Fries, Jakob

Jakob Fries was incarcerated at Auschwitz as a “professional criminal.” When he was interrogated after the war in 1959 in preparation of the Frankfurt Auschwitz Show Trial, he was still in prison, serving a 14-year prison term. At Auschwitz, Fries was foreman of all inmate labor units at the Auschwitz Main Camp. As such, his immediate superior was SS Hauptsturmführer Aumeier, head of the protective-custody camp and assistant commandant of Auschwitz. He therefore was likely much better informed than the average inmate about events unfolding in Auschwitz; yet even then, he could not confirm the usual atrocity stories about the camp, which he claims to have learned about only after the war through media reports (see Rudolf 2023, pp. 489f.).