Franz Stangl (March 26, 1908 – June 28, 1971) was an SS officer, commandant of the Sobibór and of Treblinka Nazi extermination camps. March 26 is the 85th day of the year (86th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1908 (MCMVIII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar). ... is the 179th day of the year (180th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1971 (MCMLXXI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the 1971 Gregorian calendar. ... SS or ss or Ss may be: The Schutzstaffel, a Nazi paramilitary force Steamship (SS) (ship prefix) The United States Secret Service A submarine not powered by nuclear energy (SS) (United States Navy designator), see SSN A Soviet/Russian surface-to-surface missile, as listed by NATO reporting name Shortstop... Sobibór was a Nazi German extermination camp that was part of Operation Reinhard, the official German name was SS-Sonderkommando Sobibor. ... Treblinka II was a Nazi extermination camp in German-occupied Poland during World War II. Extermination camps like the one at Treblinka were used in the Holocaust for the systematic genocide of people categorized as sub-humans by the Nazis. ... Majdanek - crematorium Extermination camp (German Vernichtungslager) was the term applied to a group of camps set up by Nazi Germany during World War II for the express purpose of killing the Jews of Europe, although members of some other groups whom the Nazis wished to exterminate, such as Roma (Gypsies...

Biography

Early life

The son of a night-watchman, he was born in Altmünster, Austria, on March 26, 1908. His relationship with his natural father was not a good one; he was deeply frightened by his father, who died of malnutrition in 1916. Through this relationship, Stangl claimed that he developed a ‘hate’ for his father's uniform. Later, he stated that he liked the security and cleanliness that the Austrian police uniforms appeared to offer, compared to his current, un-progressive job as a master weaver. The market town of Altmünster is located about 3 kilometres south of Gmunden in Upper Austria, on the west shore of the Traunsee. ... March 26 is the 85th day of the year (86th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1908 (MCMVIII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar). ... Percentage of population affected by malnutrition by country, according to United Nations statistics. ... 1916 (MCMXVI) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar). ...

Early Nazi affiliation

After leaving his job as a weaver, Stangl joined the Austrian police in 1931. There is documentation clearly stating that Stangl was a member of then illegal Nazi party for two years. Stangl claimed later that he had not been a member but had his name entered on the list later as a way to avoid arrest after the Nazis had seized power in the Anschluss in 1938. Stangl also contributed to a Nazi aid fund at the time; he said that he was misled in terms of what the funds were for. Year 1931 (MCMXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1931 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... The National Socialist German Workers Party (German: , or NSDAP, commonly, the Nazi Party), was a political party in Germany between 1920 and 1945 that was known as the German Workers Party before the name was changed in 1920. ... The Nazi party used a right-facing swastika as their symbol and the red and black colors were said to represent Blut und Boden (blood and soil). ... German troops march into Austria on 12 March 1938. ... Year 1938 (MCMXXXVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ...

Stangl was promoted up the ranks of the German/Austrian police force, on the way pressured to sign documents acknowledging his dissolution of his affiliation with the Catholic church. The organisation also appointed new men right up the top, arresting and mistreating old leaders of the Austrian civilian police force.

Superintendent of T-4 Euthanasia Program

After Anschluss, Stangl was quickly promoted further through the ranks. In 1940, through a direct order from Himmler, Stangl became superintendent of the T-4 Euthanasia Program at the Euthanasia Institute at Schloss Hartheim where mentally and physically handicapped people were sent to be killed. It was here that Stangl first encountered Christian Wirth. Year 1940 (MCMXL) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display the full 1940 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Heinrich Himmler Heinrich Himmler (October 7, 1900 - May 23, 1945) was the commander of the German Schutzstaffel and one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany. ... This poster reads: 60,000 Reichsmark is what this person suffering from hereditary defects costs the community during his lifetime. ... Schloss Hartheim was one of the Nazi Euthanasia killing centers where the physically and mentally disabled were killed by gassing and lethal injection as part of the T-4 Euthanasia Program. ... Christian Wirth (24 November 1885 - 26 May 1944) was a senior SS officer during the program to exterminate the Jewish people of occupied Poland during the Second World War, known as Operation Reinhard. ...

In 1942 he was transferred to Poland where he worked under Odilo Globocnik. Year 1942 (MCMXLII) was a common year starting on Thursday (the link will display the full 1942 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Odilo Globocnik Odilo Globocnik (April 21, 1904 - May 31, 1945) was a prominent Austrian Nazi and later an SS leader. ...

Commandant of Sobibór camp

Stangl was commandant of Sobibór from March to September, 1942. Stangl claimed that Globocnik told him that Sobibor was a supply camp for the army, and that the true nature of the camp only became known to him when he discovered a gas chamber hidden in the woods. Later he says Globocnik informed him that if the Jews “were not working hard enough”, Stangl was fully permitted to kill them off and Globocnik would send in “new ones”. Sobibór was a Nazi extermination camp that was part of Operation Reinhard. ... A gas chamber is an apparatus for killing, consisting of a sealed chamber into which a poisonous or asphyxiant gas is introduced. ...

