Karl Weinbacher

Karl Weinbacher (23 June 1898 in Stettin – 16 May 1946 in Hamelin) was a German manager and war criminal who was executed after conviction by a British war tribunal.

Life

Weinbacher worked at Degesch (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Schädlingsbekämpfung, which translates as German Corporation for Pest Control) until 1924, and then at Tesch & Stabenow (Testa, for short), where he received the position of manager in 1927, and by 1943 was director and deputy executive under owner and chief executive officer Bruno Tesch. Testa manufactured and sold Zyklon B, which was used not only for pest control and disinfestation, but also in the Holocaust in the gas chambers of Auschwitz to murder people. Weinbacher was involved with a percentage of the sales proceeds of Zyklon B.

After the end of World War II, Weinbacher, Tesch and Joachim Drosihn, the firm's first gassing technician, were arrested on 3 September 1945. They were tried by a British military tribunal in the Curiohaus Trial in Hamburg from March 1–8, 1946, also called the Testa trial or the Zyklon B trial. In the cases of Weinbacher and Tesch, the court ruled that it had been proven that both knew the purpose of Zyklon B. Tesch and Weinbacher were convicted and sentenced to death on 8 March 1946, while Drosihn was acquitted. Tesch and Weinbacher were hanged in the prison for war criminals in Hamelin on 16 May 1946.