One non-criminal kapo was Josef Heiden. He was an Austrian political prisoner (someone put in prison because they disagreed with the Nazis' political beliefs). Prisoners feared and hated him. He was known as a sadist - someone who liked hurting and torturing people. He killed several people while he was a kapo. He was set free from Dachau concentration camp in 1942, and joined the Waffen SS. Some kapos personally helped the SS mass murder other prisoners. Beginning in October 1944, the Nazis started transferring criminal kapos to the Dirlewanger Brigade of the Waffen SS.