 1943, Grabner was arrested for theft, graft and corruption and was put on trial in Weimar a year later. He was found guilty and sentenced to 12 years in prison. After the trial, he returned to Katowice. It is not known if he served any time in prison. Grabner was then arrested by the Allies in 1945 and turned over to Poland in 1947. In the Auschwitz Trial he was found guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to death. Grabner was hanged on 24 January 1948.

Born in Vienna, Grabner joined the Austrian police force in 1930 and became a member of the then-illegal Nazi Party in 1933. After the Anschluß of Austria in 1938, he joined the SS and became a member of the Gestapo. He arrived at Katowice at the outbreak of World War II. He was transferred to Auschwitz concentration camp less than one year later where he became Chief of the Politische Abteilung ("camp Gestapo").

Maximilian Grabner (2 October 1905 – 24 January 1948) was an Austrian Gestapo chief in Auschwitz. At Auschwitz, the infamous torture chamber Block 11 was Grabner's own empire. He was executed for crimes against humanity.