The perpetrators

Johann Frahm (1901-1946) was trained as a guard at Sachsenhausen concentration camp in 1939. 

The concentration camp served as a so-called training center for future concentration camp commanders and other surveillance personnel during the National Socialist regime. From November 1942, Johann Frahm was assigned to Neuengamme concentration camp, and from 1944, he worked under Rapportführer Dreimann in the camp's typing pool. He was involved in ruthless murders of both children and adult prisoners.

In May 1945, Frahm managed to flee to his family in Kleve. However, at the end of October 1945, he was arrested by British investigators and sentenced to death for his role in the murders at Bullenhuser Damm during the Curio-Haus trial in 1946. He was executed on October 11, 1946.

Kurt Heißmeyer (1905–1967) was a doctor at Hohenlychen, with aspirations to become a professor. When he was appointed as a camp doctor to conduct "medical" experiments in the Neuengamme concentration camp, he injected 20 children with tubercle bacilli and performed surgery on their lymph glands under their arms. The children developed high fevers and suffered great pain.

Heißmeyer aimed to use these human experiments to prove that tuberculosis could be combated by artificially producing skin tuberculosis, and that "racially inferior" people were more susceptible to the disease. Heißmeyer's first thesis was already considered scientifically untenable by experts long before the experiments. The second thesis, which claimed racial susceptibility to tuberculosis, was based entirely on the racist and anti-Semitic ideology of the National Socialists.

In 1945, Heißmeyer buried a tin box containing various documents and objects in the garden of the Hohenlychen SS sanatorium, hoping to prevent the Allies from discovering them. The box contained private photos, medical records, and photographs of the children on whom he had conducted experiments. Heißmeyer went into hiding in the GDR, where he was able to practice as a doctor for another 20 years. After an anonymous letter to the Ministry for State Security mentioned his involvement as an SS doctor at Neuengamme, no action was initially taken. Only in 1963 was Heißmeyerarrested, and in 1966, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for crimes against humanity by the Magdeburg District Court.

Former prisoners of the Neuengamme concentration camp, as well as former prisoner doctors, testified against him, and the documents from the box he had buried played a crucial role in reconstructing the crimes he committed. Kurt Heißmeyer died in prison in 1967.

Ewald Jauch (1902-1946) joined the NSDAP in February 1932 and became a member of the SS two years later. From 1940 to 1944, Jauch was first employed as a guard and later as a Rapportführer at Neuengamme concentration camp. From December 1944, he served as the camp leader at the Bullenhuser Damm satellite camp, where he was involved in the murder of the children in April 1945. Ewald Jauch was sentenced to death during the Curio-Haus trial in 1946.

Born in Schwenningen am Neckar in 1902, Jauch completed his elementary education and then an apprenticeship as a merchant. Along with his wife Else, he ran the Restaurant Schützenhaus, which also had several shooting ranges. The couple had three sons. According to his own account, Jauch lost his job due to a poor business transaction and was unemployed from 1931 to 1933.

In 1932, Jauch joined the NSDAP and, in 1933, became a member of the SS with the rank of Oberscharführer. His early membership in the party made him one of the "old fighters," and he was given a 25% job as a tax collector for the town of Schwenningen. Jauch frequently referred to his early membership whenever requesting a salary. After receiving training, including at the SS recreation home in Lochen near Balingen, he was called up to reinforce the SS Death's Head units in 1938.

In November 1939, Jauch was called up by Heinrich Himmler and stationed as Oberscharführer in the 9th Totenkopf Regiment in Danzig/Poland. His regiment was involved in the persecution, shootings, and guarding of Jewish ghettos and concentration camps in Eastern Europe.
Jauch attempted, unsuccessfully, to be exempted from frontline service. Despite repeated requests, his release was refused, and after injuring his leg during a military exercise, he was transferred to the Neuengamme concentration camp on April 20, 1940, as a Rapportführer.

.After several assignments in the Darß satellite camp near Stralsund and Schandaleh, Jauch became head of the Bullenhuser Damm satellite camp in December 1945, where he was involved in the murder of the children in April 1945.