Around this time Stangl also had further dealings with Wirth, who was at the time running fully operational camps at Belzec and Chelmno. On either 16 or 18 May 1942, Sobibor became fully operational. While Stangl was the administrator, around 100,000 Jews are believed to have been killed there until the machinery broke down in October, by which time Stangl had left. Belzec was the first of the Nazi German extermination camps created for implementing Operation Reinhard during the Holocaust. ... The CheÅ‚mno extermination camp (German name Kulmhof) was an extermination camp of Nazi Germany that was situated 70 kilometres (43 mi) from Łódź, near a small village called CheÅ‚mno nad Nerem (Kulmhof an der Nehr, in German). ... (Redirected from 16 May) May 16 is the 136th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (137th in leap years). ... is the 138th day of the year (139th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1942 (MCMXLII) was a common year starting on Thursday (the link will display the full 1942 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

During the time he was at Sobibor, his wife heard what was happening there, and questioned him on the issue. Stangl told her “you know this is a service matter and I can’t discuss it. All I can tell you, and you must believe me: whatever is wrong—I have nothing to do with it.”

Commandant of Treblinka camp

In September 1942 Stangl began his role at Treblinka extermination camp. During his time at Treblinka, Stangl conceded that he grew accustomed to the killings, even eventually regarding the Jewish prisoners as “baggage”. He is quoted as saying, “I remember Wirth standing there, next to the pits full of black-blue corpses.... Wirth said ‘what shall we do with rotting garbage?’ I think unconsciously that started me thinking of them as cargo.” Stangl began drinking heavily, relying on intense work and the love of his wife to fend off insanity.

Post-war escape

At the end of the war Franz Stangl managed to conceal his identity and although detained by the American Army in 1945 and briefly imprisoned in Austria for his complicity in the Euthanasia programme, he escaped to Italy with his colleague from Sobibór, Gustav Wagner. Officials of the Vatican, notably bishop Aloïs Hudal, helped him to escape through a "ratline", and he reached Syria on a Red Cross passport ^[1]. Hudal's activities caused a press scandal in 1947, and he resigned in 1951, residing in Rome until his death in 1963. Stangl was joined by his wife and family and lived in Syria for three years before moving to Brazil in 1951. After years of other jobs, Stangl found work at the Volkswagen plant in São Paulo with the help of friends, still using his own name. The United States Army is the largest and oldest branch of the armed forces of the United States. ... Year 1945 (MCMXLV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar). ... Gustav Wagner (born July 18, 1911 in Vienna ) was an SS officer and deputy commandant of Sobibór death camp in Poland, where tens of thousands were gassed during Operation Reinhard. ... Aloïs Hudal (born in 1885) was a Rome-based, pro-Nazi cleric who established a Ratline which allowed prominent Nazi war criminals to escape trial after World War II. Biography Bishop Aloïs (also known as Luigi) Hudal was born in Weipert, Bohemia, (today Czech Republic), then Austro-Hungarian... Ratlines were systems of escape routes for Nazis and other fascists fleeing Europe at the end of World War II. These escape routes mainly led toward safe havens in South America, particularly Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil and Chile. ... The Anarchist Black Cross was originally called the Anarchist Red Cross. The band Redd Kross was originally called Red Cross. This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... Year 1951 (MCMLI) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Volkswagen AG (ISIN: DE0007664005), or VW, is an automobile manufacturer based in Wolfsburg, Germany. ... This article is about the city. ...

Arrest, trial and death

His role in the mass murder of men, women and children was known to the Austrian authorities but Austria did not issue a warrant for Stangl's arrest until 1961. In spite of his registration under his real name at the Austrian consulate in Brazil,^[2] it took another six years before he was tracked down by Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal and arrested in Brazil. Year 1961 (MCMLXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... The rule of Napoleon Bonaparte after his coup detat in France had conducted the manners of French governmant under dictatorship and in a consulate. ... Simon Wiesenthal, KBE, (Buczacz, December 31, 1908 – Vienna, September 20, 2005) was an Austrian-Jewish architectural engineer who became a Nazi hunter after surviving the Holocaust. ...

After extradition to West Germany he was tried for the deaths of around 900,000 people. He admitted to these killings but argued: "My conscience is clear. I was simply doing my duty ...". Found guilty on October 22, 1970, Stangl was sentenced to life imprisonment. is the 295th day of the year (296th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1970 (MCMLXX) was a common year starting on Thursday (link shows full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Life imprisonment is a sentence of imprisonment for a serious crime, nominally for the entire remaining life of the prisoner, but in fact for a period which varies between jurisdictions: many countries have a maximum possible period of time (usually 50 years) a prisoner may be incarcerated, or require the...

He died of heart failure in Düsseldorf prison on June 28, 1971. The title of this article contains the character ü. Where it is unavailable or not desired, the name may be represented as Duesseldorf. ... is the 179th day of the year (180th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1971 (MCMLXXI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the 1971 Gregorian calendar. ...

• All quotes taken from Into that Darkness, 1974, by Gitta Sereny. Franz Stangl was interviewed by her while in prison in 1970.

References and Footnotes

Gitta Sereny (born March 13, 1921) is a Hungarian-born British biographer, historian and journalist whose writing focuses mainly on the Holocaust and abused children. ... Treblinka is a small village in the Mazowieckie voivodship (province) of Poland. ...

Bibliography

• Gitta Sereny, Into That Darkness (1974)

Gitta Sereny (born March 13, 1921) is a Hungarian-born British biographer, historian and journalist whose writing focuses mainly on the Holocaust and abused children. ...

See also

• Ex-Nazis
• Ratlines (history)

This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Ratlines were systems of escape routes for Nazis and other fascists fleeing Europe at the end of World War II. These escape routes mainly led toward safe havens in South America, particularly Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil and Chile. ...

External Links

• Franz Paul Stangl