Anton Lechner

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Anton Lechner (18 November 1907 – 14 September 1975) was an SS-Rottenführer and a member of the staff at Auschwitz. He was born in Buchers, in the Sudetenland region of Austria-Hungary. He was a Czechoslovak citizen until 1938 and became a German citizen after the annexation of the Sudetenland. He joined the Nazi Party and the SS in December 1939. In February 1941 he was assigned to Auschwitz, where he initially served as a guard and later as a reserve vehicle driver from 1943 to December 1944. Lechner was known for cruelty to prisoners. He was tried at the Auschwitz Trial in Kraków by the Supreme National Tribunal and sentenced to life imprisonment for crimes against humanity on 22 December 1947. An amnesty led to his release on 19 December 1959. He died in Eppingen, West Germany, in September 1975 at age 67.