Willy Hack

Who is Willy Hack?

Willy Hack was a German SS officer and concentration camp official. He was born in the town of Reutlingen, Baden-Württemberg and trained as an engineer before joining the SS in 1934. Hack served in the Waffen-SS on the Eastern Front during World War II. In February, 1942 he was promoted to the rank of Obersturmführer and transferred to Amtsgruppe C at the SS-Main Economic and Administrative Office.

In 1943 Hack was assigned to the staff of the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp. While at Dora he served as director of construction for the sub-camp of Niedersachswerfen. Hack oversaw hundreds of slave-laborers who were employed in building a large subterranean aircraft engine factory that would be used to produce components for Germany’s V-2 guided missiles. In November, 1944 Hack left Dora and was made commandant of the Berga labor camp near Greiz.

At Berga he again directed slave-labor by concentration camp prisoners, this time using inmates from Buchenwald to dig mine tunnels for use in synthetic oil production. In February, 1945 a group of 350 American prisoners of war arrived at Berga. Many of these men were American Jews who had been sent by the SS to Berga, rather than a standard POW camp, due to their ethnicity. The casualties among this group were severe, with at least 55 Americans dying as a result of disease or malnutrition in just the few months they spent in the camp.