Franz Stangl was born on March 26, 1908 in a small town in Austria called Almunster. His

Transcription

1 Biography of Franz Stangl ( ) Childhood and Early Life Franz Stangl was born on March 26, 1908 in a small town in Austria called Almunster. His father worked as a night watchman, and believed that Stangl was not his child (implying his wife cheated on him). Stangl was petrified of his father because he was continually beaten by him. When Stangl was eight years old his father died of malnutrition, and a year later his mother remarried. When he was fourteen, his step-father wanted him to leave school and work at a local steel mill. At fifteen, he left school and became an apprentice weaver. He finished his apprenticeship in three years and when he was eighteen and a half became the youngest master weaver in Australia. At twenty-three years old he discovered there was no further career advancement, so he applied for a job with the police force, as he was always attracted to the job of policemen, liking the safety and security it represented. Several months later he was told to report to the Kaplanhof (police training barracks in Linz) for training where he started out as a rookie for the Austrian police force, working as a traffic policeman and on the riot squad. He volunteered for special duties, which included in participating in street battles in Linz against socialists. He earned a silver medal for removing socialists from a local Cinema where they had been entrenched. In 1934, the Nazi s assassinated the Chancellor of Austria, but it was clear that the Austrian police criticized this action. Soon after, Stangl was awarded an Austrian Eagle with a green and white ribbon, meaning he was being posted to the CID (special police) school. His new duties included hunting out anti government activities by social democrats, communists and even Nazis. However, politics slowly began to change in the line of command and it was clear the Nazis were beginning to take over. Stangl discovered that three co-workers that earned the same Eagle badge as him had been murdered without question by the Nazis. His friend, Ludwig

2 Werner also had this eagle badge. Werner and Stangl opted to destroy their inventory of files they had on Nazi s, Socialists and Communists. The two of them also arranged to get their names to appear on the illegal Party list of Nazis from 1936 onwards. Page 35 filler in between talking about the night of the broken glass and Sudetenland as well as Stangl s participation in all of it. Nazi Life (for now) Superintendent, Nov 1940-Feb1942 In November of 1940, Stangl was promoted and told to go to Berlin to receive further instructions. (an order that was signed by Himler) When there, Kriminalrath Werner told Stangl he would be the Police Superintendent of the Euthanasia Institute (T4), Schlosss Hartheim. Stangl was responsible for maintaining the maximum security provisions, ensuring tasks were completed to a particular standard. He issued death certificates, and ensured families received effects from the deceased. (clothes, death certificates, identity papers). In 1941, he was sent to Bernburg, another Euthasia institute. He was told to look after the property rights and insurance, again he was implicitly involved in another part of the Euthanasia program. Commandant of Sobibor Concentration Camp March 1942 to Sept 1942 In February 1942, Stangl was ordered to report to Odilo Globocnik (SS member) in Berlin. Globocnik showed Stangl the plans for the Sobibor concentration camp, and arranged for Stangl to arrive there the next day. When he first arrived, there was nothing built except a railway station and three wooden buildings. There were also other people there that Stangl already knew from the Euthanasia program, one of them was a man named Michel who was the head nurse at Hartheim. Michel and Stangl discovered a brick building that they knew to be a gas chamber. Soon after, Stangl was ordered to visit Christian Wirth (SS member) at Belsec to observe how an

3 extermination camp was supposed to operate. Wirth informed Stangl that Sobibor was intended for the same purpose and Wirth officially put Stangl in charge of Sobibor. In May 1942, regular gassings began under camp authorities. Trains of people arrived daily at the railway station; once unloaded, they were forced to hand over their valuables, told to undress and were forced into the gas chambers. In the first two months that Sobibor was operational (sometime in the spring) 100,000 people were killed. During the summer, Stangl was granted leave of an undetermined length while his family (wife and daughter) came to visit. In the fall, Stangl was told to go to Warsaw to see Globocnik. Globocnik ordered Stangl to go to Treblinka (concentration camp) and Franz Reichleitner took over as Kommandant at Sobibor after Stangl was transferred. Concentration Camps (Treblinka) Kommandant Sept 1942 August 1943 Stangl took over as Kommandant (meaning everyone had to defer to him) of Treblinka from a man named Eberl. Treblinka was already operating as a concentration camp when Stangl arrived, however, it was being re-organized to run more efficiently by Christian Wirth. Stangl confirmed to Globocnik that he would be carrying out the assignment he was given. Stangl took and collected the valuables that were taken from the Jews and others that came into the camp. Although Stangl was not assigned to carry out the actual gassings himself, as Kommandant, he had overall responsibility of the camp including the efficient operations of the gas chambers, and oversaw those who carried out the gassings. His daily life was routine: Stangl would wake up at 5am to do his rounds, mostly checking to make sure the gas chambers were working properly. At 8am, the transports would arrive, carrying about 5,000 people. Stangl was there, arriving on horseback, wearing his trademark white suit. After he watched the transports, he would work in

