Arpad Wigand


Arpad Wigand was a Nazi German war criminal with the rank of SS-Oberführer who served as the SS and Police Leader in Warsaw from 4 August 1941 until 23 April 1943 during the occupation of Poland in World War II.
As an aide to Erich von dem Bach Zelewski he first suggested the site of the former Austrian and later Polish artillery barracks in the Zasole suburb of Oswiecim for a concentration camp in January 1940. This site would evolve into the Auschwitz concentration camp which went on to become a major site of the Nazi "Final Solution to the Jewish question" resulting in the death of up to 1,000,000 Jews.

Trial and conviction

In 1981 Wigand was found guilty in Hamburg for war crimes, and sentenced to 12.5 years, he was represented by lawyer Jürgen Rieger.