Erich Muhsfeldt

Muhsfeldt appears as a minor character in the 1983 James Michener novel Poland, and is portrayed by Harvey Keitel in the 2001 film The Grey Zone.

He served as an SS NCO in two extermination camps during World War II in occupied Poland: Auschwitz and Majdanek. After the war, he was tried for war crimes by the U.S. military, found guilty of committing atrocities in Flossenbürg concentration camp, and sentenced to life in prison. However, Muhsfeldt was then extradited to Poland, where the full extent of his war crimes was revealed due to new evidence. He was retried by the Supreme National Tribunal at the Auschwitz Trial in Kraków, and found guilty of crimes against humanity. Muhsfeldt was sentenced to death by hanging in December 1947, and executed on 24 January 1948.

Muhsfeldt testified of the incident before the Polish Court in Kraków in 1947:

After the war had ended, Muhsfeldt was arrested by U.S. military officials. He was tried for committing atrocities in Flossenbürg concentration camp by an American military court. Witnesses said they saw Muhsfeldt beat and shoot multiple prisoners. In January 1947, Muhsfeldt was found guilty and given a life sentence. However, he was then extradited to Poland where he was retried in Kraków by the Supreme National Tribunal in November 1947 for crimes committed in Auschwitz. In December 1947, Muhsfeldt was found guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to death. He was executed in 1948.

Originally Muhsfeldt served with the German SS-Sonderkommando at Auschwitz I in 1940. He was transferred to the work/extermination camp at Majdanek on 15 November 1941. He was present at the final mass shooting of the camp's remaining Jewish inmates known as the Operation Harvest Festival or "Erntefest, the largest single-day, single-camp massacre of the Holocaust, totalling 43,000 in three nearby locations.

Erich Mußfeldt also spelled Erich Muhsfeldt (18 February 1913 – 24 January 1948) was a German war criminal.