Following the end of the war, Jauch fled to Schwenningen and hid at his parents' house until he was arrested by the British military police. He was imprisoned at the Eselheide internment camp of the British Army of the Rhine in Paderborn. In the "Neuengamme Camp Case No. 3," held from July 24 to 31, 1946, Ewald Jauch stood before the British military court for the murders at the Curio-Haus trial. Jauch unsuccessfully attempted to exonerate himself by citing his leg injury as an excuse. He was sentenced to death and executed in Hamelin prison on October 11, 1946, where he was also buried.

Max Pauly (1907–1946), originally from Wesselburen in Dithmarschen, worked as a retail salesman. He joined the NSDAP in 1930 and became a member of the SS two years later. In August 1942, he was appointed commandant of the Neuengamme concentration camp. Pauly passed on the order to kill the children to Alfred Trzebinski. Max Pauly was sentenced to death on May 3, 1946, and was executed in Hamelin on October 8, 1946.

Adolf Speck (1911–1946) came to Neuengamme concentration camp as a guard and, in the summer of the same year, became the commanding officer of the concentration camp's brick factory. Known for his violent behaviour, Speck guarded the Soviet prisoners of war alongside Wiehagen on the night of the crime. During the Curio-Haus trial, he stated that he had shot one of the prisoners because the prisoner allegedly threw salt in his face. Speck was sentenced to death in May 1946 and executed in October 1946.

Arnold Strippel (1911–1994) joined the SS in 1934 and subsequently became a guard at Sachsenburg concentration camp. As early as 1938, he became Rapportsführer at Buchenwald concentration camp. Until 1944, Arnold Strippelserved in numerous concentration camps, including as the head of the Ravensbrück satellite camp, Peenemünde-Karlshagen II. Strippel often held leading positions within the National Socialist extermination system. This was also the case in Hamburg, where he was in charge of the SS men who carried out the murders at Bullenhuser Damm.

In 1945, Strippel went into hiding to avoid being punished by British military tribunals and sometimes lived under a false name. In 1948, due to his SS affiliation, he was sent to an internment camp. However, as there was not yet enough evidence against him, he was released from detention. On June 1, 1949, Strippel was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Frankfurt jury court for the murder of prisoners in the Buchenwald concentration camp. He filed an appeal against the sentence, which was overturned. In 1970, he was sentenced to only six years in prison for accessory to murder. Strippel received compensation of 121,500 DM for the over-served prison sentence. He was never sent back to prison after that, despite being sentenced to three years and six months by the Düsseldorf jury court in 1981 for aiding and abetting murder in the Majdanek concentration camp (Poland). He was deemed unfit for imprisonment due to health reasons. In the mid-1960s, the Hamburg public prosecutor's office investigated him for possible involvement in the Bullenhuser Damm murders.

In the Curio-Haus trials, Trzebinski, Dreimann, Jauch, and Frahm accused Strippel of complicity. However, the public prosecutor's office did not feel able to continue the proceedings due to insufficient evidence. Following a criminal complaint from relatives of the Bullenhuser Damm victims, the public prosecutor's office resumed the investigation in 1979. They finally charged Strippel in 1983 with 42 counts of murder, including the 20 children, the four prisoner doctors and nurses, and the Soviet prisoners of war. The case was dropped by the Hamburg Regional Court after four years because Strippel was deemed unfit to stand trial for health reasons.
Strippel died in Frankfurt in 1994.

Alfred Trzebinski (1902–1946) joined the SS in 1932 and the NSDAP a year later. He was conscripted into the Wehrmacht in 1939 and, after joining the Waffen-SS, became a camp doctor at Auschwitz concentration camp in 1941, then at Majdanek concentration camp in Poland. In 1943, Alfred Trzebinski became an SS camp doctor in Neuengamme. He was also involved with the pseudo-medical experiments in the Heißmeyer special unit. Alfred Trzebinski was involved in the murder of the children.
After the war, he went into hiding with his family but was arrested on February 1, 1946. He was sentenced to death during the Curio-Haus trial.