4 his office until about 11am. At this time he would make his next round which included watching the dead bodies from earlier that morning be disposed of. At noon, Stangl would eat lunch, have a quick nap, do another round and do some more work in the office. In the evenings he would sit around and talk and drink for hours with others. At Christmas in 1942, Stangl demanded that a fake railway station be constructed to trick the arriving transports into believing they arrived at a transit camp. Stangl viewed all the Jews, including children that came into the camp as cargo. He didn t see them as human beings, and claimed that they were weak individuals that allowed those things to happen to them. By the middle of January 1943, things began to change there were fewer transports, less food and no new clothes. By March of 1943, all of the resources they had (clothes, watches, shoes, cooking pots, linen, food) were gone because there had been no transports for six weeks. In April-May of 1943, the transports started to flow in again and continued to do so throughout the summer. On August second around 2 p.m. about 500 camp prisoners at Treblinka revolted. Stangl, being the Kommandant, gave orders to stop the revolt. Security troops set up a 5 kilometer perimeter around the camp and shot anyone caught trying to escape. By 5 p.m. Stangl ordered the troops to stop shooting and to bring in anyone else that they caught. When the revolt was over, 468 of the estimated 500 were dead, and an additional 40 people who were not on the records as being prisoners were also caught or killed. Even with all the fires that were set during the revolt, the gas chambers did not burn down because they were made of brick. Three weeks later Globocnik transferred Stangl out of Treblinka to Trieste for anti-partisan combat. On his last day at Treblinka, Stangl assembled those under his command, including the Jews working for him, to say goodbye. Soon after, Treblinka was destroyed and a farm house was built on top of it to cover up any sign that the camp existed. Trieste (Italy)

5 Stangl s frist assignment in Trieste was from October to December, and he was among others Transport Security. This was an especially dangerous job because the Partisans were everywhere trying to kill the Nazis. At the end of February Stangl came home to be with his family and newborn baby. However, shortly after, he was sent back to Italy to an assignment for the Einsatz Poll (construction project in Po Valley that included 500,000 workers). Stangl was responsible for getting everything shoes, clothes, food. The entire thing was run under SS Globocnik. As the end of the war approached, Stangl fell ill, and when he recovered was told to report to Berlin. When Stangl arrived, however, there was nobody to be found. Arrest # 1 Stangl continued to go from place to place trying to find somebody he knew whilst trying not to get caught. He was caught by the Americans in Attersee, and the Americans transferred him to a huge prison called Glasenbach. Stangl stayed there for two and a half years before he was transferred to a prison in Linz. He escaped from the prison in Linz on May 30, Stangl managed to get to Rome where he met Bishop Hudal, who gave him some money and a Red Cross Passport. Bishop Hudal got Stangl an entrance visa for Syria where Stangl stayed with his family until 1951 when they emigrated to Brazil. In Brazil, Stangl got a job at a textile firm. He then got a job working for Volkswagen and was in charge of preventative maintenance for the plant. Final Arrest in Brazil In 1961, Stangl was on the official Austrian list of wanted criminals. Simon Wiesenthal (Nazi Hunter) had been looking for Stangl for quite sometime (even though Stangl had not changed his name upon arriving in Brazil), and the Brazilian police finally arrested Stangl on February 28, 1967 outside his home.

6 Trial and Death Stangl was extradited to West Germany by Brazil and tried for the deaths of over 900,000 people. At Stangl s trial it was repeated over and over again that he had a reputation of being remarkable at his job. He ran everything like clockwork, in an organized, well planned fashion. Witnesses stated that when Stangl appeared, his staff worked harder and faster. Stangl received an official commendation as the best camp commander in Poland. Stangl says he did the things he did in order to stay alive. He stated he didn t hate anybody and nobody could tell him who to hate, he was simply just doing his job. He died from heart failure in Dusseldorf prison on June 28, 1971.

7 References (ASA style) Hayes, Peter and John K. Roth The Oxford Handbook of Holocaust Studies. Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press. Laqueur, Walter The Holocaust Encyclopaedia. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Sereny, Gitta Into That Darkness. London, ENG: Andre Deutsch Limited. United States Memorial Holocaust Museum Sobibor Chronology. Washington DC: United States Memorial Holocaust Museum. Retrieved November 30, 2012 ( Welzer, Harald Mass Murder and Moral Code: Some Thoughts on an Easily Misunderstood Subject. History of the Human Sciences 17(2/3):