This article examines the case of Josef Riegler – an SS guard at the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp complex – who was sentenced to death at the Dachau Trials in 1947, but had his sentence commuted to life imprisonment in 1948, making him one of the few Mauthausen defendants whose death sentence was not carried out. The content is for educational and historical documentation only, based on trial records, survivor testimonies, and archival sources. It does not aim to glorify violence or advocate for any political ideology.
Josef Riegler: The SS Guard at Mauthausen Who Escaped the Noose – The 1947 Dachau Trial
The Mauthausen concentration camp complex – located in Austria, near the city of Linz – was one of the most brutal and deadly camps in the Nazi system. Unlike Auschwitz, which became infamous for its industrial-scale gas chambers, Mauthausen was known for its granite quarry, the “Stairs of Death,” and a system of forced labor that deliberately worked prisoners to death.
Among the SS personnel who served at Mauthausen and its Gusen subcamps was Josef Riegler, a young Austrian who joined the SS at the age of 15. After the war, Riegler was captured, tried, and convicted at the Dachau Trials. Initially sentenced to death, his punishment was later commuted to life imprisonment – a rare outcome among the Mauthausen defendants.
This is the story of Josef Riegler – his crimes, his trial, and his controversial sentence reduction.
1. Early Life: Joining the SS at 15
Josef Riegler was born on July 5, 1922, in Linz, Austria – the very city that would later become infamous as the hometown of Adolf Hitler. At the time of Riegler’s birth, Austria was an independent nation. But that would soon change.
On March 12, 1938, Nazi Germany annexed Austria in the Anschluss. One month later, in April 1938 – at just 15 years of age – Josef Riegler applied to join the SS (Schutzstaffel), the Nazi Party’s elite paramilitary organization. He was accepted.
Like many young Austrians, Riegler was swept up in the wave of Nazi enthusiasm that followed the Anschluss. The SS offered him a sense of purpose, belonging, and power – a path away from his ordinary life in Linz.
2. Wartime Service: From Norway to the Eastern Front
After completing his training, Riegler was deployed to Norway in 1940, where he served in an SS unit. Then, in 1941, he was sent to the Eastern Front – the brutal theater of war where Nazi Germany fought the Soviet Union.
On the Eastern Front, Riegler suffered severe frostbite, injuries that would affect him for the rest of his life. He was deemed unfit for frontline combat and was reassigned.
3. Mauthausen and Gusen: The Camp System
In February 1942, Josef Riegler was transferred to the Mauthausen concentration camp complex in Upper Austria. He was assigned to Gusen, one of the most brutal subcamps of the Mauthausen system.
The Mauthausen-Gusen complex was not primarily a death camp in the sense of Auschwitz-Birkenau. It was a forced labor camp – but forced labor that was designed to kill. Prisoners were forced to quarry granite in the nearby Wiener Graben quarry, carrying heavy stones up the infamous “Stairs of Death” (Todesstiege) – 186 uneven steps carved into the rock face. Those who collapsed from exhaustion were beaten, shot, or pushed off the cliff.
Conditions at Gusen were even worse than at the main camp. Prisoners received minimal food, were forced to work 12-hour shifts, and were subjected to constant violence from the SS guards.
More than 100,000 prisoners died at Mauthausen-Gusen – from forced labor, starvation, disease, exposure, and execution.
4. Riegler’s Role: A Guard in the Killing Machine
At Gusen, Josef Riegler served as a guard (Wachmann) . His duties included supervising prisoner work details, preventing escapes, and maintaining “order” – a term that in Nazi camps meant terror and violence.
Survivors of Mauthausen-Gusen later testified that Riegler participated in the mistreatment and execution of prisoners. He was accused of beating prisoners, kicking them, and participating in “selections” – the process by which SS guards identified prisoners too weak to work and sent them to be killed.
While Riegler was not a commandant or a high-ranking officer, he was part of the machinery of death. He was present. He participated. He did nothing to stop the horror.
