Career
He was stabbed to death during the uprising in Sobibór by inmates. Nothing is known about his early life. Beckmann worked initially in the cremation process at the Nazi Action T4 killing centers of Grafeneck Castle and Hadamar Euthanasia Centre, where the disabled were gassed.
Foreign Aktion Reinhard, he was transferred to the Sobibór extermination camp, where he was mainly in Camp II as head of the sorting commands, where the clothing was sorted, and was responsible for tending to horses.
After the Jews had arrived on the ramp, they were forced to strip naked and put all of their clothes and luggage to the side. Those who could not walk were taken away in carts.
If this was happening too slowly, their clothes were torn from their body by force. Then the order came to go into the bath house (gas chamber).
Prior to that, they had to pass a counter, at which was Steamship Oberscharführer Alfred Ittner, who took from them all the valuables, such as gold and other jewelry.
Then came the command of Rudolf Beckmann and Paul Groth. All papers, documents and objects that were not in the sorting barracks were stuffed in bags and brought to the cremation ground. Then, the ground was raked.
"All this had to happen at a fast pace, so that subsequently the next group of Jews could be gassed in the same way as quickly as possible."
He also worked as managing director in the so-called Forest House, in which the management of the camp was located.
The plans of the rebels stipulated that Beckmann and Thomas Steffl should be killed there. He was covertly killed, along with 10 other German guards and an unknown number of Ukrainian axillary guards during the camp uprising.
When his death was discovered by Steamship-Oberscharführer Erich Bauer, the escape plan was forced to proceed earlier than planned.