5. The End of the War: Arrest and Trial
As the Third Reich collapsed in the spring of 1945, the SS guards at Mauthausen fled. Many attempted to blend into the civilian population, hiding their pasts. Josef Riegler was among those arrested by U.S. forces after the war.
He was brought to trial in the Dachau Trials – a series of proceedings held at the former Dachau concentration camp, where the U.S. military prosecuted Nazi war criminals. Riegler was a defendant in the Mauthausen Trial, one of the largest subsidiary proceedings of the Dachau Trials, held in 1946–1947.
Sixty-one defendants stood trial alongside Riegler. The prosecution presented overwhelming evidence of the horrors committed at Mauthausen-Gusen, including survivor testimony, photographs, and camp records.
6. The Verdict: Death Sentence
On May 27, 1947, the court delivered its verdict. Josef Riegler was found guilty of war crimes and sentenced to death by hanging.
He was not alone. Many of his co-defendants also received death sentences. But Riegler’s case was not yet over.
7. The Commutation: A Rare Mercy
Following his conviction, Riegler appealed his sentence. His case was reviewed, and in 1948, his death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.
Josef Riegler became one of the few Mauthausen defendants whose death sentence was not carried out. The reasons for the commutation are not fully documented, but may have included his youth (he was 15 when he joined the SS), his severe frostbite injuries sustained on the Eastern Front, or the post-war political climate, which was already shifting toward the Cold War.
8. Life After Prison: What Happened to Josef Riegler?
Historical records indicate that Riegler was released from prison at some point – though the exact date of his release is not widely documented. Austria, like many European countries, gradually released convicted Nazi war criminals in the 1950s and 1960s, often due to age, illness, or shifting public opinion.
Unlike some high-profile Nazis who were hunted for decades, Josef Riegler faded into obscurity. He lived out the remainder of his life as a free man – a former SS guard who had once faced the noose but escaped it.
He died on a date not widely recorded, leaving behind a legacy of unanswered questions: Why was he spared? Did he ever feel remorse? And what justice was served when a man complicit in the deaths of thousands walked free?
9. The Significance of the Mauthausen Trial
The Mauthausen Trial was a landmark proceeding in the history of post-war justice. It was one of the first major trials to focus on the atrocities committed in the Austrian camp system, which had been overshadowed by the larger camps in Germany and Poland.
The trial established the principle of individual responsibility – the idea that even low-ranking guards, not just commanders and officers, could be held accountable for crimes committed in the camps. This principle would guide future war crimes prosecutions in Germany, Israel, and elsewhere.
10. Remembering the Victims of Mauthausen-Gusen
We remember the history of Josef Riegler and the Mauthausen Trial not to foster hatred, but to honor the more than 100,000 victims of Mauthausen-Gusen.
Among those victims:
Political prisoners who resisted the Nazi regime.
Soviet prisoners of war who were shot, starved, or worked to death.
Jews who were systematically exterminated.
Roma and Sinti who were imprisoned and murdered.
Homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and other “enemies of the state.”
Each victim had a name. Each victim had a family. Each victim had a story. By remembering them, we ensure that the horrors of the past are not forgotten – and that such atrocities are never repeated.
Josef Riegler joined the SS at 15. He served in Norway, was wounded on the Eastern Front, and then spent years guarding prisoners at Mauthausen-Gusen – one of the deadliest concentration camp complexes in the Nazi system. After the war, he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. But his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, and he was eventually released.
His story raises difficult questions about justice, mercy, and accountability. Why was he spared when others – perhaps less guilty – were executed? What does it mean for a man complicit in mass murder to live out his life in freedom?
We may never know the answers. But we can remember the victims. And we can commit ourselves to ensuring that such crimes never happen again.
Primary Sources:
U.S. Army trial records – Mauthausen Trial (Dachau, 1946–1947)
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) – Mauthausen camp records
Survivor testimonies – Mauthausen-Gusen prisoner accounts
Austrian National Archives – Josef Riegler personal records
Historical studies of the Dachau Trials and post-war justice